Resources for Missing Persons

According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day. Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends. Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.

Missing Person Photos

Robin Ann Kerry






Robin, date, approximate 1991; Julie Kerry
Date Missing 04/05/1991
Missing From
St. Louis, Missouri
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 01/27/1972 (50)
Age 19 years old
Height and Weight 5'0, 98 pounds
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, green eyes. Robin's ears are pierced. She is of Lebanese and Puerto Rican descent.
Details of Disappearance Robin was last seen on the Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri at 11:25 p.m. on April 5, 1991. The bridge spans the Mississippi River at the Missouri/Illinois state line.
Robin and her 20-year-old sister, Julie Ann Kerry, had taken a visiting 19-year-old cousin from Maryland, Thomas Cummins, to the bridge to show him a graffiti poem they had painted there several years earlier. A photograph of Julie is posted with this summary.
Several hours later, Thomas contacted police and told them four men had attacked him and his cousins, robbed him, raped the women and pushed them off the bridge into the river. Thomas then jumped off the bridge after being ordered to do so by the attackers.
He saw Julie in the water, still alive, but they became separated and he never saw her or Robin again. He was able to swim to shore and get help. Julie's body was recovered in Caruthersville, Missouri several weeks later, but Robin's remains were never located.
Authorities initially suspected Thomas had been responsible for the Kerry sisters' deaths and that he made up the story about the other men to cover up his own crime. He failed a polygraph shortly after making his initial report. Investigators theorized that Julie had accidentally fallen off the bridge while resisting Thomas's sexual advances, and Robin jumped in to save her, and both of them drowned.
Thomas was charged with murdering his cousins, but he was quickly released for lack of evidence, and the investigation turned in another direction. He later won a settlement against the St. Louis police department for wrongful interrogation techniques.
Marlin Gray, Daniel Winfrey, Reginald Clemons, and Clemons's cousin, Antonio D. Richardson, were subsequently convicted of raping and murdering Robin and Julie and robbing Thomas. His belongings were found in their possession after their arrests. All four defendants confessed to the crime, and their stories were consistent with Thomas's version of events, but three of them later recanted.
Winfrey, who was 15 years old at the time of the murders and the only attacker who did not participate in the rapes, took a plea bargain and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his testimony against the others.
While he was in prison, he wrote a letter to the Kerry family apologizing for his role in the crimes. He was paroled in 2007, after serving half his sentence, but was subsequently returned to prison for parole violations.
The other three defendants were sentenced to death. Gray was executed in October 2005. Richardson's sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2005. Clemons spent more than twenty years on death row, then his conviction was overturned after a judge decided his confession was coerced and excluded it from evidence.
In December 2017, Clemons admitted his guilt in court and pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of rape and one count of first-degree robbery and was sentenced to five consecutive of life in prison.
Both Robin and Julie were students at the University of Missouri at St. Louis in 1991; Julie was an English major. Foul play is suspected in Robin's due to the circumstances involved. Thomas's sister, Jeanine Cummins, wrote a book about her cousins' murders called A Rip in Heaven.
Investigating Agency
Saint Louis Police Department
314-231-1212
Other
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Missouri's Death Row
Pro Death Penalty
KSDK NewsChannel 5
The Kansas City Star
A Rip in Heaven: a Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath
A Rip in Heaven
The St. Louis American
CBS St. Louis
FOX 2 St. Louis
Jeaning Cummins's Facebook Page

Missing Person Photos

A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe. By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends. A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.

Resources for Missing Persons

According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day. Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends. Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.

Missing Person Photos