The Misery Machine - The Walker County Jane Doe Unmasked: The Murder of Sherri Ann Jarvis

Starting point is 00:00:00 On November 1, 1980, the nude body of a young woman estimated to be in her mid-to-late teens was discovered by a truck driver who had been driving past the Sam Houston National Forest. She was lying face down in an area of grass approximately 20 feet from the shoulder of Interstate Highway 45 and just two miles north of Huntsville, Texas. The young woman had been dead for approximately six hours, thus placing her time of death around 320 in the morning. A rectangular brown pendant containing a smoky blue or brown colored stone on a thin gold chain necklace was found around her neck. She was approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall and weight between 105 and 120 pounds with hazel eyes and shoulder length auburn hair. Her fingernails were

Starting point is 00:00:46 bare and her toenails had been painted pink. She had a one and a half inch vertical scar at the edge of her right eyebrow. Due to the general condition of the young girl's body, including her overall health, nutrition, and excellent dental care that she'd received in her life, it was widely assumed that she may have come from a middle-class household. Her cause of death was officially ruled as asphyxia due to ligature strangulation, thought to be done with a pair of pantyhose, pieces of which were found at the crime scene. The only other clothes found by her were a pair of high-heeled red leather sandals, as well as the victim's underwear, the latter of which were stuffed inside her.

Starting point is 00:01:24 It was thought to be done post-mortem due to the fact she was. assaulted with a large blunt instrument in both of her orifices prior to her death. She had been severely beaten before her death. Her body was covered with many bruises, and notably her lips and right eyelid were very swollen. Her right shoulder also contained a deep bite mark. No biological evidence was found on her, or at the crime scene. The only clues to our identity were the testimonies of a manager and two workers that worked at the South End Gulf gas station nearby and a hitch and post truck station.

Starting point is 00:01:56 all of whom have since passed away. They spotted her wearing a white-knit sweater, a yellow pullover, and blue jeans on Halloween night. She was carrying her red high heels and had inquired on how to get to the nearby Ellis Prison Farm. Her body was found 14 miles from there. Both inmates and employees from the Ellis Prison Farm were shown mortuary photographs of the victim, although none of them were able to identify her. Investigators also traveled to both the Rockport in Aransas past districts to meet with law enforcement regarding any missing women whose physical description matched that of the young woman found on the interstate. Staff at both school districts were also contacted by investigators for the same purpose.

Starting point is 00:02:40 And numerous Texas high school yearbooks were searched for any young women known to be missing whose physical features matched her description. But they were all dead ends. And no subsequent missing persons' reports pertaining to young Caucasian females have ever been matched the young woman. On January 16th, she was buried in the Atticus Sedition at Oakwood Cemetery. Her burial followed an open casket funeral. She's buried beneath a tombstone donated by Morris Memorials. The inscription upon her tombstone reads, unknown white female, died November 1st, 1980. For more than 40

Starting point is 00:03:16 years, she was known only as Walker County Jane Doe, the nameless victim of a brutal murder and assault that perplexed local law enforcement and captivated true crime enthusiasts and armchair detectives. That changed yesterday when Walker County Sheriff Clint McRae announced that, at long last, the girl was nameless no more. Her name was Sherry Ann Jarvis. Sherry Jarvis was born on March 9th, 1966, and she was actually raised in the town of Stillwater, Minnesota,

Starting point is 00:03:46 about 25 miles east of Minneapolis. According to her family, Sherry had been seized by local authorities at the age of 13 due to charges of habitual truancy. Shortly after her 14th birthday, she ran away for good. According to her brother Don, the last correspondence Sherry had with her family

Starting point is 00:04:03 came in the form of a letter to her mother postmarked in Denver. In it, Sherry said she'd contact her family again sometime between her 18th and 21st birthday. The family hired a private investigator and kept their same landline phone number just in case she was ever to call, but they never heard from her again. She was just 14 when she was at.

