147: The Missing Women of Pinellas County, Pt 2: Margaret Dash, Retha Hiers, and Donyelle Johnson
She Goes by Jane: A True Crime PodcastShow Notes
He was finally caught. Just not for the women.For years, Cleveland Hill Jr. was connected to the disappearances of Margaret Dash, Retha Hiers, and Donyelle Johnson, three women who vanished from Pinellas County, Florida between 1974 and 1989.Warnings had been made. Allegations had accumulated. Investigators had reason to suspect Hill. But no charges ever came for the three missing women.Then, in the 1990s, federal investigators came for Hill for something else.An unusual undercover operation involving cocaine, Coca-Cola, and a federal sting would finally put him behind bars, but it would not answer the question that had followed him for decades: what happened to Margaret, Retha, and Donyelle?In Part Two of She Goes by Jane, we follow the investigation that finally caught Cleveland Hill, the decades-long efforts to find the three women, and the unanswered questions that remained even after investigators had the opportunity to confront Hill himself.Margaret Dash. Retha Hiers. Donyelle Johnson.Their cases remain unsolved.📍 Pinellas County, Florida, 1974–1989 📖 Featuring an original poem written and read in her honor by Malynda Hale. ➡️ 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 Malynda Hale: Malynda Hale is an award-winning actress, filmmaker, singer-songwriter, and storyteller based in Los Angeles. Working across film, television, music, and digital media, her work explores themes of identity, humanity, faith, race, and emotional connection through cinematic storytelling and character-driven narratives. Most recently, she starred in the feature film Bull Street alongside Loretta Devine and Amy Madigan and made her directorial debut with the short film Curtain Call, which screened at festivals internationally including Bend Film Festival, GAZE International LGBTQIA Festival, and Middlebury NewFilmmakers Festival. Her second short film, Au Gratin, starring Tiffany Daniels, Loretta Devine, and Jay Donnell, was selected for the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival and Wyoming International Film Festival, and will also screen at the LightReel Film Festival in Washington, D.C. and the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival in August, an Oscar-qualifying festival. She is also the founder of JMV Entertainment, a production company focused on developing film, television, and media projects rooted in meaningful storytelling. Before expanding into filmmaking, Malynda built a career as a singer-songwriter and performer, releasing multiple independent projects and opening for artists including Smokey Robinson and OTOWN. Her music has appeared on television, including CBS and Disney productions, and she has performed for audiences ranging from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the California Democratic Convention. Across every medium she works in, Malynda is passionate about telling stories that create empathy, challenge systems, and connect people more deeply to one another. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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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
In 1986, 22-year-old Jami Hagel met Steven Sherer at a bar in Redmond, Washington. He was charming, persistent, and was soon sending her a dozen roses. Within months, the relationship that started with romance would become something far more frightening.
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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On November 18, 1995, Jacqueline “Jackie” Levitz spent two hours choosing wallpaper for the new home she was renovating in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She had only recently moved back to the area to be closer to her family, and she was already imagining the house as a gathering place for the people she loved.That shopping excursion would be the last time anyone saw her.Two days later, a friend went to check on Jackie after her family realized she wasn’t answering the phone. Her Jaguar was still parked outside and her jewelry and fur coats were still in the house. A television was playing in the bedroom and a half-finished glass of water sat on the windowsill. But Jackie was gone.The search for Jackie produced possible witnesses and conflicting theories about what happened to Jackie that night, but none of those brought law enforcement any closer to finding Jackie or learning what happened to her.Today, more than three decades later, Jacqueline Levitz remains missing.