One Dollar: The Disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler
Greenville, Alabama · June 6, 1984
WRITTEN BY:
CRIME CLUELESS
STATUS:
UNSOLVED · CASE OPEN
MISSING SINCE:
JUNE 6, 1984
AGE AT DISAPPEARANCE:
12 YEARS OLD
On the morning of June 6th, 1984, a twelve-year-old girl named Sherry Lynn Marler rode twelve miles into town with her stepfather, got handed a dollar, crossed a street, and was never seen by her family again. She wasn’t heading anywhere exciting. She just wanted a soda. The kind of errand a kid does a hundred times without thinking twice. The kind of morning that should have ended the same way it started — with her climbing back into the truck, dollar spent, ready to head home to the farm she loved.
It didn’t end that way. And forty years later, nobody has been able to fully explain why.
This is the story of Sherry Marler — nicknamed Little Farmer, beloved by her family, and one of Alabama’s most haunting cold cases.
▸ CASE AT A GLANCE
FULL NAME:
Sherry Lynn Marler
DATE OF BIRTH:
August 18, 1971
AGE MISSING:
12 years old
LAST SEEN:
June 6, 1984 — downtown Greenville, Alabama
LAST CLOTHING:
Red flannel plaid shirt, faded jeans, gray velcro sneakers, black-band watch
IDENTIFYING MARKS:
2″ scar on abdomen; wide 1″ scar on upper back near shoulder
HEIGHT / WEIGHT:
5’4″ / 100–120 lbs
CLASSIFICATION:
Non-family abduction (Charley Project)
CASE STATUS:
Open and unsolved
NAMUS:
#MP2350 · NCMEC #601811
01
Who Was Sherry?
Before we get into the morning of June 6th, you need to know who Sherry Marler actually was. In cases like this, it’s easy to let the tragedy become the whole story. But Sherry was a whole, full person before she became a cold case file.
She was born on August 18th, 1971, one of three children born to Betty and Ralph Marler. Her parents divorced when she was young, and Betty later married Ray Stringfellow — a retired Army sergeant who had traded military life for something slower and quieter: farming. The family settled on a 400-acre farm about twelve miles outside of Greenville, Alabama, in the heart of Butler County.
Sherry took to that farm like she was born for it. She famously disliked school — everyone who knew her says so without hesitation — but put her outside, near a tractor, near the land, and she came alive. She followed Ray everywhere: to the tractor shop, the feed store, every errand that had anything to do with keeping a farm running. She wasn’t just tagging along. She was learning, absorbing, building a life she already loved at twelve years old.
Her proudest achievement? She could operate a plow. It earned her a nickname that has stuck to her story ever since: Little Farmer. She was cheerful, strong, stubborn in the best possible way, and loved country music. By every account from everyone who knew her, she was a warm, loud, irreplaceable presence.
“She was such a tomboy,” her mother Betty recalled. “We had a farm and she loved to stay out there with her stepdaddy and he would take her with him to the tractor shop and the feed store.”
On the morning she disappeared, Sherry had plans for the day: she was looking forward to watching her favorite TV show and visiting her grandmother. She wasn’t running away. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She was twelve, she was happy, and she just wanted a soda.
02
The Morning of June 6th
The timeline of this morning is something investigators have returned to again and again over four decades. Every detail matters, because there are so few of them.
Betty Marler Stringfellow worked as a waitress at the Waffle House. She left for her morning shift early — around 7 a.m. — tiptoeing out of the house so she wouldn’t wake anyone. Sherry was asleep on the couch; she’d given up her bed the night before to a visiting aunt. It was a small, thoughtful thing Sherry had done without fanfare. Betty passed by her sleeping daughter, went to work, and had no idea she would never see her again.
When Sherry woke up later that morning, her stepfather Ray was getting ready to head into Greenville for errands — specifically, a stop at the First National Bank. Sherry wanted to come along, as she so often did. Ray said sure. They climbed into his red pickup truck and drove the twelve miles into town together.
~7:00 AM
Betty leaves for her Waffle House shift, tiptoeing past Sherry asleep on the couch. This is the last time she will see her daughter.
