MISSING: Cherrie Mahan

In February 1985, a little girl disappears just steps from home, leaving her mother with a lifetime of unanswered questions. For decades, whispers of a mysterious van, chilling letters, and long-buried secrets have fueled speculation. Now, nearly forty years later, new revelations could crack open the case once thought unsolvable. Could this be the moment the truth finally comes to light?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

  When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia Diambra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  And I'm Britt.

• 0:35Ashley Flowers?

  And the story I have for you today, it begins at exactly 4:10 PM in Cabot, Pennsylvania. That's the time when eight-year-old Cherrie Mahan gets dropped off by her school bus. Come rain, snow, or shine, it is always there near the end of her family's gravel driveway. And Friday, February 22, 1985, was no different. The big, yellow box parked on the side of the road right on schedule and opened its accordion door to deposit Cherry and her big backpack in the one place that a kid should be safest. But something happened to Cherry after those bus doors closed. And somewhere in the 500 feet between the road and her home, Cherry disappeared, and she hasn't been seen in over 40 years.

• 1:20Ashley Flowers?

  But in the last few months, our team has been in contact with a man in prison who says he holds the answers, and he agreed to meet with us to share what he knows.

• 2:04Ashley Flowers?

  Only one thing was different from the routine Cherrie Mahan followed on February 22, 1985. That Friday was the one day neither Cherry's mother or stepfather were there to walk her from her bus down the long drive to their front door. It was a nice day, forty degrees. Her mom Janice could see the road from their window. She could hear the bus on the gravel as it pulled up. Like, what could possibly happen in your own driveway? So she told her husband Leroy they could skip meeting Cherry at the stop. And every day for forty years, I bet her stomach churns as she replays that decision. I mean, it was so small, but it changed her life forever.

• 2:46Ashley Flowers?

  Janice hears the bus come and go, and they wait. But when minutes go by and Cherry doesn't walk through the door, Leroy heads out to the front of the trailer to check on her. Now, he doesn't spot her out front, so he walks to the end of the driveway, thinking maybe she stopped there to chat or play with a friend, but she's not there either. And as he stares up and down the two-lane back road, surrounded by woods on either side, the first seed of the stomach pit that he'll come to live with begins to grow. Now Leroy doesn't want to waste any more time, so he gets Janice and they hop in their car to literally chase this bus down because maybe Cherry missed her stop. Maybe she had never gotten on the bus. Like, please have one of these things be what happened. But she didn't.

• 3:32Ashley Flowers?

  The bus driver tells them, yeah, she was on this bus and she just got off at her house not too long ago. They're not talking themselves out of a panic now. Like Cherry is the kid who lives by the rules, so this is not like her. She wouldn't have just wandered off. And she even had a sleepover planned for that night that she was super excited about. Like, she would be here if she could be. So they go right back to their trailer to call 911. Officers get there pretty quickly, like within ten, twenty minutes, and they do a preliminary search of the area. Even though it's warm, there is still some snow on the ground, so it's a bit easier to see if there are any footprints or anything. But they don't see any suspicious ones or any that might suggest which way Cherry walked when she got off the bus.

• 4:15Ashley Flowers?

  They also aren't seeing any of her belongings either, like her blue backpack. That should stand out in the winter woods. But they don't find that or any of the clothes she was wearing, which was a denim skirt and leg warmers with gray and beige boots. And by the way, not even just in the preliminary search do they not find these. From what Janice told us, police end up searching the five mile radius around the home, even using bloodhounds to try and track Cherry's scent. And they also searched the surrounding woods with helicopters. Local volunteers joined the searches as well. So it was a full blown effort, but there were still no signs of Cherry.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  And have police already talked to all the kids on the bus to see if they saw anything? Like when she was getting dropped off?

• 4:55Ashley Flowers?

  They don't do that immediately, and that's coming from Janice. I would love to give you the play by play from police.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  But?

• 5:02Ashley Flowers?

  But, but Pennsylvania State Police weren't willing to talk to us for this episode. And all of our records requests were denied because they said it's an active investigation. But Janice's impression was that they first thought Cherry was a runaway. And then when they changed their minds about that, they then zeroed right in on Leroy and Janice themselves, questioning them for hours individually. And it wasn't totally unwarranted. I mean, you have to start closest to the missing person, parents, if it's a missing child. And Janice and Leroy definitely had things to look at. Janice told our reporter that both she and Leroy struggled with substance use disorder. And Leroy has post traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam war, along with other struggles with his mental health.

• 5:46Ashley Flowers?

  And Leroy was also part of a local motorcycle gang at the time. So I don't know if they were thinking like the couple did something, or maybe like just that they were hanging around in bad crowds who might have done something to their daughter. But to get to the bottom of it, police asked them both to take a polygraph and they agreed. And they both passed with no signs of deception. However, according to Janice, they were still treated like suspects. Though I will say they didn't let the investigation stop there. Because they start widening that circle. And the next closest connection to Cherry is her biological dad, who Janice tells us is also allegedly connected. To a motorcycle gang.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 6:27Ashley Flowers?

