PA CHERRIE MAHAN: Missing from Pittsburgh, PA - 22 Feb 1985 - Age 8 (1 Viewer)

Cherrie was last seen getting off of the bus from her elementary school at approximately 4:05 p.m. on February 22, 1985. Three other students got off with her at the stop. She was approximately 100 to 150 yards along a dirt driveway from her family's residence on Cornplanter Road in Cabot, Pennsylvania at the time she disappeared.

When she failed to arrive home, her stepfather went looking for her and called police when he failed to find her. Cherrie has never been heard from again.

A bright blue or green 1976 Dodge van was seen in the area at the time of Cherrie's disappearance and may be connected to her case. The van was following the school bus Cherrie had been riding in. The van had a snow-capped mountain and skier mural painted on both sides of the vehicle. The skier was wearing red and yellow clothing and was skiing down the mountain.

The van has never been located or identified and investigators are still not sure if it was connected to Cherrie's case. A small blue car was also seen near the site of Cherrie's disappearance. It is unknown if the car has anything to do with her case either.

According to her mother, Cherrie was conceived through rape when her mother was sixteen years old. The police did not believe the rape allegation and Cherrie's biological father was never charged. She believes people connected to Cherrie's father were involved in her disappearance. Cherrie's father maintains his innocence in her case.

CHARLEY PROJECT - Cherrie Ann Mahan – The Charley Project



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Media - CHERRIE MAHAN has been missing from Pittsburgh, #PENNSYLVANIA since 22 Feb 1985 - Age 8

 

[GrandmaBear]

It's not unusual to distrust statistics. Many times I have seen polls only using 1000 people, for instance, and that is very common. It is also common to pay people to take part in many polls and they reuse those pollees several times or even all the time.

From your link.

"AD is more commonly available (e.g. from the literature) and typically represents summary estimates such as odds ratios<a href="Meta-analysis - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>50<span>]</span></a> or relative risks.<a href="Meta-analysis - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>51<span>]</span></a> This can be directly synthesized across conceptually similar studies using several approaches. On the other hand, indirect aggregate data measures the effect of two treatments that were each compared against a similar control group in a meta-analysis. For example, if treatment A and treatment B were directly compared vs placebo in separate meta-analyses, we can use these two pooled results to get an estimate of the effects of A vs B in an indirect comparison as effect A vs Placebo minus effect B vs Placebo."

Sounds like BS to me.

Yes and sometimes they have grants to do it and it is a small pool, etc., etc. I have my reasons for feeling that way and it just isn't something I go by or put much store in and this one sounded unusually high.

It's like crime stats. Departments plead them down as they do other crimes so the true numbers imo are never the true numbers. Almost EVERYWHERE does that to keep their violent crime rates looking lower. So how true are they really?

 

[GrandmaBear]

I agree. The 1 in 6 for girls in the 80's could almost be every family. I have also seen figures quoting 1 in 20 boys for example.

I come from a family of 5 kids. None of us were sexually abused. I know nobody who was sexually abused as a kid either.

Same here. And from knowing hundreds upon hundreds of people from one of my own decades. Add in our very large family with tons of cousins my age. I knew TONs of people. I thought it was 1 in 6 but looked again and thought I saw 1 in 4 on the girls somewhere there too. Whichever it sounds unusually high. I think I know of one person who alleged it as an adult. So 1 in say 1,000 if even true.

 

[GrandmaBear]

In this particular circumstance, I don't think it's the numbers that are of significance but the "by someone they knew and trusted" part.

That's very true but the mom seems to suggest knowing the stats has something to do with feeling her daughter was. Perhaps if more was shared it wouldn't seem that way but I suppose she can't say more.

I'm not going to apologize for not putting a lot of store in statistics.

It really isn't that big of a deal. I is simply my opinion and these stats seem high.

 

[Tresir]

Cherrie Mahan's mom feels closer than ever to finding her daughter's abductor, remains

community.triblive.com

Cherrie Mahan's mom feels closer than ever to finding her daughter's abductor, remains​

Cherrie Mahan’s mother and a team of friends are preparing to search a largely unexamined plot of land where they suspect the girl, who disappeared Feb. 22, 1985, from a school bus stop in Winfield, may be buried.

The area is part of a 26-acre parcel across from where Cherrie’s grandmother lived in Clinton Township.

