Pizza Delivery Turned Into a Nightmare. The Shocking Story of Sherry Eyerly 

A young woman who had recently graduated from high school vanished without a trace in the middle of her shift delivering pizzas. Police immediately jumped into action, but despite an extensive search and several promising leads, no one knew what had happened to her for more than two decades. Then, detectives uncovered one detail that had been overlooked for years, and it finally led them to the shocking truth.

Sherry Eyerly was born on December 6th, 1963 in Salem, Oregon. She was an only child, but she grew up surrounded by a large extended family, and they were all very close. From an early age, Sherry was known for being kind and upbeat. Her friends knew they could count on her whenever they needed support, and she was always there for the people she cared about.

 By the time she graduated from high school, Sherry still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life. So, instead of going straight into college, she decided to take some time off and earn her own money so she wouldn’t have to rely on her parents financially. She and one of her cousins rented an apartment together to save on expenses, and Sherry found a job delivering pizzas for Domino’s.

 But, her family wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. The job meant driving around the city alone, sometimes late at night, delivering orders to people she had never met. And this was the early 1980s, when almost everyone still paid in cash, which made delivery drivers an easy target for robbery. Sherry was also very petite.

 She had only recently turned 18, stood about 5’2, and weighed around 100 lb. For all those reasons, her family worried about her safety. But, Sherry wanted the job, and despite their concerns, she decided to take it. A few weeks later, on July 4th, 1982, Sherry got a call from her manager. She was supposed to have the day off, but it was Independence Day, and the restaurant was struggling to keep up with all the orders coming in.

 They needed extra delivery drivers, so her manager asked if she could come in for the evening shift, and Sherry agreed. She was trying to save as much money as she could, so she was always happy to pick up an extra shift when one became available. At around 9:30 that night, Sherry left the restaurant with three pizzas to deliver.

 Even though it was getting late, people all over Salem were still celebrating the 4th of July, setting off fireworks and enjoying the holiday. About half an hour later, a local priest was driving along a small road through a quiet, isolated area on the outskirts of the city, when he noticed a Domino’s delivery car pulled over on the side of the road.

 The driver’s door was wide open, the engine was still running, and several pizza boxes were lying on the ground beside the car. Not long afterward, another man stopped at the scene while driving home after watching fireworks with his children. He knew Sherry’s family well, and was aware that she worked for Domino’s, which made the situation even more concerning.

 There was no sign of the driver anywhere nearby, so the two men drove to the nearest phone and called the police to report what they had found. As soon as officers arrived at the scene, they knew something was wrong. The car had been left sitting in the road, while the pizza boxes were scattered on the ground nearby, immediately raising the possibility that whoever had been making the delivery had been attacked or abducted.

 It looked as though the person had stepped out of the car, taken out the pizzas, and then something unexpected happened almost immediately. There were no houses anywhere near that stretch of road back then, which only made the situation more suspicious. Officers also noticed that the car’s engine and headlights were still on, and the parking brake had been set.

 Everything had suggested that whoever had been driving expected to be out of the car for only a few seconds. That led police to consider the possibility that whoever was responsible had either been waiting somewhere along the road or had arrived in another vehicle. Before long, officers found several tire marks near the scene, including one that ran directly across a pizza lying on the ground.

 Someone had apparently driven over the box, and investigators wondered whether the vehicle could have belonged to whoever was responsible for the attack. Another pizza had been knocked open, and there was a clear boot print on it, adding even more weight to the theory that some kind of struggle taken place. Police also found a Domino’s employee cap near the car, and a few yards away, they discovered a name tag that read Sherry.

 There were no obvious signs of a violent struggle, such as blood, but crime scene investigators did notice one unusual detail. At first, there appeared to be another set of tire marks in the dirt beside the car. On closer inspection, though, they realized the marks had actually been made by the soles of someone’s boots dragging across the ground.

 By that point, police already had a pretty clear idea of what might have happened on that road. They believed the Domino’s employee had arrived in the isolated area with three pizzas, and that at some point, someone pulled up alongside her and claimed to be the customer who had placed the order. Sherry then set the parking brake, got out of the car, and took out the pizzas, which is when investigators believed the attack took place.

Based on the drag marks in the road, police thought the attacker may have either knocked Sherry unconscious or just dragged her toward another vehicle before driving away with her. Officers contacted the Domino’s location, and management confirmed that Sherry had been the one driving the abandoned car. Detectives then spoke with the employee who had taken her final delivery order, and that conversation gave them several important new details.

 According to the employee who took the call, the customer was a man who sounded like he was probably in his 30s or 40s. He ordered three large pizzas with extra toppings, then gave the employee an address, a phone number, and a name. He also asked if a specific female delivery driver could bring the order.

