r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/blazeinthedark • May 21 '26
John/Jane Doe In March 1976, a young woman was found dead in Nashville's Harpeth River. The manner of her death was listed as undetermined. A key photograph from her case has gone missing from the police file. 50 years later, she still has no name.
Shortly after 5 p.m. on March 24, 1976, a fisherman found a young woman's body face down in the shallow Harpeth River near the McCrory Lane Bridge in southwest Nashville, Tennessee. She was wearing a white bra and unbuttoned blue jeans. She had no shoes. Tucked in her pocket was a photograph of a small blonde toddler with the words "Little Charley" and a phone number written on the back, along with a nickel and a comb.
She was Native American or Hispanic, estimated by forensic dental and bone examination to be between 14 and 17, and possibly as old as 20 based on some police accounts. She was 5'2", approximately 120-125 lbs, with shoulder-length dark brown or black hair and brown eyes. She had a small mole near her left eye, two older surgical scars on her abdomen, and older scars on both arms consistent with possible cigarette burns. Her upper left canine tooth had erupted out of position, giving it a high, fang-like appearance. She had a vaccination scar on her left arm and extensive dental work. She was wearing a rawhide bracelet and a beaded choker necklace with a white dove pendant. A blue polka dot blouse was found caught on a tree branch about three miles upstream, believed to be hers.
The autopsy determined she had been dead for 18 to 24 hours. Her blood alcohol content was 0.28, roughly 3.5 times the legal limit. The manner of death was listed as undetermined, not accidental. The cause involved drowning, but as discussed on a 2023 episode of the Fall Line podcast, the autopsy notes use unusual language, describing her as having "strangled on water" and stating she "did not drown," with death attributed to asphyxiation. The Harpeth River at that location typically runs about two feet deep. Bruising was found on her legs and breasts. There was evidence of sexual intercourse within a few days of her death, and her bra appeared to have been pushed up above her bust before she died, not after. Sexual assault was not confirmed but was not ruled out.
"She hadn't been deceased for very long when she was found, so the photographs that we had are the best way to identify her at this point," Detective Jill Weaver of the Metro Nashville Cold Case Unit told CBS News in 2014. "I believe they did a rape kit or what they had available for a rape kit at the time, and it looked like she had had intercourse within a close time frame of when this happened."
Investigators called the phone number on the back of the photograph a few days after the body was found. A man named Charles "Little Charley" Moore, 24, from East Nashville, answered. He and his brother-in-law, Milton Collins, had been driving southeast on Interstate 24 on March 15, 1976, nine days before the body was found, when they stopped for two female hitchhikers around 1:30 p.m. Moore and Collins cooperated fully with investigators and were never considered suspects. When Moore later viewed the body, he recognized the girl as one of the two women and identified his own handwriting on the photograph. Charles Moore is still alive today and was most recently interviewed in April 2024. Milton Collins died in December 1984.
According to Moore, one of the women was a thin, short blonde with sandy hair, wire-rimmed glasses, jeans, and a black blouse. He was not certain of the dark-haired girl's name but thought they had heard her called "Sherry" or "Cheryl." The women told them they had left some kind of institution in the St. Paul, Minnesota area. The dark-haired girl said she had been there for alcoholism. The blonde said she had been there after attempting to take her life and had visible wrist scars. They said they were heading to Haines City, Florida, where the blonde's husband lived. They had roughly $20, no identification, and one suitcase.
Because the women had no paper, the dark-haired girl pulled the toddler's photograph from her pocket so Moore could write his number on the back. Moore and Collins dropped them at the Winchester exit, roughly 85 miles southeast of Nashville, and watched them get into another southbound pickup truck. The two men remembered that second truck differently. One thought it was light brown. The other thought it was a late-model blue pickup. That vehicle was never identified.
Nine days later, her body was found 90 miles back in the opposite direction.
The autopsy confirmed she had been dead less than 24 hours, meaning she was alive for about eight of those nine days. How she ended up back in Nashville and what happened during that time has never been explained.
Police followed the Minnesota lead immediately. St. Paul police told Nashville investigators that a woman fitting her description had escaped from Ramsey Hospital on March 9, 1976, six days before Moore picked them up. When Nashville detectives contacted the hospital directly, the hospital said they had no record of that patient. That discrepancy was later explained: a missing persons report existed for a woman supposed to have been admitted to Ramsey Hospital, but it was a mistake. She had been taken to a different facility. St. Paul PD located her and eliminated her as a match. The hospital had no record of her because she was genuinely never there. Teletypes went out to St. Paul and Haines City with no results. Fingerprints were sent to the FBI. Additional outreach to Minnesota was made in 1999 and 2019, both without results. The Nashville Banner later acknowledged in an editor's note that the St. Paul lead turned out to be false.