~9:00 AM
Sherry wakes and joins Ray for the drive into Greenville. They ride the twelve miles into town together.
~9:30 AM
Ray and Sherry arrive at the First National Bank downtown. Ray gives Sherry a dollar to buy a soda from the vending machine at the Chevron gas station across the street. “Meet me back at the truck.”
~9:45 AM
Ray finishes his banking and returns to the truck. Sherry is not there. She is not at the vending machine. She is not anywhere on the street. He begins to search. He calls Betty at the Waffle House — she hasn’t been there.
11:46 AM
Ray and Betty report Sherry missing to the Greenville Police Department. A search begins immediately.
What followed was one of the most extensive searches Butler County had seen — volunteers, law enforcement, and an aerial search conducted by the Crenshaw Flying Service. Missing posters went up across Greenville and neighboring counties. And they found nothing. No trace, no trail, no Sherry.
03
The Thing That Doesn’t Add Up
Here is the detail that has haunted this case from the very beginning, the one that no one has ever been able to explain away: when investigators canvassed downtown Greenville and interviewed everyone who had been out that Wednesday morning, not a single person could place Sherry Marler on that street.
Nobody saw her cross to the Chevron. Nobody saw her at the vending machine. Nobody saw her walking back. And nobody — not one person — reported seeing a stranger in town that morning.
In a town of 7,600 people where families had lived on the same land for generations, where an unfamiliar face in the hardware store would have been noticed and remembered, this is extraordinary. It is the kind of detail that changes the shape of everything that follows.
“I have a hard time believing that she was snatched off the street by a perfect stranger in Greenville.”
— POLICE CHIEF LONZO INGRAM, GREENVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT
Captain Thomas Tutchtone of the Greenville Police Department put it even more starkly: “This is the only disappearance from Greenville in my entire life.” Not a statistical anomaly. A genuine first. The kind of thing that doesn’t happen here.
So if no one saw a stranger — and no one saw Sherry — what does that mean? It means one of two things. Either whoever took her was someone she knew and trusted, someone she would have gone with voluntarily, without a fight. Or it happened so fast, so quietly, so completely, that nobody on that street registered a thing. In a small town. In broad daylight. On a Wednesday morning.
One anonymous Greenville resident said what many were thinking: “That little girl never made it into town, or else I would have seen her. Wherever she’s at, she’s dead.”
04
Ray, the Polygraph, and the Family
Naturally, investigators turned their attention first to Ray Stringfellow — the last known person to have seen Sherry alive. He was questioned extensively. At some point, police asked him to take a polygraph test.
He declined.
This is a detail that demands careful handling. Declining a polygraph is not evidence of guilt. Polygraphs are not admissible in court for good reason; many attorneys advise clients not to take them regardless of innocence. And crucially: law enforcement ultimately stated clearly that Ray was not a suspect or person of interest, clearing him even without the test.
There is also a small but documented discrepancy in Ray’s accounts of the morning. In the version he gave police, Sherry simply decided to tag along with him to town. In a separate account Betty later recalled him telling her, Sherry came running out of the house with her shoes still in her hand while Ray was already backing out of the driveway. A small difference. A detail that doesn’t resolve anything. But in a case where almost nothing is certain, small things tend to sit heavily.
What is certain is that Ray Stringfellow spent the rest of his life carrying the weight of that morning. He died in April 2003 at the age of sixty-eight, never knowing what happened to his stepdaughter. According to Betty, just before he died, he 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.”
Sherry’s biological father Ralph Marler was also investigated and cleared, though the public record contains little detail on how that process unfolded. The case is officially classified as a non-family abduction. Betty herself has reportedly harbored her own doubts about what truly happened that morning — a quiet undercurrent that has never fully resolved in the decades since.
05
The Man Called B.J.
In the months following Sherry’s disappearance, three separate witnesses came forward with reported sightings. Three people, three locations, and in every single account — the same man.