  This is a different motorcycle gang, though, than Leroy.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:30Ashley Flowers?

  But Jana says that he was like, pretty high up in this motorcycle gang. And even though him doing something to Cherry didn't really make a whole lot of sense, because truly, he never even really wanted much to do with his daughter. Like, they still gotta check this out.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:44Ashley Flowers?

  And interestingly, according to the Pittsburgh Press, when they do go and check, this dude is super adamant that not only did he have nothing to do with this, he's like, "I'm not even her father."

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 6:54Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, so I'm assuming there are a lot of investigative steps that I'm not privy to in order to get to this next part. But all in all, police end up ruling him out because there is nothing connecting him to her disappearance. Now, in the early days of all of this, police don't name any suspects. And Janice couldn't think of anyone she knew who would have wanted to hurt her daughter. Cherry was a sweet, bright, young girl. I mean, she was Janice's everything. To kind of put it in perspective, she had her at 16. So like, they grew up together. They were always with each other. I mean, the only times they weren't was when Cherry was at school or when Janice had to go to work early and she would drop Cherry off before school with like, a babysitter down the road.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:38Ashley Flowers?

  But while she wasn't suspicious of anyone she knew, that didn't mean that there wasn't someone to be suspicious of. Someone that Cherry was actually suspicious of shortly before she disappeared.

• 7:53Ashley Flowers?

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• 8:36Ashley Flowers?

  Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.

• 8:56Speaker 01

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• 9:56Ashley Flowers?

  Janice tells police that they only lived in this home for the last six months or so. Before getting this trailer, they actually lived in Janice's mom's house, which is like 20 minutes away, in a town called Saxonburg. She said at first, when they moved, that Cherry was super excited to have her own room and bathroom. Like, I mean-

• 10:14Speaker 01

  The dream.

• 10:15Ashley Flowers?

  The dream for a young girl. But after a few months in her new room, something changed. Like Cherry went from being excited to afraid because she told her mom that she was afraid someone was watching her from her bedroom window.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Was someone watching her from her bedroom window?

• 10:31Ashley Flowers?

  Well, Janice never saw anyone, and at the time, she thought maybe it might have just been like new home jitters. But it was enough for Janice to take her concerns seriously, so she moved Cherry into a smaller room closer to Janice and Leroy, and she bought her blackout curtains. Like, I mean, she did everything she could. But that didn't change how scared Cherry was. Even in that small room, she was sleeping on the floor, no pillows, no blankets.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Almost like she was hiding.

• 10:57Ashley Flowers?

  That's what I'm envisioning, right? And it's heartbreaking because this was going on for a couple of months, and she was afraid like this up until she disappeared. So it's at this point when police are hearing this that they finally go talk to the other kids on Cherry's bus. Maybe she told them more than she told her mom. Now, that ends up being a no-go. None of the kids know about someone watching her, but they are able to give police some other information. Important, like, I bet you wished you talked to them first, information. One of the kids who was on the bus tells police that there was this, like, blue-green van following behind the school bus the day Cherry disappeared.

• 11:37Ashley Flowers?

  Now, I have come to learn that blue-green vehicles are like a dime a dozen in the mid-eighties. But this one was ultra-specific. This kid said that it had a painting of a person skiing down a snowy mountainside on the passenger side of the van.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, you don't see paintings on the sides of vans every day.

• 11:58Ashley Flowers?

  I've seen that never. I, I heard it's like a, I was actually doing a little, like, ChatGPT, like, Googling with this, and apparently it was like a big thing in the seventies and eighties. But like, I'm not talking a small painting. After getting more witness confirmations of this van, they actually have a picture drawn, and they include it in the missing persons flyers put out on Cherry. But there is an interesting line in the description written above it. So it says, "Possible vehicles involved in abduction."

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Plural.

• 12:28Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah. "Bluer-green van with mountains seen on passenger side," know that.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:32Ashley Flowers?

  "Also, a small blue vehicle seen in the area."

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Seen in the area by who?

• 12:37Ashley Flowers?

  So, reporting only says that it came from a witness, but I don't know who that witness was. Though it might have been a local woman named Debbie Burke, who lives nearby. She was actually parked at the spot that Cherry got off, like, um, she was parked in her car waiting for her own kids to come off the bus.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I guess I was picturing Cherry getting off the bus by herself, but there were, like, other people around when she got off the bus.

• 13:04Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, so Cherry's bus dropped off a group of kids at one spot. Some of them would walk to their homes nearby, some parents waited around for them to be dropped off and would pick them up.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  It was like a bus stop situation.

• 13:14Ashley Flowers?