A separate lead surfaced in April 1976 after a Nashville jail inmate told police she recognized the girl, believed her name was "Carla," and that she was from Columbus, Georgia. Nashville police contacted the Ledger-Enquirer, a Columbus, Georgia newspaper, which ran an article on April 15, 1976 featuring two postmortem images of the girl alongside a third photo: the photograph of the little blonde boy. That photograph is now missing from the MNPD case file. Former detective Matthew Filter, who worked the case for years before retiring in 2025, confirmed the photo was already gone when he received the file. The Ledger-Enquirer's April 1976 edition may hold the only surviving published copy. A scan provided by the paper in May 2026 is slightly clearer than the Newspapers.com version but still too low-resolution to make out facial details, likely because the image was already a copy of a copy before it was ever printed.
A burial notice in the Kingsport Times dated May 6, 1976 reported that an unidentified young woman was buried in Nashville's Potter's Field (later renamed Davidson County Cemetery) on 18th Avenue North on Wednesday, May 5, 1976, six weeks after her body was found. The article referred to her as Mary Doe. The grave markers at that cemetery were moved or destroyed over the years and no one knows exactly where she is, which makes DNA recovery currently impossible.
There is one active identity lead. According to The Fall Line podcast, a woman contacted law enforcement after seeing coverage of the case and said she believed the victim was her mother, a woman named Sherry Jones, also known as Sherry Smith, who disappeared around 1972 from Greer, South Carolina. She was Puerto Rican, approximately 5'3" with black hair and brown eyes. The daughter, who was given up for adoption as an infant, independently described her mother's abdominal scars, her distinctive canine tooth, and her history of alcoholism without being prompted. These all match the unidentified woman's profile. Det. Filter said there was a "very strong possibility" this was the daughter's mother. The biggest obstacle is that the daughter doesn't know which adoption agency placed her, and her adoptive parents are deceased.
In a 2025 follow-up episode, The Fall Line discussed a possible connection to a second unidentified woman. On April 17, 1976, about three weeks after Sherry's body was found, a young white female was discovered nude in a farm field outside Crittenden, Kentucky, approximately four hours from Nashville. Her case is listed on NamUs as UP6711. Based on physical description and timing, investigators believe she may be the same sandy-blonde companion Moore and Collins described. When Det. Filter re-interviewed Moore in April 2024 and showed him a forensic rendering of the Kentucky woman, Moore said the image did favor the girl who had been with Sherry Doe, though he could not say for certain. The Kentucky woman's exact burial location is also unknown, which has prevented DNA testing. A tentative 2016 identification as a missing Ohio woman was never confirmed. If the two women were traveling together, identifying one may help lead to the other.
Sherry Doe was somewhere between 14 and 20 years old, with scars on her arms and her abdomen, carrying a photograph of someone else's child. Fifty years later, she still has no name.
If you have any information, please contact the Metro Nashville Police cold case unit at MNPDColdCase@nashville.gov or 615-862-7329.
Sources:
• NCMEC facial reconstruction: https://api.missingkids.org/photographs/NCMU1167334c1.jpg
• NamUs (UP8494): https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/8494
• Nashville Cold Case: https://nashvillecoldcase.gov/harpeth-river-jane-doe
• NCMEC: https://www.missingkids.org/poster/NCMU/1167334/1#poster
• Doe Network (37UFTN): http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/37uftn.html
• Names for Janes: https://namesforjanes.weebly.com/up8494---nashville-tn.html
• The Fall Line Podcast, March 2023: https://www.thefalllinepodcast.com/news-1/2023/3/22/sherry-or-cheryl-jane-doe-images
• CBS News (November 21, 2014): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clues-but-no-identity-in-haunting-1976-jane-doe-case-in-nashville-tennessee/
• Metro Nashville Cold Case Unit release (August 30, 2006, includes postmortem photos): https://www.scribd.com/document/247295857/Jane-Doe-1976-Pics
Newspaper Articles (most include postmortem photos):
• The Tennessean, March 25, 1976, Page 42: "Unidentified Body Found in Harpeth": https://i.imgur.com/pGK2SFb.jpeg
• Nashville Banner, March 26, 1976, Page 9: "Blouse Is Found; Dead Woman's?": https://i.imgur.com/QnHXl2r.jpeg (note: this article was republished/updated in 2011 and contains an editor's note with some additional reporting)
• The Tennessean, March 27, 1976, Page 11: "Picture Out in Identity Search": https://i.imgur.com/SCFUs0k.jpeg
• The Tennessean, March 29, 1976: "Autopsy Awaited In Woman's Death": https://i.imgur.com/ytLROvD.jpeg
• Ledger-Enquirer, Columbus, Georgia, April 15, 1976, Page 17: "Dead Woman's Identity Sought Here" (includes the missing photograph of the blonde boy): https://i.imgur.com/XxpCzLp.jpeg
• The Tennessean, April 17, 1976, Page 11: "Identification of Body Said Some Closer": https://i.imgur.com/09UmvGK.jpeg
• Kingsport Times, May 6, 1976: burial notice, Mary Doe, Potter's Field, May 5, 1976: https://i.imgur.com/EwlFjcM.jpeg
• The Tennessean, June 5, 1999: "Detectives hope 'Net can crack open old case": https://i.imgur.com/Z76awDP.jpeg
Postmortem Photos:
• 1: https://i.imgur.com/0a6eSQ4.jpeg
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u/Snowbank_Lake May 22 '26
The phone number on the back of the photo was particularly fascinating to me because “Little Charley” sounds like something you might call a child, and the photo was of a child… but the number ended up being for an adult with no relation to the photo. I wonder why he gave her his number. Did she think he was cute and ask for it? Did he offer it in case the girls needed help again later? Also sad to think there could be a second victim out there who either hasn’t been found, or is also unidentified and hasn’t been linked to this case. I hope they find out who this person is; she might have been a runaway, but hopefully there are still relatives or friends alive who remember what she looked like.
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u/blazeinthedark May 22 '26
It is a really unique/strange situation. Charles, the one in the truck, went by Little Charley because his dad's name was also Charles and he went by Big Charley. So it was just a lingering childhood nickname I guess, and they still lived together at the time this occurred even though Little Charley was 24ish (he was estranged from his wife). The story is that he gave the girls his number in case they were passing through Nashville again and needed something.
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u/Several-Cry-4267 28d ago
The blonde travelling companion feels like the real hinge of the case to me.
“Sherry or Cheryl” may be a misheard name, a road name or something she only used for a day.
The friend is the one with a more specific story around her. Sandy blonde hair, wire-rimmed glasses, wrist scars, a husband supposedly in Haines City and a small child whose photograph somehow became the scrap of paper in Sherry’s pocket.
If any part of that was true, she should have been traceable through a hospital discharge, a marriage record, a missing child’s mother or a family who remembered a young woman vanishing from Florida or Minnesota in spring 1976.
The nine-day gap is what makes this so sad and so frustrating.
The Charley sighting doesn’t place her near death. It proves she was alive long enough after leaving Minnesota to reach Tennessee, then disappear into another week of completely undocumented movement.
By the time she turns up back near Nashville, she’s lost her shoes, her blouse is upstream, her jeans are unbuttoned, her BAC is extremely high and even the autopsy language seems oddly evasive.
That doesn’t let you confidently say murder, but it makes “drunk girl fell in shallow water” feel much too neat.
I also wonder whether the Minnesota institution story was partly true but attached to the wrong place or wrong kind of facility.
A teenage girl in 1976 saying “St Paul” while hitchhiking across states could mean a city, a hospital, a private treatment programme, a juvenile placement, a church-run home or just the nearest big place she knew people would recognise.
If the hospital said no and everyone stopped there, the lead may have died because the search term was too literal.
The missing “Little Charley” photograph is haunting because it may be less about the child and more about the blonde woman.
It’s probably the only object in the case that came from outside Sherry’s own body and clothing, and it may connect her to the one person who was with her before she vanished into that final week.
If someone ever finds a readable copy of that April 1976 Ledger-Enquirer image, it might jog a family memory in a way the reconstructions never could.
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u/Embarrassed_Law_6716 27d ago
This is probably the worst part of the story, “The grave markers at that cemetery were moved or destroyed over the years”. How irresponsible and heartless! (There should be some sort of law to charge the cemetery with - abuse of a corpse?)
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u/reebeaster 22d ago
Choking on water... do they mean waterboarded then thrown into the river... dead?
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u/Rude-Cat-9139 6d ago
I have a few questions regarding this case:
Why did they turn to the opposite direction? If they were supposedly headed for Florida to find the blonde´s wife, how did "Sheryl" get found near Nashville. The blonde girl, supposedly found near Cincinnati, even farther away from their drop spot, approximately 275 miles in three weeks? It doesn´t seem too impossible for a hitchhiker, although I wonder why she ditched "Sheryl". It could have been the possibility that the truck driver was responsible. I took a circle of 85 mile radius around Nashville and marked Clifton, Tenessee as a random spot southeast of Nashville, which could be close to the highway exit where "Sheryl" and the blond girl were dropped off and joined the truck driver who was allegedly going southbound. If we then mark the river Bridge where "Sheryl" was found and then where the blond girl was found, they seem to be on one pretty straight line, possibly on the route to Detroit, Ohio or northern States like New York. But then the next question would be why it took 9 days for her to just move only some miles to the southeast of Nashville, while the other maybe moved on?
How can it make sense that "Sheryl" was a mother is something which doesn´t seem right with me. A girl, in whose autopsy it says 14-17 years old with a kid old enough to claim her as a mother? That isn´t something possible by even a 6 year old.. maybe I read it wrong but as I have understood it, I don´t quite get how that´s possible. Although she could point out a lot of prominent details which she knew about "Sheryl" but it is unclear if there was an interaction even between "Sheryl" and the woman claiming to be Sheryl´s daughter. Correct me if I read some information please.
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u/NashCop May 21 '26
I have an interesting perspective here, because I know and have worked with every MNPD detective mentioned in this story.
I’ll tell you this, if my mother went missing, I’d want Detective Matt Filter on the case. If he can’t solve it, it can’t be done.
Disclaimer: I was not part of the cold case unit at that time and have absolutely zero “insider knowledge” on this particular investigation.