 That employee had taken the day off, however, which was ultimately why the restaurant had called Sherri in to cover the extra shift. The employee told the caller that the woman he had requested wasn’t working that night, but the man went ahead with the order anyway, and Sherri was assigned to deliver it.

 Police quickly confirmed that there were no homes at the address he had provided. At the time, that part of Salem was barely developed, so when Sherri arrived, all she would have seen was a rural road surrounded by brush and open land. The phone number the caller had given belonged to a motel not far from where Sherri’s car was found, while the name he used appeared to be completely fake.

 Investigators began to suspect that the order may have been placed either from the motel itself or from a payphone nearby. They went to the motel and checked the people staying there, but couldn’t find anyone who appeared to have any connection to Sherri’s disappearance. Crime scene technicians also tried to recover fingerprints from the payphone, but that didn’t lead anywhere, either.

 The boot print and tire mark found on the scattered pizzas weren’t much more useful. Investigators were unable to get any usable impressions from them, leaving those clues with little evidentiary value. At that point, detectives were facing a difficult situation. An 18-year-old woman had seemingly vanished from an isolated stretch of road, leaving behind almost nothing that could tell them where she had been taken or who had taken her.

Police organized a large-scale search, sending teams out to cover several miles around the area where Sherri’s car had been found, including the nearby woods and river. At the same time, they asked anyone who had been in that area that night to come forward with anything they might have seen.

 And before long, several witnesses provided information that seemed potentially useful. Because it was the 4th of July, plenty of people had been out driving around Salem that evening, including near the area where Sherry’s car was discovered. Eventually, several independent witnesses reported seeing two vehicles that caught investigators’ attention.

 A dark-colored Chevrolet Monte Carlo and an older, bright green pickup truck. Police tried to identify the owners of every but none of those efforts led to a breakthrough. Eventually, they were left with almost no solid leads. So, the only thing they could do was continue expanding the search. News of Sherry’s disappearance spread quickly throughout Salem, and a lot of volunteers joined the search.

 Her extended family, friends of the family, and complete strangers from the community spent hours combing mile after mile of the surrounding area, but no one could find any sign of her. The day after Sherry disappeared, Domino’s received a disturbing phone call. A man claimed that he had Sherry and demanded a ransom for her return, but he gave no details and offered no proof that she was actually with him or even still alive.

 He never called again, and police were unable to trace the call or get any useful information from it, leaving investigators with yet another dead end. Over the next several days, the search effort gradually began to scale back. Police simply couldn’t keep dedicating that many resources indefinitely without finding anything. Even so, they continued asking the public to come forward with anything they might know.

 And before long, one of those tips caught their attention. A few days after police released descriptions of the two vehicles witnesses had reported seeing near the area where Sherry disappeared, someone contacted investigators about the bright green pickup truck. According to the tipster, a man named Darrell Wilson owned a truck that looked very similar.

 When officers went to speak with him, they immediately noticed something suspicious. Wilson’s pickup was now brown, and the paint looked very fresh. He was brought in for questioning and admitted that the truck had previously been light green, but he had repainted it shortly after the vehicle description appeared in the news.

 Wilson insisted the timing was nothing more than a coincidence. He said he had already been planning to change the color and that it had nothing to do with Sherri’s disappearance. He also initially claimed that he had never met her, although he later changed that story and said he had seen her once at some party.

 Investigators began looking for any possible connection between Wilson and Sherri, and they soon learned that his fiance worked with Sherri’s mother. But there was another detail that made the situation even stranger. Wilson’s fiance had a 9-year-old sister who had vanished without a trace just 3 weeks after Sherri disappeared, only a short time before investigators first began looking into Wilson.

 So, while neither connection was particularly strong, police now had one man who appeared to be linked in some way to two separate disappearances. Wilson was brought in for questioning several times and answered the detectives’ questions, but when they asked him to take a polygraph test, he refused. He also claimed to have an alibi for the night Sherri disappeared.

 According to Wilson, he had gone camping with friends at a lake outside the city, and the group had spent the night there. His friends confirmed that Wilson had arrived at the lake with them. There was just one problem. No one could account for where he was between about 6:30 that evening and 3:30 the following morning. Sherri had disappeared right in the middle of that window, and the drive from the lake back to Salem took less than an hour.

That made investigators even more suspicious that Wilson could have been involved. Police obtained search warrants for his home and truck, and while crime scene technicians looked for anything that might connect him to Sherri, the case took a very unusual turn. Sherri’s parents still held out hope that their daughter might be found alive, and at some point they reached out to a Texas psychic named John Catchings who had already worked with law enforcement before.

 Catchings said that even before Sherri’s parents contacted him, he had a vision. According to him, he woke up in the middle of the night and saw the spirit of a young woman standing beside his bed. He then began seeing images of a house and a man. After reviewing information about Sherri’s case, Catchings claimed that the young woman he had seen was Sherri and that she was already dead.

