"Little Farmer" Sherry Lynn Marler Is Still Missing.

"Sherry was always a happy little girl and that’s what I remember the most, even in my dreams." -Betty Stringfellow

Sherry Lynn Marler seemed always to be cheerful and was described as strong and outdoorsy. Her nickname was "Little Farmer because she had a passion for farming. One of her proudest achievements was that she could operate a plow.

She was a tomboy who loved Kenny Rogers’ songs. Her mother had bought her a small record player and some of his albums. Sherry loved listening to him sing. She also couldn’t wait for school to end so she could hop onto her moped to go for a ride.

Sherry was born on August 18th, 1971, to Betty and Ralph. Her parents split up when she was young, and Betty went on to marry a retired army sergeant named Ray Stringfellow. Ray became a farmer in 1979 and had a 400-acre farm where he grew crops. Sherry loved to stay out there on the farm with her stepdaddy and he would take her with him to the tractor shop and the feed store. By all accounts it seemed like Sherry had a good relationship with her family.

It was Wednesday, June 6th, 1984, before 7am when Betty headed off to work as a waitress at the Waffle House in Greenville, Alabama. One of Ray's aunts was spending the week with them, so Sherry was sleeping on the sofa in the living room that morning. As Betty opened the door to go to work, Sherry turned over. Betty thought that she had awakened her, but Sherry settled back down, and Betty went on to work. Betty said that was the last time she saw or heard from her daughter.

Not too long after Betty left, Sherry woke up as Ray headed to the kitchen to brew some coffee. It was only two months before Sherry's 13th birthday, which she anxiously awaited so that she could get a three-wheeler to replace her motorized scooter. She was also looking forward to seeing her grandmother that day as well as watching her favorite soap opera. 

Sherry was 5feet 4inches tall had brown eyes and long brown hair. She was wearing a red long-sleeved plaid flannel work shirt, faded jeans, new gray sneakers with Velcro fastenings, and a watch with a black band. It was 9:30 am and as she rode with Ray into town in his red pickup truck. Sherry followed Ray everywhere he'd go.

Ray had parked behind a furniture store in downtown Greenville. He was going to walk over to the First National Bank to discuss a farm loan. 

Sherry said she was thirsty and wanted to walk across the street to the Chevron station to get a drink out of the vending machine, so Ray pulled a dollar out of his wallet and told her to meet him back at the pickup truck. 

15 minutes later Ray had made it back to the truck, but Sherry wasn't there. He waited another 10 minutes and then started to get worried. Ray then called Betty and asked if she’d seen Sherry, thinking that maybe she had stopped by the Waffle House, but she hadn’t. Ray went searching for Sherry, but when turned fruitless, he contacted police at 11:46am and reported Sherry as missing. 

There were searches by air and on land by law enforcement and volunteers. Hundreds of acres were searched and so was an abandoned well nearby. The local police spent hundreds of man-hours combing over the fields and wooded areas of Greenville, but Sherry was nowhere to be found. There were no sightings of Sherry anywhere in town that day as well as no sightings of strangers. The investigators began to focus on the family. In any investigation authorities start out with those closest to the victim and work their way out.

Ray was the first to be questioned. He adamantly denied that he had involvement in Sherry's disappearance but agreed that it would have been difficult for a stranger to have attempted to abduct her by force and not be spotted because Sherry would have put up a fight.

Betty was questioned by police too. She had pointed to the fact that soda machines at the time did not offer change so Sherry would have had to ask someone for change for her dollar so she could get a soda out of the machine.

Ray and Betty were asked to take polygraphs which they both turned down. They thought that the police were biased against them and were angry and worried that the police weren't following other paths like they should.

Within days of Sherry vanishing, unconfirmed sightings began surfacing. One report was of a girl matching Sherry's description looking visibly distressed, as well as disheveled and "dazed" in Conely, Georgia at a truck stop with a 50-year-old man who had a husky build and a weathered complexion and crow's feet around the eyes.  It was alleged that the girl referred to him as "BJ". Allegedly they travel through Mississippi and Florida too.

Another alleged unconfirmed sighting was later that year at a mall in New Orleans.

There was also a call in 1986 allegedly from Arizona, but they hung up before the family could get any information.

Betty has said that she believes that Ray never had anything to do with Sherry's disappearance. She said that he always blamed himself. She said that on his death bed in 2003, Ray told her "Betty, I wish I could go get Sherry and bring her home to you, but I can't, because I don't know where she is"

In 2010, Betty and her family opened a restaurant called Carlisle's on Main. It was in the old Carlisle house, and they had put a sign out front that noted that it was opened in honor and memory of Sherry Lynn Marler. Betty said that they wanted to honor Sherry's memory and also to heighten people’s awareness of the reality of children missing every day in this country.

In 2013, cancer claimed the lives of Betty's brother, her sister and Ralph within three months. Betty and Ralph were engaged at the time of his death. There was also a land dispute that Betty claimed that could end up making her homeless. I don't know what the outcome of that was. She was also recovering from open heart surgery as well as had joined Team HOPE, a volunteer group that’s part of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Sherry's brother Larry spent most of his years searching for her until he passed away in 2016 age the age of 48.

To this day Sherry's whereabout remain unsolved.

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

The Greenville Police Department at 1-334-382-7461 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.