148: Hernando County Jane Doe: The Women Who Vanished Before Her, Part 1
She Goes by Jane: A True Crime PodcastShow Notes
In 1980, Pam Sherrell escaped a violent attack by a man who abducted her and tried to kill her. He evaded capture, but her escape would set off a chain of events that revealed a much darker story unfolding in Hernando County, Florida. Months later and thousands of miles away, two young women crossed paths with the same man at a bar. He tried to get them to leave with him. They refused, but as they watched he left the bar with another young woman: Rene Saling. The next day, Rene was found murdered. Back in Florida, investigators were trying to solve the disappearance of another young woman: Sandra Jean Graham who had disappeared after an ordinary evening playing pool with a stranger. And behind it all was a man whose history of violence stretched back years despite repeated encounters with the criminal justice system: Billy Mansfield Jr. As investigators pieced together what happened to the women, Mansfield was on the run. HIs eventual capture would expose a pattern of violence that stretched far beyond the murder of Rene Saling. And somewhere in the story was a woman whose name investigators would not learn for more than 40 years. She is still known only as Hernando County Jane Doe 📍 Florida | 1975-1981 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Corrina Smith. ➡️ Help bring attention to missing and unidentified women—subscribe and share this episode. 📍 Find us on Instagram & Facebook and Patreon. 📚 Get Aimee’s book, Doe, now available via University of Akron Press, Bookshop.org, and Amazon. 📰 For more women-centered true crime content, subscribe to Aimee’s newsletter, GIRLHUNT. More about Corrina Smith: Corinna Smith is a violinist and multi-instrumentalist who has toured with Adam Ezra Group for the past 14 years. With a background in music education, she also maintains her teaching license in her home state of Massachusetts. Beyond the stage, Corinna is passionate about using music as a force for good, helping hundreds of concertgoers register to vote through her "Folkin' Vote!" initiative and supporting RallySound's mission to empower communities through music. Whether performing, teaching, or volunteering, she believes music has the power to connect people and inspire meaningful change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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“If something happens to me, don’t give up until you find out what happened," Pamela Butler told her brother. He could never have guessed he would need to do just that.
For years, Steven Sherer had called his wife, Jami Hagel Sherer, over and over whenever she was away from him. It was a way for him to constantly monitor where she was, who she was with, and to control her actions. On September 30, 1990, he called Jami’s parents’ house twice. And then the phone stopped ringing.Jami had told her mother that morning that she was leaving Steven. Jami told her mother she just wanted to gather a few belongings, grab her favorite lunch, and then return to her parents’ house. It should have taken minutes.Jami never arrived.When Jami didn’t arrive and Steven didn’t call, her mother worried the two had reconciled. But when Steven showed up without Jami claiming he hadn’t seen her, her mother knew something was very wrong. Jami Hagel has been missing since that day in 1990. Listen to Part 2.📍 Redmond, Washington | September 30, 1990
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On a June night in 1950, seventeen-year-old Barbara Kelley left home for a date with Henry Baird, a 28-year-old World War II veteran she had been seeing for several months. Barbara told her parents she would spend the night at a friend’s house in nearby Eureka. There was no reason for them to worry. The next morning, Henry was found nude on a remote beach along the Northern California coast. He had been shot to death. His companion, Barbara, was nowhere to be found.Henry had been shot in the back of the head. Nearby, his clothes were found neatly stacked. With them were Barbara’s clothes. But there was no sign of Barbara. Within hours, police began to investigate the theory the teenager had been involved in Henry’s death. In the years since the murder and disappearance, speculation has run rampant including false confessions, searches through the woods, and a connection to an eerily similar case in another county.But at the heart of it all is Barbara Kelley, a seventeen-year-old girl who went on a date and never came home.📍 Humboldt County, California | June 17, 1950
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