  Truly, yeah. So, I don't know if she's- This witness who saw the blue car in the area. But she says she did see Cherry. Was maybe even the last to see Cherry.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Wait, could it have been her car that people saw if she's like parked there waiting?

• 13:27Ashley Flowers?

  No, I checked on this. So, reporting didn't say what color her car was. But I do know for a fact that the blue car was definitely separate from hers. Now, to go back to what she saw, so Debbie told police at the time that she was sitting in her car, waiting for the bus. She saw Cherry get off like she did most days. And according to an NBC News article, she said that the kids all played for a little while. And then Cherry walked past her car in the direction of her home. And then Debbie drove off with her kids.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Did she see the mountain skiing van situation?

• 13:58Ashley Flowers?

  She did. She saw the same van the kids did. And she even saw it trailing the bus beforehand in her mirror. I guess she was like parked on the side and waiting and could see like the bus pulling up. But like, it wasn't weird to her that a van was behind the bus. I mean, it's not like it was doing anything other than driving down the road.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  It's just like whatever car is behind the bus that day.

• 14:17Ashley Flowers?

  And when the bus stops, everyone has to stop, right? So like, she didn't think much about it.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  So it didn't like stop or do anything that made her think it was.

• 14:25Ashley Flowers?

  Like after?

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Suspicion, yeah, right. It stopped with the bus, but then it just kept going down the road.

• 14:29Ashley Flowers?

  No, again, stopped when the bus stopped and that's it. But it didn't like pull over or anything. She didn't see Cherry interacting with anyone.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  It wasn't notable, other than it was just like whatever car was behind the bus that day.

• 14:39Ashley Flowers?

  And to be fair, I mean, this van could theoretically have pulled off into a driveway or something before Cherry got off and waited until Debbie left. But Debbie doesn't mention anything like this. She just says she didn't see Cherry get into the van. And like when Janice hears this, she's like, well, what I know is that Cherry would never have gone off willingly with strangers or left with someone without permission. So her mom thinks if someone did take her, van or no van, it had to have either been someone she knew or someone who took her by force.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Do they know someone who drives a van with the painting on it?

• 15:17Ashley Flowers?

  That's what I was about to say next. They don't know anyone who drives that kind of van.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  So then we're looking for a stranger.

• 15:22Ashley Flowers?

  Which means that the circle around Cherry is now infinite. Why?

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:28Ashley Flowers?

  And that's when local police bring in the help of the FBI. And they start by looking into other disappearances where a blue or green van was either involved or seen nearby.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Okay, but what about the blue car?

• 15:41Ashley Flowers?

  You know, I'm not sure if they pursued the blue car or not. For some reason, it just kind of stops being reported on. It seems like their sights are totally set on this unique van. And maybe that's because they do actually find disappearances and incidents involving possibly similar vans. But they're never the van, and there are never any incidents that they end up definitively linking to Cherry.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Okay, outside of the other abductions, though, did anyone recognize just the van? I mean, it feels like a really unique van.

• 16:12Ashley Flowers?

  Well, police said at the time that they were getting thousands of tips that they had to sort through, but out of all of that, there was one van that was on police's radar. Apparently, it belonged to a woman named Donna Patterson. Her van was blue with a painting of a skier going down a mountain on the side of it.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Uh, sounds familiar.

• 16:32Ashley Flowers?

  And she lived just five miles from where Cherry disappeared. Now, according to the Pittsburgh Press, police looked into this van, but on the day and time of Cherry's disappearance, it was apparently parked at a local steel corporation where Donna's brother-in-law worked. I guess he used the van that day and he was there working? So when police confirm his alibi, they just rule him out and Donna and her van. But that didn't stop people from harassing Donna. She said that she constantly saw people, like, taking down her plate number, and she says she got pulled over by police who thought that this was the vehicle connected to Cherry's disappearance. But Donna said that she was not going to stop driving the van or even paint over it to stop the constant attention, which I think is what I would have done.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, immediately. So it's not Donna's van. That means police think there are two of these vans with these paintings on it?

• 17:26Ashley Flowers?

  I mean-

• 17:27Speaker 01

  In town?

• 17:27Ashley Flowers?

  Or there's another one out of town, or this van's not connected at all.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  But there does have to be another one who was driving that road that day because it's not just like Donna- And her family are saying they weren't involved like police are saying their van wasn't on the move. When Cherry's bus stopped like at the bus stop.

• 17:44Ashley Flowers?

  I know I even wondered like could someone have access to his keys while he's working like unless there is video surveillance of this van parked the whole time.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  The van there the whole time.

• 17:53Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and I'm not saying there isn't like I just don't know and this is where like these are one of those things where I tend to spiral. I want to like map out the drive to work, what shift he was on, like talk to every person who worked with them to see like.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  How long it would have taken him to get to where Cherry's bus stop was and back and like.

• 18:06Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, who had access to your keys?

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:08Ashley Flowers?

