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
Sherry Melissa Eyerly
Eyerly, date, approximate 1982; William Scott Smith, date, approximate 2007
Date Missing 07/04/1982
Missing From
Salem, Oregon
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 12/06/1963 (58)
Age 18 years old
Height and Weight 5'2, 100 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A red, white and blue Domino's Pizza shirt and blue jeans.
Associated Vehicle(s) Domino's Pizza delivery van (accounted for); Lime green pickup truck
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Eyerly has a one-inch scar on her right eyebrow, a one-inch scar under her chin, an eight-inch surgical scar on her lower spine, and the initials "TB" tattooed between her left thumb and forefinger.
Details of Disappearance Eyerly had a part-time job delivering pizzas for a Domino's Pizza franchise in Salem, Oregon in 1982. She had just graduated from Sprague High School and was living with a cousin in an apartment in south Salem. She was called into work in on July 4, 1982.
Eyerly left work at 9:30 p.m. that day to deliver a pizza to an address on Riverhaven Drive south, near Brown Island Road, in a remote area of Salem. She has never been heard from again.
Eyerly's pizza delivery van was found abandoned later that evening. The parking brake was set, the door was open, three large boxes of pizza lay on the ground, and Eyerly's hat lay nearby. There was no sign of a struggle, however.
Police determined that the address Eyerly was supposed to go to was fictitious. The person who called in the delivery had also given a false name. The call had been placed from a hotel in Salem.
The day after Eyerly's disappearance, someone placed a call to the Domino's Pizza where she worked, demanding a ransom for her safe return. The caller did not communicate with them again, however, and nobody ever attempted to collect any money.
Darrell J. Wilson was classified as a suspect in Eyerly's for many years. He committed suicide a month after her disappearance, just hours after being questioned by police about it. He had at first denied knowing Eyerly but later admitted being acquainted with her. He drove a lime-green pickup truck similar to a vehicle that was seen near the site of Eyerly's disappearance shortly before she vanished.
After her disappearance, Wilson painted the truck brown. He was camping at Elkhorn Lake, thirty-four miles east of Salem, the night Eyerly disappeared, but he was gone from the campsite between 6:30 p.m. on July 4 and 3:30 a.m. on July 5. Authorities searched his vehicle for physical evidence connecting him to Eyerly's , but found nothing.
Later events convinced police he was not involved in her disappearance.
In December 2007, authorities announced William Scott Smith had pleaded guilty to murder in Eyerly's . A photograph of Smith is posted with this summary. He is already serving two life in prison for the abduction, rape and strangulation murders of two Salem women; his guilty plea in Eyerly's presumed death means another life sentence will be added.
He said that he and an accomplice, Roger Noseff, had planned to abduct another female Domino's Pizza worker and hold her for ransom, but the woman was not working that night and they kidnapped Eyerly instead. He stated he strangled her to death afterwards.
Smith said it was Noseff who made the ransom call to Domino's. Noseff died of cancer in 2003 and was never charged in Eyerly's .
Smith said he dumped Eyerly's body the Pudding River, which is also where he placed the remains of his other two victims. Searches of the area turned up nothing, but the Pudding River has flooded many times since 1982 and any evidence may have been lost.
Eyerly's body has never been located, but foul play is suspected in her due to the circumstances involved.
Investigating Agency
Marion County Sheriff's Office
503-540-8096
Other
Oregon Missing Children and Adults
The Statesman Journal
KATU 2
NamUs
Unsolved Mysteries Wiki
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
