Letters from a local inmate have jolted new energy into the decades-old investigation into the disappearance of Cherrie Mahan, giving both detectives and her family a reason to look again. A Pittsburgh TV station says it will air the correspondence tonight while investigators scrutinize whether the notes contain any fresh, testable leads.
Cherrie Ann Mahan vanished after stepping off a school bus near her Winfield Township home in Butler County on February 22, 1985, when she was eight years old. She was the first child ever featured on the nationwide “Have You Seen Me?” mailers, a pioneering missing-child campaign, and the case is still classified as open. Investigators continue to urge anyone with information to come forward, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
What the Letters Say and Who Got Them
According to WPXI, the new letters were written from prison and sent to chief investigator Rick Earle as well as to Mahan’s mother. Channel 11 has said it will reveal what the inmate wrote during its 6 p.m. broadcast. Earle, who has followed the case for years, told producers he is reviewing the material and working with law enforcement to vet any details that might hold up under closer investigation.
A Case Full of Tips and a Striking Van Sketch
Over nearly forty years, investigators have chased thousands of tips. In 2011, state troopers described one specific tip as “potentially crucial,” a development covered at the time by CBS News. Even with moments of optimism like that, the trail has never definitively led to answers.
One detail has stubbornly stayed in the spotlight. Witnesses reported seeing a blue-green Dodge van with a skier and mountain mural trailing Cherrie’s school bus on the day she disappeared. That distinctive vehicle sketch has been cited again and again in case files and online records, including public case information compiled by The Doe Network.
Anonymous Tips Are Not New
These new prison letters are not the first time anonymous information has found its way to Cherrie’s family. In 2018, Cherrie’s mother received a handwritten letter signed “Pastor Justice” that claimed to identify who killed Mahan and where her remains could be found. As WPXI reported in 2019, police followed up on that lead. The searches that followed turned up no confirmed evidence, and investigators ultimately categorized the letter as one more entry in a long stream of unverified tips.
Private Searches and Cadaver Dogs
Even as official leads have ebbed and flowed, private investigators and volunteers have continued to probe properties tied to old tips. At least one search in 2025 involved cadaver dog teams, according to local coverage. The Butler Eagle reported that these dog-and-handler teams were brought in independently of state police, and that a private investigator was offering a sizable reward for information that could finally produce answers…