He was described consistently across all three sightings: approximately 50 years old, five-foot-eight, with a husky build, a weathered complexion, and deep crow’s feet around his eyes. One witness who saw Sherry at a truck stop in Conley, Georgia reported something that has become one of the most significant details in the entire case: she heard Sherry call the man “B.J.”
The other sightings placed her in the St. Stephen, South Carolina area near Betaw Road shortly after her disappearance, and later at a mall in New Orleans, Louisiana. In every instance, Sherry appeared noticeably upset, dazed, and disheveled. She did not look like someone who was where she wanted to be.
Three witnesses. Three locations. The same man every time. He has never been identified.
Police dismissed the sightings as unconfirmed, citing insufficient evidence. But the consistency across three independent witnesses is difficult to dismiss entirely — the same physical description, the same troubling presentation, the same unnamed man. Forty years later, the man called B.J. remains unidentified. He is the most important figure in this case, and he is still a ghost.
A notable postscript: in 2018, the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina publicly confirmed that investigators had learned Sherry was in the St. Stephen area near Betaw Road in the summer of 1983 — a year before her disappearance — when she reportedly stayed with a stepsister. The same office stated there was information she may have been spotted in that same area after she was reported missing in 1984, lending some credibility to at least one of the reported sightings.
06
Ryan Anderson and the Pig Farm
For many years, Sherry’s case was exactly what cold cases often become: a file in a cabinet, a listing on a database, a missing poster that most people had stopped looking at. Then, in 2009, a woman named Ryan Anderson started digging.
Anderson was a Greenville native who became deeply invested in what had happened to Sherry. She created a Facebook page — Sherry Lynn Marler Still Missing — and spent years conducting her own investigation, interviewing community members, building a following of thousands, and eventually coming to know Betty and Sherry’s brother Larry personally. She was not a private investigator or law enforcement. She was someone who cared, with the stubbornness and local knowledge to go places that official channels hadn’t gone.
After years of research, Anderson arrived at a theory. She believes Sherry was not taken by a random stranger. She believes Sherry was taken by someone she knew — someone connected to what Anderson describes as a multi-family network of abuse involving people from both Butler and Crenshaw counties. She further believes Sherry was murdered and that her remains were disposed of at an abandoned pig farm in Butler County.
⚠ Content warning: the following section contains references to alleged photographs of human remains. Anderson’s claims have not been independently verified and no charges have ever been filed.
Anderson located the property: a 10.7-acre plot with an abandoned concrete hog pen. She says she identified it through photographs she obtained from a family member connected to the person she believes was responsible — photographs she alleges show human remains on the farm, taken in 1984. She also claims that a photograph of Sherry was found tucked inside a Bible in an abandoned trailer on the property, allegedly discovered by Sherry’s brother Larry.
In spring 2017, Anderson and two collaborators — Becky Cobb and Melissa Conway — went to the farm and began digging. They found the old hog pen. They brought cadaver dogs. Two separate dogs alerted on what they believed were human remains. They also found what appeared to be a torn piece of children’s clothing, which they submitted to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office for DNA testing.
The result: no DNA recovered. The material was too degraded.
But it was what happened — or didn’t happen — after that submission that has become its own troubling chapter in the case. Anderson did not receive follow-up from the Sheriff’s Office. She later discovered that the evidence had sat on a shelf in the evidence room, untested, for a period of time. And separately, a photograph Anderson had obtained and handed to local law enforcement — allegedly depicting human remains — was reported to have been passed along to the FBI. When Anderson followed up with the FBI directly, they said they had never received it.
“I know exactly where she is, what happened to her, who did it, and why. But I can’t prove it.”
— RYAN ANDERSON, SHERRY LYNN MARLER STILL MISSING, NOVEMBER 2020
That post was written after more than a decade of investigation, after cadaver dogs and digging and submitted evidence and unanswered calls. Anderson believes she has found the answer. She cannot prove it.
07
The Investigation: Incompetence or Something Worse?
It is worth being honest about the pattern that emerges when you look at the handling of Sherry’s case over forty years. The Greenville Police Department had virtually no experience with missing persons cases of this nature when Sherry disappeared — the police chief himself had never seen a disappearance in Greenville in his entire life. Some of the early failures may genuinely be explained by inexperience and the limitations of 1984 investigative technology.