  I don't know. Again, all police say this is not their van. And also I go back to maybe the van isn't connected at all.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  But then why isn't someone coming forward saying like, hey, it was just me. Like I was just driving like that's my route to XYZ.

• 18:21Ashley Flowers?

  I'm just, I'm grasping here. I'm trying. And listen, I don't know if they just like take the alibi for it, or if they even process the van forensically. I would think so if they ruled it out.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:34Ashley Flowers?

  And especially I think that because I do know that they process some vans that were kind of similar looking at that time, even if the van wasn't spot on. But I go back to they never found the van and they never found Cherry. Even despite some pretty big campaigns, like when her picture was featured on a rerun of NBC's Adam, which was about six-year-old Adam Walsh's abduction. Cherry was actually the first missing child to have her picture printed on a postcard and sent around the country as part of the Have You Seen Me? Direct Mail Flyer Program. And she was one of the first missing children whose missing persons poster was placed on a milk carton. That was a program that started the year she disappeared.

• 19:13Ashley Flowers?

  And according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nick Mick is putting Cherry's information in different hotels in Canada and Mexico, even the UK. So they're not ruling out that she was taken out of the country because again, how infinitely wide is this circle? When you don't have much to go off of, you can't rule anything out. But by 1998, Cherry's case is ice cold. And that is when Janice has Cherry legally declared deceased. She says she isn't moving on or giving up looking, but I mean, she had another child and she says she needed to come to terms with the fact that Cherry likely wasn't alive. And over the next 30 years, she did her best to deal with that.

• 19:54Ashley Flowers?

  But in 2018, her entire world was upended when she received a letter in the mail. And on a single sheet of wide ruled notebook paper, someone had handwritten in block letters, all the answers that she had been seeking for over 30 years, and it was signed, "Pastor Justice." Now, I can't read you the note in its entirety because it has specific names that we don't want to share, but we will put a redacted version of this letter up on the blog post and on social media for this episode if any of the listeners want to go take a look. Basically, it says that Cherry was killed by friends of her biological father, and these

• 20:35Ashley Flowers?

  friends are part of a Quaker cult who helped, quote, "make Cherry disappear for," at least the guy Janice claims is Cherry's bio dad. And like the motive for this was allegedly all to like evade him paying child support. Now, the anonymous writer gives specific details on where Cherry's remains are, in a place called the Lock Eight Dam, which is about 25 miles or like 40 minutes away, give or take. And interestingly, they ended the letter saying, "I pray you find some peace after you find her body." Now, Janice told our reporter that she has no idea who these friends are that is like referenced in this letter, and she's not even familiar with the area that they're talking about.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Well, and also, since when are Quakers kidnapping and murdering people, well, kids? I mean, they aren't, they're known to be pacifists, right?

• 21:29Ashley Flowers?

  If you say so. I don't know enough, but like, here's what I'll say, is like, and maybe because they haven't gotten anything in so long, police at least kind of seem to take this letter seriously.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  It's something.

• 21:38Ashley Flowers?

  Right. It's something when they've had a lot of nothing for decades, because she shows them this letter, and they actually do go out and search this area, but unfortunately, nothing comes of it. So it is another dead end.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  I mean, or an incredibly cruel prank.

• 21:54Ashley Flowers?

  Which honestly, probably that, because there is no evidence that anything in that letter is true. But I don't know if this letter unleashed something or what. But after this, in the same year, in 2018, she gets this phone call at work. The person on the other end of the line thinks that she might be Janice's long-lost daughter. Now Cherry would have been in her early 40s at this point. And so, as you can imagine, like Janice, she has spent so much of her life, like deciding what she has to live with, right? Like, so she's immediately skeptical. She's like not convinced. I have to imagine she like can't even let herself believe it. It sounds like a nice moment that you want to be excited for, but you also have to like steel yourself.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Right. You can't get your hopes up at like anything or everything at this point.

• 22:42Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, because the fall back down, if it is not them, could be worse. Like you're undoing all the healing and forward momentum that you've made over the years. And she had a good level of skepticism because when police compare this caller's fingerprints to Cherry's.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Wait, how do they have Cherry's fingerprints?

• 23:00Ashley Flowers?

  They have them on file because they were actually taken at her elementary school. So like, yeah, super useful. I don't know if they do that anymore, but like probably should. But when they do this, they determine that this woman isn't Cherry. And even though, right, like even though she was skeptical, like Janice is still devastated. Because you tell yourself not to get your hopes up, but you still.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  There's that little like spark, right?

• 23:20Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, you still get your hope. You like, you wish that it could be true, that she would finally be reunited with her daughter. But this letdown is a reminder of the fact that she may never know what happened after her daughter got off the school bus that February day, or who was responsible. But let this be a lesson. Even in the coldest of cold cases, never say never. Because in 2023, nearly 40 years after her daughter went missing, leads come straight to Janice in the most unexpected place.