 He later traveled to Oregon where local police showed him Sherri’s car and took him to Wilson’s house. Catchings immediately said it was the same house he had seen in his vision, and then claimed that Wilson was responsible for Sherri’s murder. He also described what he believed had happened during the abduction, and several parts of his account closely matched the theory investigators had already developed based on the evidence at the scene.

 But, despite all the suspicion surrounding Wilson, the searches produced nothing. Crime scene technicians found no evidence inside his truck suggesting that Sherri had ever been there, and the search of his home came up empty as well. Police brought Wilson in for another round of questioning hoping he might change his story or possibly confess.

 But instead, the case took another unexpected turn. Just hours after investigators released him, Wilson was found dead at his home, and it quickly became clear that he had done it himself. He left no note behind, and given everything that had happened, detectives found the timing deeply suspicious. They continued looking for anything that could directly connect Wilson to Sherri’s disappearance, but despite all their efforts, they never found it.

 Over the next several months, detectives continued following up on new tips, but by that point, they had very little doubt that Wilson had been involved. So, most of their efforts were focused on trying to find Sherry’s body. They never did, however, and without any new evidence, the case eventually went cold. In 2005, 23 years after Sherry disappeared, the local police department created a cold case unit, and hers was one of the first they decided to take another look at.

 The detectives began going through the files left behind by the original investigators, and quickly saw just how convinced everyone had been that Wilson was responsible. But, the new team didn’t want to rely entirely on conclusions that had been reached decades earlier, so they decided to take a fresh look at other possible suspects.

As they went through the old files, detectives found out about a series of murders that had taken place in Salem in the mid-1980s, and began to wonder whether the same man could have been responsible for Sherry’s disappearance, as well. The first murder happened on February 19th, 1984, almost 2 years after Sherry vanished.

 A 21-year-old woman named Rebecca Darlene disappeared from the store where she was working a night shift. All of her belongings were left behind, and police had almost nothing to work with. It wasn’t until a month later that Rebecca’s body was found in a river about 6 miles outside Salem. Her hands had been tied, and investigators determined that she had been strangled, but they were unable to identify her killer.

 Just a few weeks later, another young woman disappeared under similar circumstances. 18-year-old college student Katherine Redmond had left a party in her car at around 2:00 in the morning, but sometime after that, her vehicle was found abandoned in the middle of a road. Four days later, her body was discovered not far from where Rebecca had been found, leading police to suspect that the two murders were connected.

 This time the investigation quickly led police to suspect 25-year-old William Scott Smith. Several tips pointed them in his direction, including reports from witnesses who had seen a Pontiac near Catherine’s abandoned car. Smith happened to own a very similar vehicle, giving detectives a reason to take a much closer look at him.

 Then a tow truck driver contacted police with another important detail. He said Smith had called him in the middle of the night after his Pontiac ended up in a ditch, and this had happened near the same area where Catherine’s car was found. None of that was enough to prove that Smith had committed either murder, but detectives soon learned there were other reasons to take a closer look at him.

 He already had a serious criminal history involving harassment, threats, and stalking. Investigators also discovered that about a month before Rebecca was murdered, Smith had repeatedly called a 20-year-old woman in Salem and threatened to kill and sexually assault her. She eventually went to the police and Smith was arrested.

 He didn’t deny anything and was eventually sentenced to 180 days in jail. Since Smith was already in jail, detectives investigating Rebecca and Catherine’s murders decided to question him there. They urged him to confess if he was responsible, telling him it was a chance to clear his conscience, but Smith continued to deny having anything to do with either crime.

 But sometime later, his parents came to visit and told them that if he really was involved, he should tell the truth. Surprisingly, after this conversation, Smith changed his mind and agreed to a deal with prosecutors. In exchange for having some additional charges related to several thefts dropped, he confessed to both murders.

 He then described each killing in such specific detail that investigators were left with no real doubt that he was responsible. And a judge ultimately sentenced him to two life terms with no possibility of parole for at least 20 years. The cold case detectives learned that after Smith’s arrest, police had actually looked into whether he could have been involved in Sherry’s disappearance.

 At the time, however, he had provided an alibi. Smith worked as a truck driver, and he claimed that on the night Sherry was abducted, he had been working far from Salem. Based on that information, investigators had eventually ruled him out. But more than two decades later, the cold case team began to question just how solid that alibi really was.

 They dug deeper, and to their surprise, found a record showing that Smith had been stopped by a patrol officer in Silverton, a town just a short drive from Salem. The traffic stop had happened on the very same night Sherry disappeared, meaning Smith had in fact been close enough to commit the crime.

 Detectives tried to find physical evidence that could support their suspicions, but after so many years, they came up empty. So, instead, they decided to visit Smith in prison, and their first interview with him took place in late 2006. Smith denied killing Sherry, but investigators felt his denials weren’t particularly convincing. From the way he responded to their questions, they came away with the impression that he might be close to finally telling them what had happened.

