Content warning: discussion of murder
A while back, I was curious about unsolved crimes near my hometown of New Waverly, TX, a small town in southeast Texas. I found that story of the Walker County Jane Doe. I had the tab open on my computer for about a month. Today, I noticed the title had changed from Walker County Jane Doe to the Murder of Sherri Jarvis who was identified TODAY, 41 years after her body was found.
Sherri was from Stillwater, MN. She was murdered in 1980, and her body was found just hours after her assault and murder. When she was found, the police believe she had only been dead a few hours. Her body was found on the side of I-45, the main highway of the area, just a few miles north of Huntsville, TX. Despite their best efforts to identify her and her killer, the case went cold. Today, November 9th, 2021 Sherri has been identified! Sheriff McRae and the Walker County Sheriff's Department along with the Houston FBI office, Texas Rangers, and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children worked a company called Othram. Using familial DNA, they were finally able to bring closure to Sherri's family.
This wasn't the first attempt to use DNA to identify Sherri though. In 1999, they exhumed her body to perform updated forensic testing because forensics came a very long way between 1980 and 1999. The Center for Missing and Exploited children made several composite facial reconstructions in 2012 and 2015 in attempts to find someone that knew her.
In 2020, the Walker County Sheriff's Department contracted Othram to perform advanced DNA testing to generate new leads in the case. After multiple rounds of testing, they were able to generate a DNA profile, and using potential familial links, they were able to identify Sherri.
In an interview with one of Sherri's siblings, (unfortunately I can't find the name or exact relationship of said sibling) they said that Sherri was removed from the family home by the state when she was 13 for truancy and the family never saw her again after that.
The Walker County Sheriff's Office is continuing to investigate the circumstances that lead to her disappearance horrific murder. If you have any information, please contact them at (936) 435-2400
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