• 23:55Ashley Flowers?

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• 24:39Ashley Flowers?

  Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.

• 25:00Ashley Flowers?

  What I'm about to share with you has never been reported on in this much detail before, and it names a person who has never been connected publicly to this case before. According to Janice, one day in the spring of 2023, she went to her local VFW to have a drink. It was a regular spot for her, she knew most of the locals who came in there, but on this night, when she's sitting at the bar, she sees this man that she doesn't recognize. And he's just staring right at her. So finally, she's like, "Hey, man, what's the deal?" And the guy just responds with her name, but it's like a question, like he knows her, but he wants to be sure. And it turns out, he does know her. She knows him.

• 25:43Ashley Flowers?

  He's someone that she grew up with, but she didn't recognize him at first because she hadn't seen him since they were like little kids. Now, our reporter actually spoke with this man, and he asked that we keep him anonymous because what he told us, the bomb that he dropped on Janice that day, could put him in danger. He said that he knows one of Janice's neighbors, the one who lived across the street from them at Janice's mom's house before they moved to that trailer. The guy's name is John Montgomery. Now, this is a name that Janice knows well. Cherry often played with other young kids over at their house. And after Cherry disappeared, Janice says some of the family members would even check in with her weekly for updates.

• 26:27Ashley Flowers?

  But this guy says that he knew John well, too, and he knew that John and another man were molesting Cherry before she went missing. And he believes that they might be involved in her disappearance. And in that moment, Janice's world is spinning because this is completely new information. I mean, she didn't have so much as an inkling, like anything like that could have been happening to Cherry. She told us that a lot of the hallmark signs of abuse, like a sudden change in behavior or fear of being in a room with like certain people, like she didn't see that in her daughter. The only thing she ever noticed was that fear that someone unknown was watching her after she moved away from the house that was across the street from the Montgomery house.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  And do you know how long it had been going on before she moved or before she went missing?

• 27:17Ashley Flowers?

  No, I have no idea how long the alleged abuse was going on before she disappeared. Our source didn't have like a timeline for that.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And how does he even know about this?

• 27:27Ashley Flowers?

  So I have to keep some of the details back to protect his identity, but I can tell you he didn't always know this. So it's not like he's like kept this secret for decades. And he had tried to go to the police, but here's the scoop. So he was from the area, but he had moved away. And around 2010, he moved back to Pennsylvania. It was after he moved back that he learned about John and this other guy abusing not just Cherry, but he says other kids in the neighborhood as well. And the other guy, he actually named that other guy, but that is someone that we can't name at this point. Now, when he learned about the abuse, he wasn't necessarily connecting it to Cherry's disappearance right away.

• 28:08Ashley Flowers?

  But one day, he said he saw this old missing person flyer of Cherry with the blue car and the van that we talked about. And that's when he realized that John Montgomery would have had access to a similar blue car around the time that Cherry disappeared. And so this is when he said he went to police because this is obviously a major revelation.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:30Ashley Flowers?

  And according to him, they took him seriously, even set him up with a wire to go confront John. But he said while he was wearing the wire, John denied involvement and he basically blamed the other guy. He also told us that police talked to John and this other guy, but I can't confirm any of that from police directly because like I said,

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:51Ashley Flowers?

  they wouldn't talk to us. Though I will say that authorities did tell a WPXI reporter, Rick Earl, that they did interview neighbors about Cherry's disappearance, but no one has ever confessed to anything related to Cherry.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  So what about the other kids, though? Did they investigate any of that?

• 29:09Ashley Flowers?

  That's the thing, I don't think so. It seems like when our source talked to police, it was the first they were hearing of any of these allegations. So they hadn't been independently reported, like these kids, even as adults, hadn't come forward to them. And we even went and checked court records and we didn't find any record for John or this other guy. So nothing went through on the legal side. And I don't know how much police went looking for victims.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:35Ashley Flowers?

  Now, John died in 2022, so I can't ask him. And our attempts to reach this other guy were unsuccessful.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  So do we think it's true and no one ever reported anything? Or, I don't know, I mean, for the guy to have no record and this be in his history is kind of wild to me?

• 29:55Ashley Flowers?

  It's wild, but it's not unbelievable if this is true.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:59Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, we know that some adults don't report their abuse and for children, those numbers skyrocket.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 30:05Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, there's often a lack of understanding of like what is happening to them or like they're afraid of getting in trouble. Because even if they realize like what is happening is wrong, often they blame themselves or they they get convinced that it's their job to protect their abuser.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 30:19Ashley Flowers?

  And especially if it's someone they know, their abuser will often tell them like, oh, I'm gonna get in trouble or like, this is gonna happen to me or to you. And like, I think that could fall in line with what police ended up telling CNN in 2011, that they ended up saying that Cherry was likely abducted by someone she knew really well. I mean, literally, a Pennsylvania state trooper said, quote, "I believe this person had the ability to basically lure Cherry to their vehicle without her giving it a second thought prior to her disappearance," end quote. So it's totally possible for someone to operate like this and not have a record.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Right, possible, but did he? Like, how do you even go about trying to run this down to find the truth of what happened?

