Chapter 38:Cheryl Bolin

 

    Cheryl Bolin was 11.  She was heading home after a sleepover with her best friend.  She was on her bike and she had a green bag of her overnight things and her rolled up sleeping bag. She and her friend had a well known routine for this trip.  They would go together down the road halfway and then her friend would turn back leaving Cheryl to go the last half alone. It was only a mile total so Cheryl was alone for just a half a mile. That’s just about the length of seven football fields. 

    Usually her parents were watching for her as she made this trip down Lake Valley Road but today they weren’t.  Her mother was in the hospital and her Dad was sick at home. They lived in a very rural area and it had always seemed very safe. They knew all their neighbors. Cheryl had made the trip before. No one can blame her parents. They did nothing wrong. There’s no one to blame but Cheryl’s killer. 

   It was August 19th 1975. Cheryl and her family lived in Monrovia, Indiana. If you head west out of Indianapolis on I-70, it will take you about 30 minutes to get to the Monrovia exit onto highway 39. Monrovia is very close to the interstate. 

  Cheryl was 4 feet 10 inches tall and had long brown hair and blue eyes.  She had on purple shorts and a white shirt. 

   Her killer might have left the interstate that day to find a girl who was alone that he could take without witnesses.  Either that or it could be that he was a local man who saw an opportunity. 

   When Cheryl did not make it home at the agreed upon time; her father began looking for her.  Soon calls were made and many people were looking.  They found her bicycle in a wooded area that lined the road she had taken. In August in Indiana the woods would be lush and green.  The wild blackberry briars would be full of berries. 

   More searches followed. Neighbors were questioned.  Tips and leads were followed.  Rumors flew. At least one newspaper reported that she had left town voluntarily with a 21 year old. Her parents were livid. Cheryl was a typical eleven year old.  She was looking forward to turning twelve, playing with her friends, future sleepovers and starting sixth grade.  She had a happy home and enjoyed her life. 

   School started. Fall came and the first cold night was torture wondering if Cheryl was warm. Halloween went by. Thanksgiving and Christmas were unbearable. 1975 became 1976. Cheryl’s twelfth birthday came and went on February 1st with no new leads and no word. Her parents had no way of knowing on that birthday that they would only have to wait another month. 

   Cheryl was found in the first week of March in the southern part of Vigo County about 45 minutes west of her hometown and about 25 minutes south of I-70 and just west of Highway 41. I lived in Terre Haute for a few years and I would take 41 down to my hometown near Evansville.  I-69 was not there in those days. I wonder if the perpetrator was traveling from Indianapolis to Evansville. There’s no way to know. 

   She was found by a group of people who were horseback riding along a country road in a cluster of trees near a small pond on the Birch Harlan farm. It could be that sitting up high on horses gave them a better view of her body than someone passing by in a car. They might have been riding in the field and approached from that direction. Either way, she was not far off the road. 

   She was not wearing the purple shorts but instead was wearing a pair of white pants with red and blue checks. She was nude from the waist up. Her sleeping bag and other belongings were scattered nearby.  Nothing is written in newspaper articles of the time about the position of her body or if her hands were tied or not. 

   Police judged that her body had been there probably from the time she went missing due to the level of decomposition. Her date of death is listed as August 19th, 1975 on her death certificate. Determining her exact cause of death was difficult. It is listed as “undetermined” on her death certificate and the reasoning for this is “soft tissue completely decomposed”.   Apparently there were no injuries to her bones that would hint at a cause of death.  She could have been stabbed, strangled or had her throat cut.  But, as she was completely skeletonized; there’s no way to know. 

   Her father took a job working with local law enforcement after her murder.  There were local suspects who were questioned and many tips came in over the years.  One suspect committed suicide by hanging himself in his barn. No one has ever been charged in Cheryl’s abduction and murder. Her killer is still being sought. 

   When people deride parents today as being too overprotective I think of kids like Cheryl Bolin and Kathy Kohm who were taken when they were so close to home. Being a little overprotective is not a bad thing in my opinion. 

    There were quite a few serial killers loose in Indiana in the 1970’s.  Steven Timothy Judy was still free.  He wouldn’t be caught until 1979 after he ended the lives of Terry Lee Chasteen and her three young children. If he wasn’t jailed in Illinois he could be a possible suspect.  

    Jeffery Hand was still in State Hospital custody in Indianapolis. He wasn’t released until October of 1976. So, it could not be him.    

     Sadly, there are many possible suspects. Those weren’t the only two. One possible suspect was Thomas Williams of Indianapolis. His DNA was linked to a vicious attack on three girls left for dead in Hancock County on the very same day as Cheryl’s abduction. These three unlucky girls were hitchhiking and were picked up by Thomas Williams. He attacked and stabbed all three and the youngest was raped. All three survived their life threatening injuries and lived to see DNA testing find their attacker.  Thomas Williams died at age 49 in a Texas prison in 1983. Could he have abducted Cheryl in Monrovia around noon, driven to Vigo County where he killed and dumped her body and made it back across the state in time to pick up these three girls on the evening of that same day?  Yes, easily.  He easily could have done that. 

     Cheryl’s killer could also be a man from out of state. I-70 in Indiana is a very busy route through central Indiana. Cars and trucks speed through with plates from all over the country.  In August the interstate would have been humming with vacation travelers, eighteen wheelers, light trucks, and small cars. At Terre Haute they could head south to Evansville or North to Chicago or continue west into Illinois and beyond. Indiana was not alone in terms of violent crimes in the 1970’s.  This was happening everywhere. 

    The fact that she was taken so close to home on a country road makes me think it was a local.  In 1984, Regina J. Pierce, from Monrovia, was murdered and dumped on the Interstate just a few miles east of Monrovia.  She had run away and made it almost all the way home. But, did she actually make it to her hometown and someone there was not happy that she had come back? Had she known a predator in her youth there in Monrovia? 

   I think Cheryl’s killer was a local man. I believe he might have been related to Regina Pierce in some way. 

    Hopefully, medical examiners and law enforcement have preserved evidence in Cheryl’s case.  Were fingerprints found on her bicycle? If her fingernails were still intact; did they scrape under the nails and save those scrapings?  Were her belongings preserved?  DNA might still be found on some of those items. 

   Her family and friends deserve to know.  Her life was taken from her and her future was stolen.  We never know all that the world lost when someone is ripped away like this. 

  Her family has waited a long time for answers. 

   Her case is still open and still unsolved. 

   If you have information about Cheryl Bolin or Regina J. Pierce please call Crime Stoppers at (317) 262-8477.