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E238: Dr. Cherryl Pearson
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Dr. Cherryl Pearson was a well-respected and loved pediatrician in the Memphis, Tennessee area. She was on-call the weekend of January 5th-6th, 2002 but went to watch her team, the Memphis Grizzlies, play at The Pyramid on Friday evening, January 4th. After the game, she returned home. But when her sister came over the following morning, Cherryl and her car were gone.
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Transcript
Pediatricians and Bedside Manner
00:00:00
Speaker
Of all doctors, pediatricians generally have the best bedside manner. After all, if we get scared at doctor visits concerning our own health, that fear is only magnified when we're talking about the health of our children. A good pediatrician needs to explain illness to a parent, but do so in a way that's calming to both the parent and the child. They need to have a gentle touch and a reassuring presence.
00:00:26
Speaker
The doctor at the center of our case this week was just that kind of a person. She was a comfort to so many families in good health and in bad.
The Mystery of Dr. Cheryl Lamont Pearson
00:00:36
Speaker
When she went missing, her unexpected loss left an echoing silence once filled by her warmth and compassion. This is the case of Dr. Cheryl Lamont Pearson.
Podcast Introduction and Host Note
00:01:23
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families with each case. We encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, coffee and cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:02:01
Speaker
Sleuth Hounds, I am flying solo this week since it is the start of school this week. Between my work craziness and Maggie's work craziness, we weren't able to coordinate schedules to record. So I am just going to jump right in, but not before I thank our listener, Amy, for suggesting this case to us.
Similar Disappearance Cases
00:02:24
Speaker
In last week's case, I told you about a young boy who left his girlfriend's house in the early morning hours and never made it home. His car, which was soon located, left no real clues other than an indication to his family that their son had met with foul play. This week's case is so eerily similar. Again this week, we have a missing person. Again this week, what was left behind indicated to family that something nefarious had happened.
Cheryl's Life and Career
00:02:54
Speaker
Cheryl Lamont Pearson was born on August 21, 1964 to parents Leon and Hazel Pearson, and she was the youngest of three children. When Cheryl was just a child, she was diagnosed with what was reported as, quote, severe diabetes, end quote.
00:03:12
Speaker
I don't know what is meant by the adjective severe in this instance other than perhaps what means were needed in order for her to keep her blood sugar levels in check. I do want to praise both Cheryl and her parents here because none of them saw Cheryl's medical condition as a limitation for what she could achieve.
00:03:32
Speaker
She graduated from Jackson Central Mary High School in 1982, went on to major in chemical engineering at the University of Tennessee, where she graduated in 1987, and then went on to medical school at Meharry Medical College, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, to become a pediatrician.
00:03:54
Speaker
It was a career that she seemed destined for, with her own medical journey, with her love for people, especially children, with her warm personality, with her drive, and with her inquisitive nature. Cheryl's father told NBC News reporter Rob Stafford for an article published May 11th, 2006, quote, she was outgoing, studious. She liked putting together puzzles and games that had a little mystery about them, end quote.
Cheryl's Life in Memphis
00:04:23
Speaker
However, in the early 2000s, Cheryl went from figuring out her own puzzles of symptoms to diagnoses, working as a pediatrician in the Memphis area where she had moved in the late 1990s to her own life, becoming the greatest mystery of all for her family. Now let's fast forward to that date, to 2002 and 37-year-old Cheryl's activities around the time she was last seen.
00:04:52
Speaker
By this point, Cheryl had established a reputation as a beloved pediatrician. I've seen loads of comments from people who used to take their children to her who write just how wonderful and caring Dr. Pearson was to her patients.
00:05:07
Speaker
As Cheryl left work for the weekend, she made sure that she had her pager. She was to be on call the upcoming weekend. According to a couple of media sources, Cheryl was seeing someone, but that Friday night of January 4, 2002, Cheryl was on her own.
00:05:24
Speaker
Cheryl's activities on the evening of January 4th highlight some of the most endearing parts of her character, her independence and her love of the Memphis Grizzlies, an NBA team, previously the Vancouver Grizzlies, which had just relocated to Memphis in the 2001-2002 season. Cheryl was a former basketball player herself and she loved the sport.
00:05:47
Speaker
In that first season of Memphis, the Grizzlies played in the Memphis Pyramid, nicknamed the Great American Pyramid since its pyramid shape and the size of the arena make it the 10th tallest pyramid in the world. But the Grizzlies did not perform well that first season. Up to the game on January 4, 2002, the team had won only nine games and had lost 22.
00:06:12
Speaker
The fact that Cheryl not only loved going to support the team, that she was always hopeful that there would be a win in the next game, and that she had purchased season tickets for the franchise, tells me that she was a loyal and not a fair weather person. After all, it's hard to keep up that hope in a team when you feel disappointed with those losses. But Cheryl knew they were a team new to the area. They would find the rhythm with time.