• 31:04Ashley Flowers?

  Well, you need cooperation.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:06Ashley Flowers?

  Which finally came this year.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 31:08Ashley Flowers?

  That's why we're able to report this. So when Janice found this out, that was 2023, remember, like, she didn't know what to do.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:15Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, she didn't have a good relationship with investigators on the case, so she felt isolated from what police had going on. And so she didn't even tell anyone else. Plus, we know that the guy who's telling her this already tried to go to police. So like, what's she gonna do, right? So she kind of just held it in for a couple of years. But in 2025, Janice confided in her friend Bailey. She basically told her, like, I'm at my wits end. Like, I, all I want is answers at this point. And I feel like I am so close, but still just out of reach. And bless best friends like Bailey. She sees this as a cry for help, and she just jumps into action. Bailey starts pushing law enforcement to

• 32:00Ashley Flowers?

  look into leads. She creates a Facebook page called Find Cherrie Mahan, and even starts a team called Cherry's Angels that ends up working with a private investigator, this guy named Steve Ridge. And Steve pledges $100,000 for anyone who helps with finding Cherry's remains. And so while Steve is doing his thing, Bailey starts looking into John Montgomery, trying to just find anything linking him or this other guy to child sex abuse.

• 32:29Ashley Flowers?

  So she's searching all avenues. And one of those is on megganslaw.com, which is a website that keeps track of sex offenders. And to be honest, she doesn't even really know what she's looking for, but I think she's like trying anything. And it almost is like this feeling for her of like, I'll know it when I see it, right? So she's looking around like in the area of both the house that Cherry disappeared from and her grandma's house that she lived in in Saxonburg. And suddenly she sees the name William Montgomery, John Montgomery's son. Now, he goes by Buddy, and he'd already done time in prison by the time she came across him. And that actually is where he is right now for failing to register as a sex offender.

• 33:14Ashley Flowers?

  He was locked up in 2022, and we don't know when he's getting out, but the max sentence for the failure to register is 54 months. So it's likely that he'll be out sometime by the end of next year. And we actually found his previous record. So in 2004, he pled guilty to sexual assault, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children, and indecent assault. He cut a deal with prosecutors, and according to news reports, instead of 75 years in prison.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna like this.

• 33:47Ashley Flowers?

  He got about two years behind bars and 10 years probation.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah. I'm gonna have to skip past that so I don't see red. Did he live at the house across from Cherry's grandma at the time Cherry was living there?

• 34:04Ashley Flowers?

  So I am not exactly sure where he lived at that time. But what I can say is that we interviewed several people who lived in the area at the time, who say that Buddy was definitely around then. So I don't know where he lived, but he was definitely around there. And he was in his early 20s when Cherry disappeared. So Bailey finds this. She, of course, gives it over to police. But she and Janice haven't seen much come of them running down any potential leads. So that's when Janice decides to take matters into her own hands. And at the beginning of April this year, she just wrote to Buddy in prison. She asks if she can come and talk to him about Cherry because she is trying to figure out what happened and she wants closure after 40 years. And she acknowledges that his dad wasn't the greatest guy

• 34:49Ashley Flowers?

  and says, listen, I'm sorry for all that you have been put through and have seen. And it worked because less than two weeks later. Buddy actually responds to her.

• 35:01Ashley Flowers?

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• 35:44Ashley Flowers?

  Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.

• 36:06Ashley Flowers?

  Buddy's first letter back to Janice is pretty vague. He basically just says he wants to help. So Janice writes him back, asking like, "Okay, put me on your visitation list." Because, again, she just wants to get in front of this guy. But it's weeks before he responds. A letter does eventually come in mid-May, and he apologizes for the delay. He said he actually had a heart attack and he's been in the hospital, but he still wants to talk to her. And so she just keeps sending him short messages, asking, "Okay, great, I want to talk to you too, but when can I come see you? Or when can we at least talk on the phone?" Yeah. But she says that Buddy just keeps dodging her. So at the end of June, Janice schedules a visit to the prison anyway, but when she gets there, Buddy won't come out.

• 36:50Ashley Flowers?

  And I guess Janice tries to schedule another visit, but before that one happens, Buddy writes her this message. And he sends it to the person that is helping Janice communicate with him in prison. And I'll read what I can from him. I just received word that Janice had made arrangements for a contact visit on Saturday. So please let her know that I will not accept it until I have a chance to set things up the way I want it set up.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  And how exactly is that?

• 37:19Ashley Flowers?

  She found out. So he lays out those terms in more letters. He says he wants his story televised for his own protection. Now, mind you, we started communicating with Janice like while this was all unfolding.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, just as a reminder, this is happening a few months ago.

