I'm sitting at home watching the KDKA TV news when they report on this new break in the Cherrie Mahan case. One interesting thing in the report is how the reporter emphasized that there were other vehicles at the bus stop that day, including a small blue car. That led me back to here, and what I posted online last year, where I said the same thing.
The good thing about a new investigator is that you have a fresh pair of eyes. There may have been something that was simply missed, or not recognized, that may hold the key to the case. Or perhaps something we said here spooked someone into going to the state police. Either way, I think this is a credible lead that may pan out, and I am pretty excited about it.
If you are interested in this case, take a look at the news reports on Google news that you can find, from February 1985 on. That was the basis for what I posted last year. Remember that these were the Pgh papers on the case, who covered it as extensively as the local Valley News Dispatch and Butler Eagle. But it still wasn't the local paper.
I think the key is at the bus stop itself, and who or what saw anything. For example, a kid on the bus described a picture on the back of the van, but if the van was following the bus with him in it, how could he see the back? And no one mentions the blue car there after the first week of Cherrie's disappearance. And the last break in the case, 1990, was when someone a few miles down the road that owned a blue car was arrested for molesting someone. However, he was cleared as a suspect at that point.
When this is solved, I think it will come down to someone at the bus stop seeing what happened, or someone that lives on the path to that spot. I don't think the family was involved, but the person or persons who did this knew them or of them. I wouldn't be suprised if there wasn't ever a van, leading on a 25 year old goose chase, and unfortunately I do not think Cherrie is still alive. But I do know that God willing, this will be solved.