00:06:39
Speaker
On January 4th, the Grizzlies were playing the Atlanta Hawks, and fitting with how independent Cheryl was, she attended the game alone, as she had done several times in the past. At some point during the game, Cheryl had spoken with her mom and let her know that she was feeling a little light-headed.
00:06:57
Speaker
Her mom's immediate thoughts, as I'm sure yours are as well, went to Cheryl's blood sugar level. However, again, as a doctor herself and having managed her severe diabetes her entire life, I'm sure she knew just what her body needed in that moment. And I say this because Cheryl stayed for the remainder of the game, which, sadly, was a heartbreaking loss by only four points.
00:07:20
Speaker
When the game was over, Cheryl drove back to her home in Bartlett, Tennessee, about a 13-mile drive, and arrived home around 10.30 p.m. While I didn't read in any of my research whether Cheryl called her friends on her drive home or whether their visit was pre-arranged, shortly after getting to her home on daybreak drive, a couple of Cheryl's close female friends came over to her house. The three sat around talking until around 1 a.m. on January 5th.
00:07:48
Speaker
One of those friends, Andrea Fox, told a reporter for NBC News that Cheryl seemed her normal self that evening. There was nothing abnormal that stood out to her, even in hindsight.
00:08:00
Speaker
What this statement reveals is that, health-wise, Cheryl seemed to be feeling better than she had been at the game, and it shows that Cheryl wasn't worried or preoccupied about anything. In fact, quite the opposite were true. Cheryl was excited to spend the day on the fifth with her nieces and nephews. That's why her friends say they left when they did, because Cheryl wanted to get to bed to get some sleep before her nieces and nephews got there early the next morning.
00:08:28
Speaker
Fox, in an interview with Dateline, confirmed Cheryl's excitement, saying, quote, she did mention that her sister was going to work early the next morning and was going to drop off the kids. She loved those children and spent a lot of time with them. She was excited to see them the next morning, end quote.
The Day Cheryl Went Missing
00:08:47
Speaker
The next morning, just as planned, Cheryl's sister, Lorenda Hildreth, stopped by to drop off her children on her way to work. But not only was Cheryl's car not in the driveway, her sister didn't answer the door, nor was she answering her phone. This was around 7 AM on January 5th.
00:09:07
Speaker
Cheryl had always been both responsible and reliable. She knew that she was to watch the children, so it was completely out of character for her not to respond.
00:09:19
Speaker
When Lorenda alerted their parents, the family also grew concerned that maybe something had happened to Cheryl on her way home from the game. Her blood sugar level could have dropped causing her to go off road or have some sort of an accident. When calls to other friends and family turned up nothing, Lorenda called the Bartlett Police Department to report her baby sister Cheryl missing.
00:09:43
Speaker
Cheryl's parents drove to Bartlett, Tennessee to let police into their daughter's home to begin their investigation.
Investigation Begins
00:09:50
Speaker
What Cheryl's family and later law enforcement noticed first was that there was no sign of struggle in the home. It looked as though Cheryl had just stepped out and it seemed obvious that she had only intended to be gone just a couple of minutes because there in her home was her cell phone and her work pager.
00:10:10
Speaker
What stood out to investigators in addition to those details was, according to Bartlett Police Department Lieutenant Marlon Jones in an article for Action News 5 in 2012, quote, the thing that was pretty odd was that she was a type 1 diabetic. She was insulin dependent. She had an insulin pump on and some of her diabetic supplies were still at the home, end quote.
00:10:36
Speaker
Friends and family immediately got to work passing out flyers in Bartlett and in the surrounding communities. Law enforcement, understanding the urgency of gaining as much information as possible, decided to investigate Cheryl's phone records. When they did, one detail stood out to them. Cheryl's friends had left her home around 1 AM. Cheryl received and answered a phone call at 1.58 AM on January 5th.
00:11:05
Speaker
how long that call lasted is unclear. In an article for local Memphis by Katina Rankin in 2016, Bartlett Police Department Captain Tina Shaber stated, quote, the call went on for about two minutes, a little less than two minutes. We have no way of knowing what happened in that phone call, end quote. However, all of the other sources that I read stated that the call lasted no more than five seconds.
00:11:32
Speaker
But it was the source of the call that was the most confusing of all. The call hadn't come from a cell phone, or a landline, or even a business. It had originated from a payphone at a Sitco gas station only about half a mile within walking distance from Cheryl's home. When police went to the gas station to investigate, they found that not only did the gas station have no video surveillance in order to at least capture an image of whomever had made the call, but the phone itself had been wiped free of fingerprints.
00:12:07
Speaker
Obviously, a payphone would not have been widely used in 2002. They were rare in the 90s. I feel that by 2002, someone would have to have known it was there and still in working order before they used it. By 2002, a random person unfamiliar with the area wouldn't think, I bet this gas station I've never been to has a payphone.
