GUILTY MT - Sherry Arnold, 43, Sidney, 7 Jan 2012 - #1

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I graduated from high school with Sherry and I’d like to tell what I know. Yes, she left for her run at 6:30. She was seen by a witness at 6:40-6:45 running by the post office so she did make it out of the house in the clothes as described. Her husband and two teenage children were at home. She ran her usual route. She is very structured and followed a routine every day including days off. She is very athletic being a long time runner and swimmer and the school’s volleyball coach. The truck route is a road that is directs large trucks (semi’s etc.) so they do not congest up the main roads through town. It runs in front of house and businesses but has no stop signs or traffic signals. The speed limit on this road is 25 mph. Sherry’s shoe was found in a field next to a church. It would have been on her route, on the truck route. There would be probably no more than 100 vehicles total on any Sidney roads at this time of day. There is an irrigation ditch next to the field where the shoe was found but it contains no water and there is no snow on the ground today or the day she went missing. The population of Sidney is @ 5K but has increased a bit in the last couple years because of an oil boom in neighboring North Dakota. Sidney is 10 miles from the North Dakota border and @ 60 miles to the Canadian border. Bears and mountain lions are rarely seen here and there is no evidence of an animal attack in the area where her shoe was found. Tracking dogs were brought in but did not go beyond the shoe. Speculation is that she was taken in a vehicle because of the dog’s response. It was still dark at 6:30 am. She did not take her phone with her. Her husband first called authorities around 9am when Sherry did not return. By 11:30 they had organized the first search party. Thank you for reading this and taking an interest in Sherry. We are desperate to find her.
 
Boilly said:
I graduated from high school with Sherry and I’d like to tell what I know. Yes, she left for her run at 6:30. She was seen by a witness at 6:40-6:45 running by the post office so she did make it out of the house in the clothes as described. Her husband and two teenage children were at home. She ran her usual route. She is very structured and followed a routine every day including days off. She is very athletic being a long time runner and swimmer and the school’s volleyball coach. The truck route is a road that is directs large trucks (semi’s etc.) so they do not congest up the main roads through town. It runs in front of house and businesses but has no stop signs or traffic signals. The speed limit on this road is 25 mph. Sherry’s shoe was found in a field next to a church. It would have been on her route, on the truck route. There would be probably no more than 100 vehicles total on any Sidney roads at this time of day. There is an irrigation ditch next to the field where the shoe was found but it contains no water and there is no snow on the ground today or the day she went missing. The population of Sidney is @ 5K but has increased a bit in the last couple years because of an oil boom in neighboring North Dakota. Sidney is 10 miles from the North Dakota border and @ 60 miles to the Canadian border. Bears and mountain lions are rarely seen here and there is no evidence of an animal attack in the area where her shoe was found. Tracking dogs were brought in but did not go beyond the shoe. Speculation is that she was taken in a vehicle because of the dog’s response. It was still dark at 6:30 am. She did not take her phone with her. Her husband first called authorities around 9am when Sherry did not return. By 11:30 they had organized the first search party. Thank you for reading this and taking an interest in Sherry. We are desperate to find her.
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Thank you for the info and welcome to WS. This sounds very scary, especially if the dogs were unable to pick up a scent past where her shoe was found. Very sad to hear about that, hoping that if someone has her, they will let her go. Take care.
 
Welcome Boilly!!

Thank you very much for the insight. We always appreciate having a local to give us additional information about the case.

:welcome:
 
Very scary and prayers to her family & friends.

The way the reports are unfolding, this is how and why the search can be focused externally (outside the home).

- Witnesses other than husband see her leaving from home for run (teenage children)? [NOT CONFIRMED]
- She is seen on her running route
- The witness who sees her running is able to ID what she is wearing and it matches the description given
- Her running shoe is found along her route and positively ID'd
- Husband reports her missing by 9am, 2.5 hrs after she left, which is what a worried and concerned spouse does
- Searches in the area begin immediately because the notification of her missing has been made ASAP by the spouse. Time is of the essence in these cases and calling to report is exactly the right thing to do. The faster a search can be started, the better. Search teams started within 5 to 6 hrs.
 
Madeleine74 said:
Very scary and prayers to her family & friends.

The way the reports are unfolding, this is how and why the search can be focused externally (outside the home).

- Witnesses other than husband see her leaving from home for run (teenage children)
- She is seen on her running route
- The witness who sees her running is able to ID what she is wearing and it matches the description given
- Her running shoe is found along her route and positively ID'd
- Husband reports her missing by 9am, 2.5 hrs after she left, which is what a worried and concerned spouse does
- Searches in the area begin immediately because the notification of her missing has been made ASAP by the spouse. Time is of the essence in these cases and calling to report is exactly the right thing to do. The faster a search can be started, the better. Search teams started within 5 to 6 hrs.
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Has it been confirmed that her teenage children were awake and saw their mother before she left for her early morning run? High school students cherish the opportunity to sleep in on weekends and aren't likely to get up this early unless they have jobs or participate in non-school-related activities like club hockey, figure skating, etc. that have limited hours for practice. jmo
 
fbi now involved and being investigated as an abduction.... :-(

The Sidney Police Department has called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation for assistance in its search for missing math teacher Sherry Arnold, 43.
"There is no information that it's an abduction, but obviously that is the direction we are leading into," Chief Frank DiFonzo said Monday. "We are not going to cease the search and rescue until we cover the entire county and have done what we need to do."
FBI agents were in Sidney on Monday, and DiFonzo said the department also plans to reach out to the state Department of Criminal Investigation for help


Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...c72-5ded-9f97-13d46304d8f4.html#ixzz1j19DFPD2
 
It is not confirmed that the children saw her before she left for her run. But, she was due to take them to a sporting event when she got back. They were waiting for her and when she was overdue and didn't show to head to the game they knew something was very wrong.
 