• 37:37Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, so Buddy wants a news organization? Happy to help. Like, put us to work, Janice. So we even sent Buddy a letter of our own in April, though I'm not sure if he received that one because he didn't respond to it. So in late July, we decided to try again, and we wrote to him on the prison email system, asking if he would speak to us about the case because his name had come up. And we sent him a list of questions, like a few times actually, about the things that we've heard. And he finally responded with this. "After reading your questions, I am so disgruntled over the fact that you are hearing these lies and would want nothing other than an opportunity to sit down with you and talk."

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Great.

• 38:20Ashley Flowers?

  So we kept pressing for that opportunity to talk, for a phone call, but he kept avoiding us like he did with Janice. So in the meantime, we tried to verify a specific lead that we heard about, and we wanted to talk to somebody who knew Buddy. So first was the lead. So the P.I., Steve Ridge, had gotten a tip from someone locally who knew the Montgomerys. They told him that a backpack that may or may not have been Cherry's was allegedly submerged in a pond somewhere on the 28-acre Montgomery property sometime after Cherry's disappearance. Interesting if true. So we tracked down the person who gave Steve Ridge that tip. They did say some similar things to us.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:06Ashley Flowers?

  But the details they gave us about what actually happened were pretty hazy. And for legal reasons, for now, I can't talk about it.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:15Ashley Flowers?

  And I'm not sure if the Montgomery property was ever searched in connection with Cherry's disappearance, which I think is like an interesting fact.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:22Ashley Flowers?

  So TBD on the backpack, we're still looking into that. I can tell you a little bit more about what we found when we tracked down a former friend of Buddy's. His name is Mike. Now, he lives in the area, says he's known Buddy for a really long time. And he'd gone to meet Buddy at his house one day and he walked up on him having a conversation that I don't think Mike was supposed to hear. I can't tell you the full details of this alleged conversation. But in it Buddy was mentioning Cherry on the phone with someone. And when Mike confronted him about it, he says that Buddy told him his dad, John, quote, "chose her." And then went on to say that his dad was involved in her disappearance. Now, there are a lot more details that Mike provided.

• 40:06Ashley Flowers?

  And he says that he told police about this incident as well. But again, I have not been able to confirm this with cops myself.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Because they didn't want to talk to us. Got it.

• 40:16Ashley Flowers?

  We did, though, ask Buddy about all of this. First about the backpack and if he knows anything about it. He said, "F no," in not so bleeped out terms. And in another more recent letter, we actually asked him about the Mike allegations, whether he was involved in Cherry's disappearance and everything that came up in our reporting of Cherry's case. And he basically, in a letter, said he was gonna send us a letter that he was going to be very direct in.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:44Ashley Flowers?

  And we were like waiting, holding our breath, like even put off doing this recording because that's what I was waiting for. I literally just got it in the mail yesterday. It is like eight pages long, so I'm gonna give you the highlights. But for my nosy Nellies, I will be posting it on the blog post, probably heavily redacted. But here's the gist. He says, quote, "I also want to make it very clear to you, especially those who are formulating such moronic lies, and whoever else thinks slash believes that I may have had anything to do with the disappearance of Cherrie Mahan, to go straight to the enslavements of hell," end quote. And then in another part, he says that we will find the truth when, quote, "the right

• 41:27Ashley Flowers?

  questions are asked to those within his, my father's, little circle. I was never part of this circle," end quote. So, a lot of the letter was really vague. Like, the gist of it, though, is that he says he never met or spoke to Cherry, and he didn't even know that Janice had moved from across the street of the Montgomery House. So he's like, "I wouldn't even have known where to get her."

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Cherry was, yeah.

• 41:57Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, where she was being dropped off after school. So, I still don't feel like I have a full grasp on what it is he really knows, if anything. But he says he didn't go to police or Janice with the information he still says he has because he doesn't want to spread a false narrative.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  I don't understand that.

• 42:16Ashley Flowers?

  I don't understand what that means either. And he added in the letter that he will talk to us, but he still has terms. He says, "He wants to be interviewed on live television while hooked up to a polygraph exam." And listen, I'm like, still trying to make this happen. I like, I, does, like, a livestream count? I don't know, but like, I am still unable to like, nail this guy down and actually set a time with him. And we had to move forward and put this out there. And this is where we actually need help from our crime junkies. Someone out there knows more about Cherry's disappearance and can maybe help corroborate some of the stuff that I've heard, that our reporters have gotten, that we haven't been able to share in this episode.

• 43:00Ashley Flowers?

  Even if you've shared it with police before, reach out to us. Like, we're doing our own investigation. So if that's you, please email us at [email protected]. We want to help Janice find closure. She just wants to know what happened to her daughter and where she is. And obviously, you guys, we've talked about some heavy topics in today's episode. Child molestation, sexual assault. I know it's hard to digest, but what I hope that we can take away from this beyond finding closure for Janice is that we need to protect our kids from strangers, from the people they know. I mean, Cherry was always with Janice. She always checked in, and she was still taken so close to home.