Starting point is 00:04:23 killed. In June of 2020, Othrum, which is a woodlands-based forensic DNA lab, placed a call to the lead investigator on the case, Detective Thomas Bean. Using a piece of brain tissue that had been preserved in what's referred to as a formalin-fix paraffin-embedded block, Orthrum scientists were able to extract decades-old DNA from the sample in order to cross-reference against tens of thousands of genealogical samples on third-party databases. By March 2021, they whittled down their list of potential matches from distant relatives to six people they believed were relatives of Walker County Jane Doe. In late September, it was announced on the Who Was Walker County Jane Doe Facebook page that she had

Starting point is 00:05:05 been identified. Giving the family time to mourn, the Walker County Sheriff's Office officially announced Sherry's identity on November 9th, 2021. A special shout out to Carl Koppelman, who is the creator of the Who was Walker County Jane Doe Facebook page. He has worked tirelessly on this case, as well as. as other ones for the past 12 years amassing a group of over 21,000 members. He went further than the police paperwork by scouring through yearbook archives across dozens of high schools in Texas

Starting point is 00:05:34 trying to find someone who matched the description. He also draws forensic illustrations to share with fellow investigators and even went so far as to travel to Huntsville to retrace Sherry's final steps. This is why it's really, really important to support your podcasters, support those Facebook pages that dedicate their time to specific cases, because oftentimes we have the extra time that the police don't just dip our toe a little bit further. And sometimes that's all that it needs. And these people do it all for free. They're not getting paid to do it. This is a labor of love for them. So respect what they do and support them in any way that you can. So you may be wondering, who killed Sherry Jarvis? Well, unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of leads. The primary belief is

Starting point is 00:06:21 that she was killed by a serial killer. When they took her picture to the prison, nobody was able to say that they recognized her. It's thought that this was a random killing. Now, Henry Lee Lucas did take responsibility for her death, but if you know anything about Henry Lee Lucas... He makes things up. He takes responsibility for a lot of them.

Starting point is 00:06:45 And furthermore, when they compared his dental records to the bite mark on her right shoulder, it was not a match. Now, did they just do Henry Lee Lucas or did they do Audist Tool as well? I don't hear much mention of Auditstool with this one. I think he was probably out of state at the time, whereas Henry Lee Lucas could have theoretically been driving around that area of Texas, but they later, not really confirmed,

Starting point is 00:07:12 but they're very sure that Henry Lee Lucas was spending time with Audit Tool at that period of time and couldn't have done this murder. So this one unfortunately will never be solved, but thankfully, closure has been provided to the family and she now has a name. Right. I cannot imagine not knowing where my loved one was for four decades. Yeah, absolutely. That's crazy.

Starting point is 00:07:37 And she is now the third to be identified out of the four Jane Does that are often linked together. And that's the Caledonia Jane Doe, the Royal Grande, Jane Doe, Walker County Jane Doe, and the Buckskin girl. O'Royal Grande Jane Doe is the only one that has not been identified. She was found murdered outside of Henderson, Nevada in 1980. People are still working on that. And Carl Koppelman, who I mentioned before, actually did a forensic illustration on her as well. Hopefully, fingers crossed, that is one that we can see in the very least identified.

Starting point is 00:08:18 I think we're going too soon. I think a lot of these cases are going to end up with identifications with, you know, the advent of everyone doing 23 and me and different genealogy tests. I think we're going to see a lot more people identified over the years and a lot more serial killers found. I hope so. I hope so. I mean, in the case of Walker County Jane Doe with no biological evidence found, I really don't think we're ever going to find the killer. But, you know, since we have remains, you would think that eventually we will be able to find

Starting point is 00:08:47 their relatives through 23 and me. It's not an easy process like people think. People think that, oh, you just take their DNA and put it into a computer and it comes up within five minutes and we can all go home, but that's not how it works. No, and Sherry's was degraded horribly. So they couldn't do her bone and teeth fragments because they were just so old. So that fragment of her brain that they had in the wax, that's all they had. And that was really degraded as well because it was originally done formaldehyde.

Starting point is 00:09:15 Yeah. So that messed the cells up terribly. but there was just enough to get something. Yeah, it's not easy. And if not done soon enough with how these remains are kept over the decades, it could come to a point where no matter how good the genealogy is, we just won't have anything left to identify these people with. It's just degraded samples.

Starting point is 00:09:38 Yeah, so hopefully sooner rather than later. But until next time, we love you. We love you. Bye.

The Misery Machine - The Walker County Jane Doe Unmasked: The Murder of Sherri Ann Jarvis

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