But the pattern does not stop in 1984. Evidence submitted to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office sat on a shelf. A photograph allegedly passed to local law enforcement never arrived at the FBI. An amateur investigator with cadaver dog confirmations and a compelling theory was left to follow up on her own submissions with no response.
It is impossible to say, from the outside, whether this represents institutional incompetence or something more deliberate. In a town where families have deep roots and interconnected histories, those two things can be indistinguishable. What can be said is that the investigative record of this case is marked, consistently, by evidence that doesn’t go where it’s supposed to go.
The Greenville Police Department remains the primary investigating agency. Berkeley County, South Carolina, has taken an active interest in certain leads. The case is officially open. As of 2025, there has been at least one reported new development on the Facebook page, the specifics of which have not been made public.
08
What Sherry Deserved
Betty Marler Stringfellow has never stopped. In the years after Sherry’s disappearance, she opened a restaurant in her daughter’s honor — Carlisle’s on Main — both as a tribute and as a way to keep the conversation alive, to remind people that missing children exist and that their families are still waiting.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her,” she said. “I wish I could see her again.”
Sherry’s brother Larry carried the search until his death in 2016. Her father Ralph, who had reconnected with Betty in the years after Sherry disappeared, passed away in 2013. The people who loved Sherry most have been leaving this world one by one, without ever knowing what happened to her.
Sherry Lynn Marler would be 53 years old today. Her body has never been found. No one has ever been charged. Her case is still open.
She crossed a street on a warm Wednesday morning in June 1984 with a dollar in her hand. She was heading for a vending machine. She had plans for the rest of the day. She was twelve, and happy, and she had no idea that the world was capable of what it did to her.
She deserved to make it back across that street.
If You Have Information
Sherry Lynn Marler has been missing since June 6, 1984. If you have any information about her disappearance, please contact:
Greenville Police Department
1-334-382-3107
NamUs Case #MP2350 · NCMEC Case #601811
Hear the Full Episode
Jenna and Laura cover every detail of Sherry’s case — the polygraph refusal, the man called B.J., the pig farm, and the evidence that disappeared — on Crime Clueless.
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Thank you for reading. Keep asking questions.
REFUSE TO BE CLUELESS, CARELESS, OR CAUGHT OFF GUARD. NOT TODAY, MURDERERS.
f you found this case interesting, you may also find the disappearance of Lars Mittank interesting. He ran out of an airport in Varna, Bulgaria and was never seen again. Read more here, or listen on Apple Podcasts,Spotify,Amazon Music,YouTube, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
You may also find Jennifer Kesse’s story as baffling as Sherry Marler’s. She disappeared as she was leaving for work. There is surveillance of someone driving and leaving her car behind, but no trace of her has ever been found. You can read about her case here, or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or any streaming platform.
The case of Lauren Spierer is another confusing and unsolved disappearance. As Lauren walked just 3 blocks home, from a friend’s house to hers, she vanished. Read more about her story here, or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or any streaming platform.
Have thoughts on this story or other cases you’d like to see highlighted? Share them with us in the comments or connect with us on social media. Together, we can ensure that stories like this one are never forgotten.