“My mother, god rest her soul, she always felt that Cherrie was close by,” Cherrie’s mother, Janice McKinney, told TribLive in an exclusive interview.

Her belief is based on a new wave of tips that came in after a February event marking the 40th anniversary of Cherrie’s disappearance.

McKinney and Cherrie’s Angels, a group started last year by Bailey Gizienski and Alyssa Dietz, both of Butler, also have deemed another area in West Winfield as worth another look. It was part of the original 5-mile search radius.

While McKinney wouldn’t disclose her leads, she feels closer than ever to learning how her 8-year-old daughter disappeared about 100 yards from her home and where she ended up.


At the recent commemoration for Cherrie, she told the crowd she knows who abducted her daughter. And just this week, Cherrie’s Angels revealed that the person they suspect is incarcerated.

“It’s kind of a new person,” McKinney elaborated Wednesday. “He probably should have been looked at and just wasn’t because we didn’t have all of the right people to give us the right answers.”

The new information also has led her to believe Cherrie was sexually abused by her abductor before her abduction. Data cited by Cherrie’s Angels claims 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys were sexually abused in the 1980s, often by someone they knew and trusted.

McKinney was vague about these breakthroughs, not wanting to risk the supposed perpetrator covering their tracks.

“If we make a mistake, we could lose this and we could not get an answer we’re happy with,” she said.

So her mother believes they know who did this and he is incarcerated. Wonder if there is more info on this perp.

 

[Regina]

That's very true but the mom seems to suggest knowing the stats has something to do with feeling her daughter was. Perhaps if more was shared it wouldn't seem that way but I suppose she can't say more.

I'm not going to apologize for not putting a lot of store in statistics.

It really isn't that big of a deal. I is simply my opinion and these stats seem high.

I don't think stats are the basis of the mother's belief but specific info surrounding that particular inmate.

 

[Tresir]

I also notice that she said LE did not arrest the alleged rapist. So did he say she consented, i wonder. Also she was young so I wonder if he was too?

I don't really understand why her bio father's name has not been released in 40 years. What's the big secret?

 

[Regina]

Below is a very helpful video offering insight as to the location and circumstances.

 

[GrandmaBear]

I don't think stats are the basis of the mother's belief but specific info surrounding that particular inmate.

I agree that's likely, I feel the same, but they sure could have worded it better because it comes across that way.

 

[GrandmaBear]

Below is a very helpful video offering insight as to the location and circumstances.

Watched it. I almost feel like I've seen something similar before but not sure. Good look at the area. Thanks for posting.

 

[Tresir]

Below is a very helpful video offering insight as to the location and circumstances.

Yep thanks for that. It shows how rural and remote it is too. In the time of that video, (6 minutes) only two cars went by, one each way. It could even have been a hit and run car hitting her as she walked to her driveway and they took and disposed of her body. I guess a lot less traffic as it was 40 years ago too so i am surprised noone knew the owner of that van.

 

[GrandmaBear]

Yep thanks for that. It shows how rural and remote it is too. In the time of that video, (6 minutes) only two cars went by, one each way. It could even have been a hit and run car hitting her as she walked to her driveway and they took and disposed of her body. I guess a lot less traffic as it was 40 years ago too so i am surprised noone knew the owner of that van.

Yeah with a skier on it. I recall that and always thought it odd no one would recognize such. The first vehicle that went by was sure clipping along. True about the curves and that more than likely the person knew the area and the road. My ex used to have a book that had maps of just about every back road and so forth, like an atlas but more for ALL roads etc. for our state if I recall. I imagine they made the same back when, no idea, but honestly more likely is it was someone who knew it. IF it was someone in a vehicle.

I will say it is true that buses would drop kids at ends of roads, driveways, places they couldn't turn around if need be, just the way it was. However, there was more than one kid dropped here so to me that isn't as unpopulated as it might appear.

When I was in first grade I think it was, and that's young, I had a really nice bus driver. The route would take us within 1/4 mile of my house early on and then instead of my being dropped off yet, it would turn onto a dirt road maybe 1/4 mile from my home, I could SEE my home clear as could be. A house on the corner we turned on, a neighbor and mine was the next one down the road. I would then have to ride the bus I don't know another hour before it looped back around coming from the other direction and dropped me off. It was very tiresome. One day I asked the driver to just drop me off where he turned and I walked home in the ditch. I didn't even need a NOTE and I was a child. From then on, I did that. I mean my mom knew, I told her when I got home the very first time I think. Just a bit of a thing about the way it was. I'm talking an earlier decade than this one but in the 80s I changed buses because I didnt like the one I was on and the driver had no problem with it and I never had to clear a thing, nor did he worry about it, I was in high school then. There were a few buses rurally that went past my home.