• 43:43Ashley Flowers?

  If you are a victim of child sexual abuse or any kind of sexual abuse, I want you to know that there are resources available for you. RAINN has a national sexual assault hotline available 24/7. You can call, text, online chat, even send them a WhatsApp message. Free, confidential, always available. We're gonna have those resources linked out in our show notes. And if you need immediate help, text HOPE to 64673.

• 44:21Ashley Flowers?

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

• 44:29Ashley Flowers?

  We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. But stick around because today we have the good.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Okay, Ashley, this is like your favorite?

• 45:00Ashley Flowers?

  Yes.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Your favorite thing to do when we're sitting on this couch?

• 45:03Ashley Flowers?

  Listen.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Behind our microphones.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  It is time for the good. Hello, Ashley and Brett. My name is Liv and I've been a listener since 2019.

• 45:14Ashley Flowers?

  Early days.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Ooh, jinx.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  I'm writing to you because I believe your podcast saved my life the other day. I was flying into Connecticut from Virginia alone. My flight was delayed and I didn't land until 2 a.m. It's a small airport, so at 2 a.m. there are almost no staff members around. I was walking to get to my rental car when I noticed a man was following me. He started making small talk as he noticed my backpack, which indicated I worked in healthcare. He started asking me questions like, where do you work? Where are you from? Are you visiting or do you live here? They all seem so mundane, right? But as we crime junkies know, this could be dangerous. Because of what I learned from your podcast, I never gave him any information. I kept my answers vague and moved to places where people were.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  I got my husband on the phone and put him on speakerphone, but the man kept following me. When I found out they gave away my rental car, the man, who was still following me, asked.

• 46:11Ashley Flowers?

  Absolutely, no.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Where are you trying to get to? That's when I became rude. I told him, you are making me uncomfortable. Get away from me. I have my husband on the phone and multiple people tracking my location and waiting for me. I was loud and caused a scene to get people to notice. He then backed up and said, oh, I didn't realize you had someone on the phone. And he left. I had airport workers stay with me until I got a ride. True crime is so much more than storytelling. It keeps us alive and safe. Because of you, I have learned so much about how to keep myself safe and to watch for all the warning signs. Maybe this guy was innocent, but I had to keep asking myself, what if he wasn't? I truly believe your podcast kept me alive that day.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I'm so thankful for what you do for women and the community. Because of you, I can write to you today. I was weird, I was rude, and because of Crime Junkie, I'm alive.

• 47:08Ashley Flowers?

  I love it.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Thank you, Liv.

• 47:10Ashley Flowers?

  I, those are the stories, right? The best ones are like, oh, nothing happened and probably nothing would happen.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  The best stories we ever hear are the ones that don't make it on our show, right? Like, we say that all the time.

• 47:19Ashley Flowers?

  Did I tell you about the concert I was at where I was being like extra crime junkie?

• 47:22Speaker 01

  No, but now you have to.

• 47:24Ashley Flowers?

  I was, I was with my husband. We went and saw Chris Staple. And we were leaving, we were leaving a little early because I'm 100 years old.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  1,000%.

• 47:32Ashley Flowers?

  And I ate sleep, let me know that it was like cooling down my bed for me. So I was like, gotta go.

• 47:38Ashley Flowers?

  And there was like this, like, we were in the Uber area waiting and there were like these two girls and I'm like overhearing this conversation, this like much older guy, much older, like 10 years, who's wearing like a boot. And he's like, oh, I'm from California. We're in Indiana. And he's like, I just like pick a city to go to a concert. And I'm like, nobody picks.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  No one picks Indiana.

• 47:56Ashley Flowers?

  And I told my husband, I'm like literally sneak taking photos. And my husband was like, what are you doing? He's got a boot on. I'm like, have you never heard of Ted Bundy?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Ted Bundy had the fake cast.

• 48:06Ashley Flowers?

  Thank you. So watch out for yourself, ladies.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  And everyone.

• 48:10Ashley Flowers?

  I'll also be watching out for you. Know that I'm out there patrolling constantly. So if you were the two girls talking to the guy from California.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  In Indianapolis.

• 48:18Ashley Flowers?

  At the Chris Stapleton concert, I got you, girls.

• 48:22Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Growing up in a small town, I know how deeply a crime can shake a local community. And I know that what makes the headlines is rarely the full story. That's what Kylie Lowe explores on her show, Dark Down East. She digs into cases from Maine and New England using original reporting, archival records, and conversations with the people who knew them best. Each episode takes you inside the communities these stories shaped and the families who never stop searching for answers. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts.

• 49:00Speaker 02

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker. Every stranger carries a secret and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.