The detectives also knew that despite technically being eligible for parole at some point, Smith had very little chance of ever leaving prison until he was an old man. So, they decided to offer him a deal. If he told them the truth about Sherry and explained exactly what had happened to her, they would arrange for him to be transferred to a more comfortable prison.

 Even though Smith had already confessed to two murders years earlier, detectives weren’t especially hopeful that he would accept. But to their surprise, he did. Smith admitted that he had taken part in Sherry’s abduction and murder, but said he hadn’t acted alone. According to him, there had been a second man involved, someone named Roger.

 Smith said that Sherri hadn’t actually been their intended target. He and Roger had previously seen another woman who worked as a delivery driver at the same Domino’s and had originally planned to kidnap her and hold her for ransom. They had chosen an isolated stretch of road and come up with a fake address that would lead her there.

 And once everything was set, they put the plan into motion. Roger called the restaurant and placed the order. Then specifically asked if that particular employee could make the delivery. When he was told that she had taken the day off, he and Smith were disappointed, but decided to go through with the plan anyway.

 The two men drove to the secluded road in Smith’s car and waited. When Sherri arrived, one of them waved her down and told her he was the customer who had placed the order. Sherri stopped, got out, and took the pizza boxes from her car. That was when Roger grabbed her and forced her into the vehicle. They then drove Sherri toward the river.

 Smith never said whether she had been sexually assaulted, but he admitted that at some point they abandoned their original plan to keep her alive for ransom. Instead, Smith strangled her and dumped her body into the same river where Rebecca Darlin and Katherine Redmond would later be found.

 Smith provided detectives with details that had never been released to the public. He knew the name of the Domino’s employee they had originally asked for and even remembered the extra toppings they had ordered on the pizzas. Details like these left investigators with little doubt that he was telling the truth, which meant that after 24 years, they finally had an answer to what had happened to Sherri and who was responsible.

 There was just one major problem when it came to Roger. By the time Smith confessed, his accomplice had already died of cancer several years earlier. So, he could never be brought to justice. Even so, detectives finally had the answer to what had happened to Sherry. But, the investigation also made it clear that their predecessors had overlooked the suspect who, in hindsight, deserved much more attention.

The main reason wasn’t even the alibi Smith had given them. Investigators at the time had simply become so convinced that Daryl Wilson was responsible that they focused almost entirely on him and failed to seriously consider other possibilities. In the end, Wilson turned out to have had absolutely nothing to do with Sherry’s murder.

 Smith was eventually given a third life sentence, but his story didn’t end there. Six years after his confession, in 2012, one of the detectives who had since retired was going back through the recordings and reports from Smith’s interviews when he noticed something unusual. Every once in a while, Smith seemed to mention details connected to another unsolved case without ever directly admitting that he was responsible.

 That case involved 21-year-old Terri Monroe, who had disappeared after spending an evening with her friends at a bar. Her disappearance happened back in 1981, a year before Sherry was murdered. The retired detective passed this information along to police, and when investigators went to speak with Smith again, it didn’t take long for him to confess.

 He admitted that he had abducted Terri near the bar, driven her to a river, killed her, and dumped her body there. And just as with his previous confessions, Smith provided a number of specific details that investigators believed only the killer could have known. Smith was eventually given a fourth life sentence, but even then, detectives weren’t convinced they had identified all of his victims.

They were aware that he had stalked other women and appeared to use a particular tactic when approaching them. On isolated roads, he would lightly bump his car into a woman’s vehicle, then pull over, and try to convince her to get out so they could inspect the damage. Police spoke with several women who said that Smith had tried the same thing with them, but they became suspicious, kept their doors locked, and drove away.

 That led investigators to wonder whether there may have been other women who didn’t manage to get away, and whether Smith could have been responsible for additional crimes that were never linked to him. As of today, Smith is 67 years old and remains behind bars with no realistic chance of ever being released.

 As for Sherri, her case is now considered solved, but she is still officially listed as a missing person. Investigators searched the river where Smith said he had left her, and even drained a section of it, but after so many years, they were unable to find any trace of her remains. And finally, there is one more detail about Daryl Wilson worth mentioning.

 As I said earlier, just a few weeks after Sherri disappeared, 9-year-old Danielle Good, the younger sister of a woman connected to Wilson, vanished from her home. Wilson was found dead only 3 weeks later, just hours after police questioned him again about Sherri. There has never been any evidence proving that Wilson had anything to do with Danielle’s disappearance, but now that we know he had nothing to do with Sherri’s murder, it’s hard not to wonder whether what happened to Wilson shortly afterward may have been connected to

Danielle’s case instead. Unfortunately, more than four decades later, no one knows for sure. Let me know what you think in the comments, and don’t forget to leave a like if you appreciated the video. Thanks for watching.