We didn't have woods along the road though, it was fields, and it wasn't curves. It was a fairly major county highway and when young, again I walked home in the ditch, I knew better than to walk on the road. Kind of interesting to think back on that. It was a far more relaxed time, in rural areas for sure.

This sounds like it was closer to home if the mom has some clue. Video was worth a watch just for area.

 

[Regina]

I agree that's likely, I feel the same, but they sure could have worded it better because it comes across that way.

Yeah, it was poorly written, seemingly out of context. (Don't let me get started on issues with journalism / reporters, lol).
For me, it's another one of the many things I read where I have to stop and think about longer before or until it fit's and / or makes sense, lol.

 

[Regina]

What I noticed most about that road is how there's only enough room for vehicles to pass, which causes me to wonder whether the van was just stuck behind the bus and having to follow and wait, follow and wait. (Now, I'm definitely not discounting the theory that the van was involved, it's just a thought.)

The guy with the video said that the van was never seen before or after but I think surely that can't be true... and info is that LE checked out lots of vans and so I think it's possible LE did find the van but haven't revealed it.

 

[GrandmaBear]

Yeah, it was poorly written, seemingly out of context. (Don't let me get started on issues with journalism / reporters, lol).
For me, it's another one of the many things I read where I have to stop and think about longer before or until it fit's and / or makes sense, lol.

LMAO don't get ME started on journalism, reporting and news. Seriously. I'd go off. Things are very poor these days. That is part of what I was reacting to, it just sounded as if the statistics made her think this, etc. Totally bad context and how it relates, etc.

TOTALLY agree.

 

[GrandmaBear]

What I noticed most about that road is how there's only enough room for vehicles to pass, which causes me to wonder whether the van was just stuck behind the bus and having to follow and wait, follow and wait. (Now, I'm definitely not discounting the theory that the van was involved, it's just a thought.)

The guy with the video said that the van was never seen before or after but I think surely that can't be true... and info is that LE checked out lots of vans and so I think it's possible LE did find the van but haven't revealed it.

Imo it's a tough one. I tend to generally think things are closer to home in most cases and they usually are. I don't necessarily mean parents but someone in the area and so on. Not always of course.

Your point about the van makes sense. We have all followed school buses and have to do that stop and wait for safety which of course I always follow, and I think most of us do, but you have a good point, it may have just been wanting to get by and ended up behind it as it made stops.

It is a bit odd though that no one ever recognized the van or seemed to and no one ever came forward as having owned it, do I have that right? How many even saw it? Or described it?

There is an unsolved case somewhat near where I grew up where it was in an area like this and getting off the bus too. She was a teen though. But country road, forested, etc. Very similar circumstances and area though. In that one I lean towards a member of the family but it really is hard to have a solid opinion. Been awhile since I looked at it but I think there too there was one vehicle maybe seen on this country road that may have related.

No cameras back in the day, little to go off of. A rural drop off in a very rural area. They may really be some of the toughest ones because there just isn't a thing to go on quite often. That we know of anyhow. So forming a solid opinion is a lot harder or I just don't/can't. I think we can all name several cases that are somewhat similar. I mean it could be a stranger or someone in the area, but it also could be close to home, even at home in some of them.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Private investigator pledging $100K of his own money to help locate Cherrie Mahan

Mahan disappeared 40 years ago after she got off her school bus in Winfield Township, Butler County.

www.cbsnews.com

Private investigator pledging $100K of his own money to help locate Cherrie Mahan​

A private investigator has joined the case of Cherrie Mahan, offering $100,000 of his own money to help find the missing girl from Butler County.

Four decades after Cherrie Mahan disappeared in Butler County, there have been a lot of people who have looked into the case, but now, a former television news executive-turned-private investigator says he believes he can solve the case, and he's willing to put up $100,000 to get more information to prove it.

"I want to recover and positively identify her remains. If we do that, we will exponentially improve the likelihood of a conviction in this case," said private investigator Steve Ridge. "I think we already know, to some degree, who was involved or has significant knowledge regarding the case."

