The mother of an 8-year-old Pennsylvania girl who has been missing since 1985 has called police about a woman claiming to be her daughter.
Cherry Mahan was last seen on Feb. 22, 1985, after getting off a school bus about 100 yards from her home in Cabot, 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Last month, nearly 40 years after her disappearance, a woman posted to a Facebook group dedicated to the girl called “Memories of Shelley Mahan.” In a post on May 23, the woman claimed to be Shelley. The claim made national headlines, but the girl’s mother says she never believed it for a second.
Cherry’s mother, Janice McKinney, posted in a Facebook group that she had contacted Pennsylvania State Police and told the Butler Eagle she believes the post is a scam.
“I have spoken to the police and they are investigating,” McKinney wrote in the public group, where there has been a lot of speculation recently about whether women are telling the truth. “This is very hard on me so please know I am watching all of this.”
Here’s what you need to know about the incident.
Woman calling herself Cherry Mahan banned from Facebook group, has her posts deleted
The woman, who went by Cherry, has been blocked from the Facebook group and her posts have been removed. Group administrator Brock Organ wrote that she had been “harassing and bullying” other members and that no one in the group, especially McKinney, should ever be subjected to such treatment.
“Some may ask, ‘But what if it’s really her?'” Organ wrote. “The answer is simple: if it was really her, she could go to the police station and arrange for a DNA test, instead of contacting people online and making aggressive allegations. That’s what any sensible person would do.”
He asked members of the group to “continue to pray for the family.”
Cherry Mahan’s Memories | Hello friends, I received a notification that a member of a group is harassing and bullying me | Facebook
Pennsylvania State Police did not respond to USA Today’s request for information Tuesday.
Officer Bertha Casey, a spokeswoman for the department, told the Butler Eagle they are investigating the woman’s claim that she is Cherry, but “we have not been in contact with her through the contact information she provided.”
The department is working with out-of-state agencies to find the woman.
Cherry Mahan’s family remembers her 39 years after her disappearance
In February, Cherry Mahan’s family marked 39 years since her disappearance, and every year McKinney says a prayer at the same spot where her daughter disappeared.
McKinney told KDKA-TV she vividly remembers the day her daughter disappeared and the conversation she had with her husband before she got off the bus.
“Leroy was like, ‘Do you want me to go down and pick her up?’ and I was like, ‘No, it’s a nice day and she wants to go (to her friend’s house) so I’ll run over the hill,’ but it never happened,” McKinney told the station.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there were few clues other than suspicions that a bright blue 1976 Dodge van painted with a mural of a mountain and a skier might be connected to the disappearance.
“It was like a black hole opened up and she fell into it,” McKinney told the station.
Authorities told the station that Mahan’s case is not considered an open case, but is “ongoing” as they are still receiving tips.
Cherry’s mother responds to allegations made by multiple women over the years
This isn’t the first woman to come forward as Cherry in the past month: KDKA-TV reports that three people have come forward as McKinney’s daughter.
“People are mean and cruel, but this has really affected me badly,” McKinney told the Butler Eagle.
When the woman’s latest allegations emerged, McKinney told the newspaper she knew immediately it wasn’t her daughter, saying she “looked nothing like Cherry.”
She still holds out hope that she will one day find out what happened to her daughter, and told the newspaper she hopes all the detectives who worked on the case will come together and reexamine everything.
“Somewhere, someone has missed something and someone knows it,” she said.
“The not knowing takes your life away,” she told KDKA-TV.
She continued: “Every single day I feel devastated and for the last 39 years this has been the hardest time of my life.”
Anyone with information about Cherry’s case is asked to call police at 724-284-8100, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at missingkids.org or Pennsylvania Crime Prevention at 1-800-4PA-TIPS (8477) or p3tips.com.
Ajane Forbes is a reporter for USA Today’s National Trends team. Ajane covers breaking news, auto recalls, crime, health, lottery and public policy. Email her at email addressInstagram, Threads, and X (Twitter).