Boilly said:
It is not confirmed that the children saw her before she left for her run. But, she was due to take them to a sporting event when she got back. They were waiting for her and when she was overdue and didn't show to head to the game they knew something was very wrong.
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Ohhh I thought I read they had seen her before her run. Well scratch that off the list then. That makes it a bit more challenging I suppose.

The police will have to determine that she did leave her home to go running. The found shoe is one clue that she did, as is a sighting. Wonder if canines were able to track her scent along her alleged running route? I know I read the canines did not find anything to follow past her shoe, but I wonder if they were able to track her scent from where she would have started her run (I guess from her home).
 
What a sad story... I've driven through Sidney (on Highway 200, if I remember right, but not the truck route that was talked about) on two separate occasions, but it was before the big oil boom. Sidney is small and quaint, and in a remote area... I think the closest larger population center is Williston, ND.

I remember rather light traffic/truck traffic, but I've heard it's really changed (especially with the truck traffic) in that area with the oil boom. I tried to look at satellite photos and Google Street View, and the truck route near the area where her shoe was found appears narrow with no sidewalks.

My thoughts are with her family and friends... Really hoping for a positive outcome with this!
 
Funny that her shoe was at the side of the road. How would her shoe get off her foot? Running shoes are a snug fit. She obviously didn't take it off herself. A runner wouldn't do that. That leaves someone else. But why throw one shoe away? You'd think a perp wouldn't want any evidence that could be linked to her found. So that leaves her tossing the shoe away - maybe as a marker, to show direction.
 
Or maybe she was stooped down, adjusting her shoe and that way was taken off guard?
 
This is from 2006 but noteworthy. One of the sitings was at 6:30 a.m.
http://www.fishingbuddy.com/sidney_mt_lion

three separate reports of a mountain lion being sighted in the area of Fifth Avenue S.W. near Johnson Park (the old tennis courts). Each report was of a solitary animal which was seen crossing Fifth Street S.W. between the well house adjacent to Johnson Park and Lone Tree Creek.
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This is from 2010. Fairview is 11.7 miles NE of Sidney.
http://www.sidneyherald.com/articles/2010/06/22/community/doc4c1be48fa2dbf404564133.txt

mountain lion was hit and injured on Highway 200 by Hay Creek outside of Fairview.
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Paulette said:
Funny that her shoe was at the side of the road. How would her shoe get off her foot? Running shoes are a snug fit. She obviously didn't take it off herself. A runner wouldn't do that. That leaves someone else. But why throw one shoe away? You'd think a perp wouldn't want any evidence that could be linked to her found. So that leaves her tossing the shoe away - maybe as a marker, to show direction.
Click to expand...

I had thought she may have lost her shoe in some sort of struggle, but in one of these links it says her shoe was found off the road, down in a ditch, which seems like maybe she either threw the shoe as a marker, as you suggested, or that whoever did this threw the shoe there......which would make me think that whatever happened to her did not happen where the shoe was found.
 
bdawk20 said:
http://www.examiner.com/missing-per...nold-missing-high-school-teacher-from-montana

This article says she was last seen leaving her house to go for a run. I thought the other link said she was seen out on her run that morning. I'd love them to clarify this....there can be a huge difference between the two. I am certainly not accusing anyone, but if she was never seen after she left the house, how can anyone be sure she ever left the house at all?
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Arnold left her home in Sidney for a run at about 6:30 a.m. Saturday. A witness reported seeing someone matching the missing woman's description that morning near where the shoe was found, Burnison said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45926069/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.TwsOC6XwseM


eta
Posted before reading Boilly's detailed post. Welcome, Boilly!
 
"There is no information that it's an abduction, but obviously that is the direction we are leading into," Chief Frank DiFonzo said Monday. "We are not going to cease the search and rescue until we cover the entire county and have done what we need to do."

Arnold left her Sidney home at 6:30 a.m. Saturday to go for a run and did not return.

Of the evidence brought back by search parties, only a shoe found Saturday was positively identified by the family as Arnold's.

The shoe was found east of the Sidney Sugars Inc. factory off Holly Street east of town, one of the areas where Arnold goes running. A witness reported seeing someone matching Arnold's description that morning near where the shoe was found, Assistant Police Chief Robert Burnison said.

Read more: http://mtstandard.com/news/state-an...b76-11e1-ac2a-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1j4PtAtwh
 
I hope she is found safe.

I don't want to be the one who brings this up, but it is eerily similar to Lori Hacking, Lacie Peterson, and most recently Nancy Cooper (all were reported to have gone out in the a.m. for a walk/run and never returned). With Nancy's case, an eye witness did say she saw Nancy out running, but the prosecution was able to convince the jury it was someone who looked like her, but wasn't her.

Hopefully this woman's husband isn't involved, but since the teenagers didn't see her leave for her run, I'm still on the fence.
 
BrownRice said:
I hope she is found safe.

I don't want to be the one who brings this up, but it is eerily similar to Lori Hacking, Lacie Peterson, and most recently Nancy Cooper (all were reported to have gone out in the a.m. for a walk/run and never returned). With Nancy's case, an eye witness did say she saw Nancy out running, but the prosecution was able to convince the jury it was someone who looked like her, but wasn't her.

Hopefully this woman's husband isn't involved, but since the teenagers didn't see her leave for her run, I'm still on the fence.
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I haven't formed an opinion on this, either. I visited the Sidney High School website and saw both Sherry's and Gary's photos, credentials, etc., and from all appearances, they have been long-time dedicated educators. Still, one never knows what goes on behind closed doors. jmo
 
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