Ridge wouldn't go into details, but said finding the book bag Cherrie was carrying when she was kidnapped, walking home from her school bus stop in 1985, may lead to finding her body.

"I am convinced from some recent testimony and input that Cherrie's book bag was likely submerged in a pond in an area where her grandmother's home is," Ridge said.

Ridge says anyone with information should talk to the state police, but his approach is to come at the investigation with fresh eyes.

"I don't need to see the police files. I probably know what's in the police files and perhaps more."

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

11 Investigates: Private investigator shares new information about Cherrie Mahan’s disappearance

He met with Cherrie’s mom, reviewed some of the evidence and offered a $100,000 reward of his own money for information that leads to her discovery.

www.wpxi.com

11 Investigates: Private investigator shares new information about Cherrie Mahan’s disappearance​

It’s been 40 years since 8-year-old Cherrie Mahan vanished after getting off her school bus in rural Butler County near Cabot.

A private investigator from Iowa joined the search for Mahan earlier this year. He met with Cherrie’s mom, reviewed some of the evidence and offered a $100,000 reward of his own money for information that leads to her discovery.

Chief Investigator Rick Earle spoke exclusively with the nationally renowned investigator, Steve Ridge.

“I wouldn’t rule it out in this case now, given the progress that I’ve made, that there could be, you know, an indictment,” Ridge said.


A television consultant before his retirement, Ridge received a number of tips related to the case. But one stood out.

“He said it is kind of eating him alive. He said I just can’t stay quiet anymore,” Ridge said of the tip.

It came from a man who claims he knows what happened to the 8-year-old girl after she got off a school bus in February 1985 but never made it home.


Earle: “What did this person tell you?”

Ridge: “Well, essentially they said that, many years ago, they overheard a conversation that involved an individual who, upon getting off the phone, said, ‘Well, I guess you overheard that and now you know that, you know I was responsible for Cherrie’s abduction.’”

Ridge said the man threatened the informant and told him not to tell anyone.

He said that, for years, he was too scared to come forward, but now he’s agreed to take a lie detector test and testify in court.

Earle: “Do you believe him?”

Ridge: “I actually do. I just think that he is incredibly credible.”

Ridge said the informant identified a man who’s currently in prison for another crime.

Ridge told Earle he’s corresponded with the inmate by mail.

“This prisoner’s position is that he is aware of what happened to Cherrie. He was not personally involved, but he says two of his relatives were directly involved,” said Ridge.

And Ridge said they knew Cherrie and her family.

Earle: “Can you share a motive?”

Ridge: “Well, I mean, I think without a doubt, you know the motive revolved around sexual activity. I think that was at the heart of this case.”

Cherrie’s mom has also said she believes her daughter had been molested.

Last year, Earle asked state police about that claim and received this email response:

“No persons have ever been interviewed by law enforcement that admitted to sexually assaulting Cherrie. No persons have ever been charged or arrested for molesting Cherrie. All of Cherrie’s neighbors, including ones with and without criminal records were interviewed.”

Ridge said he’s not convinced.

“That’s pretty telling, you know, if you read between the lines and look carefully at what’s being said,” said Ridge.

Ridge also told Earle that he passed all of his information along to state police.

“I think that there’s a very high likelihood that we can — can officially solve this,” said Ridge.

Ridge has also shared this information with Cherrie’s mom, and she is hopeful that she’ll finally get some answers.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Police dig in Armstrong County related to case of Cherrie Mahan, missing since 1985

A police dig at a private property in southwest Armstrong County this week was connected to the 40-year search for Cherrie Mahan, who went missing in 1985...

www.post-gazette.com

Police dig in Armstrong County related to case of Cherrie Mahan, missing since 1985​

A police dig at a private property in southwest Armstrong County this week was connected to the 40-year search for Cherrie Mahan, who went missing in 1985 when she was 8 years old.

It wasn’t clear what led investigators from the state police and FBI to the rural area in South Buffalo on Tuesday, according to Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV, nor was it clear if anything of interest was found.


Tuesday was not the first time investigators searched the South Buffalo area near the Allegheny River, KDKA reported, and they will likely return because of the size of the area of interest. The spot is about 10 miles from where Cherrie disappeared.

 

[Kimster]

Ken Mains has really been pushing this case this year. I watched one of his videos about it back in April. Here's a short recap: