The Vanishing of Sherry Ballard Barnes

 The Vanishing of Sherry Ballard Barnes

On a frigid January day in 1979, 25-year-old Sherry Ballard Barnes finished her shift at the city bus station in Lexington, Kentucky and set off to pick up her three young sons from her mother’s house. She was driving a borrowed brown Plymouth Satellite as her car was in the shop. But Sherry never arrived at her destination that evening. What transpired for the young mother has remained an agonizing mystery for over four decades.

When Sherry’s Plymouth was discovered abandoned on a store parking lot off Winchester Road the next morning, with her wallet and ID left behind, ominous theories emerged about her disappearance. One especially chilling explanation came from a self-proclaimed psychic who walked into the police station unsolicited with a vision – that Sherry had car trouble, pulled over, and was abducted by several men. While speculative, such conjectures planted seeds that something sinister had taken place.

As investigators searched for leads on Sherry’s whereabouts, they encountered frustratingly few clues about this mystifying case. Her husband John had been in Florida for work training when she vanished, eliminating him as a suspect. Canvasing local repair shops, another abandoned vehicle, and even a lake during those critical first weeks unearthed nothing substantial. With no signs of struggle or eyewitnesses near where Sherry was last seen, detectives struggled to determine if she had met with foul play or fled of her own accord.

Anguished by her daughter's disappearance, Sherry’s mother delivered wrenching pleas before news cameras for any information that could send the young mother back to her three boys – John Jr, Christopher, and Anthony – who ached with uncertainty. As weeks turned into months with no breaks, comfort remained beyond reach for Sherry's family trapped in the torturous void of not knowing.

While largely forgotten today outside her loved ones still desperate for answers, Sherry’s disappearance has recently resurfaced in true crime spheres. Amateur internet sleuths and theorists debate if her case could be connected to other missing women and unsolved deaths around the region in that era. Yet without evidence or promising leads after so many years, the investigators who poured themselves into this mystery back in 1979 have long retired. And the chances of uncovering what truly happened seemingly diminish further from reach with each passing year.

Still, until Sherry is found, her family continues clinging to that one word allowing them to persevere: hope. For discovering the truth about her fate, no matter how painful, would at least begin mending the decades-long open wound that one January night in 1979 left behind. Wherever Sherry Ballard Barnes may be, the candles remain lit for a daughter, sister, mother and friend lost for far too long – but never forgotten.