According to the National Crime Information Center, roughly half a million people are reported missing every year in the U.S.
While many of those cases are resolved quickly, tens of thousands remain active — and unsolved — for decades.
Last year, nearly 10,000 people were reported missing in Missouri. By year’s end, just over 100 were still missing.
Scott County, in southeastern Missouri, has a population of about 40,000 people.
It has five active missing persons cases.
These are their stories.
Timarius Wiley
Nineteen-year-old Timarius Wiley was last seen on April 17 in Sikeston. He has brown eyes, stands 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds.
Sikeston Public Safety Investigator Matt Cotner told “Dateline” he spoke with the detective on the case, who said Timarius reportedly has “been seen and has been in the homes of family members in Charleston, MO.” However, authorities have not been able to confirm that, and the case is still open.
Cotner encourages anyone with information about Timarius Wiley’s whereabouts to contact the Public Safety Department at 573-471-6200.
Shyann Morrison
Shyann Morrison was last seen at Quick Chek II, a gas station in Sikeston, on Feb. 6, 2021. Shyann, then 21, was last seen wearing a red fur-trimmed jacket, black pants and brown boots. It is believed she may have been on her way to Texas.
Cotner is also working on Shyann’s case. “The biggest challenge is, like with any missing person case, there’s so much unknown,” he told “Dateline.”
Cotner said investigators have conducted many interviews with persons of interest. They have also used computer voice stress analysis tests, which measure involuntary stress in the voice, as well as cellphone tower data obtained through search warrants, triangulation techniques and cadaver dogs.
Despite those efforts, Cotner said, piecing together what happened to Shyann has been difficult. Over time, information gathered through interviews, search warrants and tips from people connected to the case has helped narrow the focus. “Some people that are in the circle of the people we suspect to be involved have led us to some, um, good tips,” he said.
“One of the people that we’re looking at as either being involved or knowing exactly what happened, that person — after a long time of not being able to find that person and denying any knowledge — eventually kind of broke down and gave us, you know, kind of a good explanation of events,” Cotner said.
He said information obtained through search warrants also helped investigators identify potential suspects. “We got a very, very good idea of, you know, who we’re kinda looking for,” he said. “We just haven’t been able to make that leap yet.”
He added that investigators have been able to weed out misinformation and gain clarity despite what he described as the “lies and the misdirections that we were being told as cover-ups.”
Shyann is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds. She would be 26 years old today.
If anyone has information about Shyann Morrison’s whereabouts, please contact the Sikeston Public Safety Department at 573-471-6200.
David Todd
David Todd was last seen by his mother at his Scott City residence on Dec. 22, 2020. According to Scott County Sheriff Derick Wheetley, the truck driver, then 55, was last seen by his employer the next day. On Dec. 28, David’s mother reported him missing.
Wheetley told “Dateline” that on Dec. 23, there was a car crash near Highway 61 and Azalea Street in Scott County. The vehicle crossed the center line, ran off the right side of the roadway and struck a tree. Wheetley provided the incident report, which says David Todd’s employer had lent him a white Ford F-150, which matched the description of the vehicle towed from the scene of the accident. Wheetley said authorities can’t confirm David was driving the vehicle at the time, but the report says he lives roughly a mile from the crash site. “He was never found by that vehicle or in that vehicle,” Wheetley said. “He hasn’t been seen since that accident.”
According to the incident report, David’s mother told detectives that her son had been involved in a car accident about a decade before and that he suffered “from memory loss and at times, a limited mental capacity.”
David has blue eyes, is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs about 170 pounds. He has two tattoos on his back, near his shoulder blades. He would be 60 years old today.
Anyone with information about David Todd’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Scott City Police Department at 573-264-2121, the Missouri State Highway Patrol Missing Persons Clearinghouse at 866-362-6422 or the Scott County Sheriff’s Office at 573-545-3525.
Pamela Dalton
Pamela Dalton went missing on May 1, 1991. She was 33 years old.
Cotner, of the Sikeston Department of Public Safety, said Pamela was last seen in St. Louis, not Sikeston. He told “Dateline” that while the Department of Public Safety has assisted in Pamela’s case, the Scott County Sheriff’s Office is the lead investigating agency.
Scott County Detective Sgt. Michael Williams said investigators don’t have a specific address for where Pamela was last seen in St. Louis. Because of that and other jurisdictional issues, Williams said, the case ultimately came to be handled by authorities in Scott County, where Pamela is from.
Williams said that investigators have pursued a few leads over the years but that none of them has panned out. He told “Dateline” he has worked on Pamela’s case from the beginning and said there has been speculation that she could have been a victim of Gary Muehlberg, known as the “Package Killer,” who killed women in the St. Louis area in the early 1990s. However, Williams said, there has been no official confirmation linking Pamela’s 1991 disappearance to Muehlberg.
In 2022, Muehlberg, who was already serving a life sentence for murder, was linked through DNA evidence to the killings of four women: Robyn Mihan, Brenda Pruitt, Donna Reitmeyer and Sandra Little. He later pleaded guilty to those killings and is serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole at the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri.
Williams hopes that somebody out there remembers something that could help investigators determine what happened to Pamela. “You know, she’s still missing, but she may be a victim in the serial case,” he said. “We need all [the] help and leads.”
If anyone has information about Pamela Dalton’s whereabouts, please contact the Sikeston Department of Public Safety at 573-471-4711 or the Scott County Sheriff’s Office at 573-545-3525.
Cheryl Scherer
It has been more than 47 years since Cheryl Scherer, then 19, vanished from her job at the Rhodes Pump-Ur-Own gas station on April 17, 1979, in Scott City. Authorities believe she was abducted just before noon.
Cheryl’s case is the oldest unsolved missing person case in Scott County.
“Dateline” spoke with the Scott County Sheriff’s Office and Cheryl’s siblings about her disappearance in Season 5 of the “Dateline: Missing in America” podcast.
Sister Diane Scherer-Morris told “Dateline” the family doesn’t believe Cheryl left the gas station on her own. “Never did it cross our minds,” she said. “She’s just not that kind of person. She just would not have done that.”
Wheetley became the Scott County sheriff last year. He said he was familiar with Cheryl’s case. “It’s a case that’s been talked about a lot,” he told “Dateline.” “All the possibilities of theories and conspiracies have been talked about over time.”
Williams, the detective sergeant, joined the case in 2021. Looking back at the initial investigation, Williams said, investigators “did everything that they could in that time period.”
More than $400 was missing from the bank bag at the gas station. In recent years, authorities have used DNA testing in the hope of developing new leads. Williams said the testing identified as many as 30 possible DNA profiles on the bag. Investigators are still hopeful the DNA evidence could lead them in the right direction.
The sheriff’s office conducted a large-scale excavation for Cheryl this year after eight cadaver dogs alerted to the possible presence of human remains in the same location.
They didn’t find Cheryl, but investigators are determined to continue the search. “I use a lot of four-letter words, but ‘quit’ and ‘stop’ is not one of them,” Williams said.
In the nearly half-century since Cheryl disappeared, her family has dedicated itself to bringing attention not only to Cheryl’s case, but also to the cases of other missing persons in the area. “Every missing person has a name, and they have a story. And everyone should be able to finish that story,” Diane said.
When she disappeared, Cheryl Scherer was 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed 100 pounds, with blue eyes and shoulder-length red hair. She would be 67 years old this month.
If you have any information about her case, please contact the Scott County Sheriff’s Office at 573-545-3525.
If you have a story to share with “Dateline,” please submit it here.