00:12:32
Speaker
Even though the investigation into the call revealed no further clues, we know that something about the content of that call seemed to lure Cheryl from her home. We still don't know the content of that call, but if it did last for only a few seconds, someone may have urged Cheryl to hurry that someone she loved were in trouble or hurt.
00:12:55
Speaker
That may explain why her cell phone and pager as well as her medication were left behind in her home. If we're frantic, we aren't rationalizing or doing a mental checklist to make sure nothing important is left behind. Either that, or she knew she would be coming right back. She wouldn't need her medication if only gone a few minutes. She wouldn't need her pager if only gone a few minutes. If this theory is true, then whomever had called her was someone she knew and trusted.
00:13:25
Speaker
if again, the call only lasted five seconds. And that would explain why she left her home without struggle. Others who've looked into this case conjecture that maybe the call was one in which the person using the payphone didn't speak. Like the call was just a way to find out if Cheryl were home and were awake. However, if that were the case, then what would have lured Cheryl from her home?
00:13:52
Speaker
Again, there wasn't a sign of struggle. And how would she have known where to drive if the person on the other end said nothing? Of course, someone could have shown up at Cheryl's house after the phone call. Again, likely someone she knew if we don't see signs of a struggle because I seriously doubt Cheryl would have even opened the door at 2 AM if it were a stranger.
00:14:19
Speaker
Then either the situation turned tense and threatening, forcing Cheryl to her car, or there was a sense of urgency that led Cheryl to her car with this other someone. Each question, as you can see, concerning the investigation into Cheryl's disappearance only seemed to lead to more confusion. The streets, businesses, and wooded areas around Cheryl's home were searched and turned up nothing.
00:14:46
Speaker
Two days after Cheryl went missing, though, police believed that they finally had a break in the case. On January 7, 2022, Cheryl's 2001 Blue Audi was located approximately one mile from Cheryl's home. It was found at Quail Ridge apartment complex.
00:15:05
Speaker
What was odd is that this very area had previously been searched, but the vehicle hadn't been located. Had someone placed the vehicle here after that search? Residents of the apartment complex couldn't remember who had brought the car there, nor how long it had been there. Rather than it being a break in the case as a result of the new evidence from the car's discovery, both what was there and what wasn't,
00:15:35
Speaker
would perplex investigators even more. Let me start with what they did find. In the trunk of the car, police located two sets of keys, Cheryl's medical bag, which she had been using some sources said as a purse since there were several personal items in it, her tickets from the Grizzlies game the night before, and a bank envelope with $140 in cash.
00:15:59
Speaker
I'm going to pause here because I have several questions swirling in my mind as I read those details. First, I understand why the medical bag may have been in her trunk and perhaps even the tickets had maybe been thrown into the bag and could have fallen out into the trunk and maybe even the envelope of cash as well.
00:16:19
Speaker
But what I would like to know is if the bag that she had been using as a purse were closable in any way, or if it appeared that contents of the bag had spilled out. I ask because if the bag were closed or not tipped over, the tickets and the envelope of money in the trunk doesn't make logical sense to me. I know I personally, if I get cash, I immediately put it in a change purse or wallet.
00:16:46
Speaker
It's also the car keys in the trunk that really throw me off. One could argue that maybe keys were laid in the trunk in order to grab something and then before you realize that you've closed the trunk and locked the keys inside. Accidents happen. But why are there two sets of keys inside? Did someone else have the other set originally or did both sets of keys belong to Cheryl?
00:17:11
Speaker
I read that one set of keys was found in Cheryl's medical bag. Were those the car keys or the other set? Could someone have lured Cheryl from her home into their car with her just grabbing the medical bag with her keys in it and the perpetrator have gone back to her house to get Cheryl's car, throwing her purse in the trunk, maybe even leaving their own set of keys in her trunk as well? And why were there tickets plural to the Grizzlies game?
00:17:42
Speaker
All my sources said Cheryl went alone. Again, I'm curious whether the tickets were stamped or torn at the entrance or whether there was any indication that the other ticket were used. And why was her car here? Did Cheryl know someone who lived in the apartment complex? Had she met up with someone here before? Now let's talk about what they didn't find.
00:18:09
Speaker
Just as with Cheryl's home, law enforcement didn't find any sign of a struggle either within Cheryl's car or outside of it. Additionally, just as the payphone had been, Cheryl's car had been thoroughly wiped free of fingerprints so that even Cheryl's prints were not in the car.
Suspects and Dead Ends
00:18:28
Speaker
Clearly someone was trying to cover up something.