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Resources:
Databases & Official Missing Persons Records
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. (n.d.). Have you seen this child? Sherry Lynn Marler [Case #601811]. Have you seen this child? Sherry Lynn Marler
National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). (n.d.). Missing person: Sherry Lynn Marler [Case #MP2350]. U.S. Department of Justice. Missing Person / NamUs #MP2350
The Charley Project. (2004, updated August 27, 2022). Sherry Lynn Marler. Sherry Lynn Marler – The Charley Project
The Doe Network. (n.d.). Case file 215DFAL: Sherry Lynn Marler. Doe Network
News Articles
Beahm, A. (2018, September 1). South Carolina officials aiding in search for AL woman who went missing in ’84. AL.com. South Carolina officials aiding in search for AL woman who went missing in 1984
Benn, A. (1984, October 8). Disappearance of 12-year-old girl continues to baffle authorities. The Montgomery Advertiser. [Available via Newspapers.com]
Berman, M. (1986, April 23). Family hopes show will help find teenager. Birmingham Post-Herald. [Available via Newspapers.com]
Berman, M. (1986, April 23). Missing girl is still talk of town two years later. Birmingham Post-Herald. [Available via Newspapers.com]
Birmingham Post-Herald. (1986, April 25). Police receive several leads on Sherry. [Available via Newspapers.com]
Campbell, N. G. (2018, August 30). Berkeley Co. deputies seek public’s help in 1984 disappearance of Alabama girl. The Berkeley Observer. Berkeley Co. Deputies Seek Public’s Help in 1984 Disappearance of Alabama Girl
WCIV ABC News 4. (2018, August 29). Cold case: Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office reshares photo of missing child from 1984. Cold case: Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office reshares photo of missing child from 1984
Long-form Investigations & Writeups
Front Page Detectives. (2021, updated August 21, 2024). A girl going to get a soda went missing in 1984 Alabama.A 13-Year-Old Girl Went to Get a Soda and Never Returned — the Investigation Included Child Sex Rings and Hog Farms (FPD CASE VAULT)
Short, M. (2024, October 4). Sherry Marler: Alabama girl missing since 1984. Substack. Sherry Marler: Alabama girl missing since 1984
True Crime Diva. (n.d., updated December 6, 2025). The 1984 disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler.The 1984 disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler – True Crime Diva
Online Articles & Blog Posts
411gina.org. (n.d.). Missing: Sherry Lynn Marler. Sherry Lynn Marler
Miss Night Terrors. (2020, October 11). Missing: The disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler.Missing: The Disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler
Never Quit Looking. (2023, May 15). Sherry Lynn Marler is a missing child. Medium. Sherry Lynn Marler is a missing child
O’Brien, C. (2025, March 20). The disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler. Medium. The Disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler | by Charlie O’Brien | Medium
O’Hara, K. (2022, January 4). Sherry Lynn Marler simply vanished from a small Alabama town. Medium/The Mystery Box. Sherry Lynn Marler simply vanished from a small Alabama town
Odd Stops. (2022, December 21). The location where Sherry Lynn Marler went missing.The location where Sherry Lynn Marler went missing
The M Files. (2021, March 30). Missing persons case: Sherry Lynn Marler. Medium. Missing persons case: Sherry Lynn Marler
Young, N. (2023, February 21). Conspiracies, a pig farm and other theories: The disappearance of Sherry Marler.Medium. Conspiracies, a pig farm and other theories: The disappearance of Sherry Marler
Vocal Media. (n.d.). Sherry Lynn Marler simply vanished from a small Alabama town.Sherry Lynn Marler Simply Vanished from a Small Alabama Town | Criminal
Wiki & Community Databases
Unsolved Mysteries Wiki (Fandom). (n.d., updated January 9, 2026). Sherry Lynn Marler.Sherry Lynn Marler | Unsolved Mysteries Wiki
r/UnresolvedMysteries. (2020). Little update on Sherry Lynn Marler, 12 y/o. Reddit. “Little Update” on Sherry Lynn Marler, 12 yo, kidnapped in 1984 (killed and fed to hogs??) : r/UnresolvedMysteries
Podcasts
The Dark Oak Podcast. (2025, April 25). Episode 99: Where is Sherry Lynn Marler? [Audio podcast episode]. Episode 99: Where is Sherry Lynn Marler? | The Dark Oak
Murder Sisters. (2023, February 14). Episode 55: The unsolved disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler [Audio podcast episode]. Spotify. 55: The Unsolved Disappearance of Sherry Lynn Marler – Murder Sisters | Podcast on Spotify
Voices for Justice Podcast. (2023). Sherry Lynn Marler [Podcast episode transcript]. Sherry Lynn Marler
Social Media (Primary Source)
Anderson, R. W. (2020, November). Sherry Lynn Marler Still Missing [Facebook page post]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/SherryLynnMarlerStillMissing