00:18:32
Speaker
Lorenda's husband, Chuck Hildreth, had a checkered past and had been arrested at least once on robbery charges. Additionally, according to local Memphis' coverage of Cheryl's case in part two by Katina Rankin, Cheryl's sister Lorenda and Lorenda's husband had been having financial problems. Because of those reasons, law enforcement seemed to zero in on Chuck as a suspect, even following up on each part of his alibi from January 4th and 5th.
00:19:02
Speaker
That alibi only muddied the waters. Asked by a Dateline reporter for law enforcement satisfaction with his alibi for the time period in question, a detective on the case, Detective Ken Lee, responded, quote, there are certain inconsistencies that are not explainable, end quote. In the article part two, The Disappearance of Dr. Cheryl Pearson by Katina Rankin, Bartlett Police Department Captain Tina Schaber,
00:19:25
Speaker
went into a bit more detail about the alibi stating, quote, he was interviewed several times. Every time that we would get something that maybe he had told us that didn't quite add up to what we had before, we would interview Ren, which is Lorenda, or interview Chuck again. It just never panned out, end quote. She continued to say of Chuck, quote, if he said he was at a store, we pulled the video to make sure he had been there.
00:19:47
Speaker
The time may have been off, so we did do our best, including making a couple trips out of town where he said he went to verify where he said he was. Some of them he was, some of them he wasn't." end quote The problem was, if not Lorenda's husband, then who?
00:20:08
Speaker
Based on what her family said, Cheryl would never have left of her own volition. Plus, she didn't even take her medication with her. According to one report, investigators spoke with Cheryl's boyfriend, for whom I could not find a name, and he was subsequently cleared due to his alibi and lack of motive. Since there was no struggle, and there was the commonly held belief that Cheryl likely knew who had done this to her, law enforcement grabbed on to the Chuck theory.
00:20:36
Speaker
and had a hard time letting go. Lieutenant Marlon Jones told Action News 5, quote, there was no evidence that he had any motive to harm her, but there was not evidence that anyone had any motive to harm her.
00:20:51
Speaker
You have a person who is an upstanding citizen by anybody's account, a very good person. No enemies, no reason for her to be missing, no reason for anybody to harm her, and she just disappeared. And there's really no leads in her disappearance. It's very frustrating." End quote.
00:21:12
Speaker
Despite the laser focus by police, Cheryl's family were not convinced that Lorenda's husband was involved. First, robbery and murder are two completely different crimes. Second, Cheryl had $140 in cash in her trunk. Police had ruled out robbery as a motive in whatever happened to Cheryl as a result of that clue alone.
00:21:35
Speaker
So why would they think that someone guilty of robbery would be to blame for Cheryl's disappearance? If Lorenda's husband were responsible, why wouldn't he have taken the cash? And even with the life insurance policy, it doesn't pay out until the person has been declared legally dead without a body that would and did take years. There would be no immediate financial benefit and the money troubles were now.
00:22:05
Speaker
Plus, some of the times and places from his alibi proved to be accurate. Maybe he was just confused with some of the other details, or maybe he had been off in his timeframe, but perhaps by a negligible amount of time in the grand scheme of things. What's more, he has never been charged with any crime related to Cheryl's disappearance. So I come back to the question, who?
00:22:34
Speaker
Who could have known Cheryl's phone number to call her from the payphone? Who could have gotten her to either drive somewhere or open her door in the early morning hours despite just telling her friends that she needed sleep before watching her nieces and nephews just a few hours later? Who knew the area enough to know there was a payphone at the nearby gas station? Who would have caused to harm Cheryl?
00:23:04
Speaker
Dr. Cheryl Pearson was declared legally dead in 2009, despite no further clues in her case and despite her remains never having been found. Cheryl's father passed away that same year, still searching for his baby girl and still looking for answers.
00:23:24
Speaker
There has been one new lead in the case in 2013 when a man who was incarcerated told law enforcement about another inmate who had provided information concerning Cheryl's case.
00:23:35
Speaker
The man told police that the other incarcerated man told him about a letter detailing what some women in Georgia had seen and what they knew concerning Dr. Pearson's disappearance. However, nothing came of this potential lead and Cheryl Pearson's case has turned cold.
00:23:55
Speaker
If alive today, Dr. Cheryl Pearson would be turning 60 years old in two short weeks. When she was last seen, she stood at five foot six inches and weighed roughly 160 pounds. She was an African-American female with dark hair and brown eyes. She had a dark birthmark on the side of her face.
00:24:15
Speaker
One unique trait was that she suffered from polydactylism, which meant that she had a small sixth finger on each hand. If you have any information concerning Dr. Cheryl Pearson's final days, memories of seeing her at the Grizzlies game, or information concerning where she may have gone after leaving home, please call the Bartlett Police Department at 901 385-5565. To everyone else, please do your part as well and share her story.
Call for Community Help
00:24:49
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
00:25:19
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.