Transcription
On this episode of Black Girl Gone, we tell the story of Dr. Cheryl Pearson, a 37-year-old woman who disappeared from Bartlett, Tennessee on January 5th, 2002. The night Cheryl was last seen, she attended a Memphis Grizzlies game. Afterward, a couple of Cheryl's friends came by her house to hang out for a little while. Cheryl's friends last saw her around 1:00 a.m. The next day, Cheryl was supposed to babysit for her sister, but when her sister arrived at her house, Cheryl wasn't home. No one ever saw or heard from Cheryl again. What happened to Cheryl and who was responsible for her disappearance? This is Cheryl's story.
For the family and friends of Cheryl Pearson, the past 20 years has been extremely hard. When Cheryl went missing in 2002, she had no reason to leave her life that she had worked so hard to build. But with very few clues left behind, her family has been left with no answers. In 2009, Cheryl was legally declared dead. But with no body ever found, the search for answers continues.
Cheryl Pearson was born on August 21st, 1964 and was the youngest of three children born to Hazel and Leon Pearson. Cheryl growing up was a very focused young woman who took school very seriously and she did well academically. Cheryl attended Jackson Central Mary High School in Jackson, Tennessee, where she graduated in 1982. For a student like Cheryl, college was the obvious choice for her. So after high school, Cheryl attended University of Tennessee where she majored in chemical engineering. In an interview with Deline in 2006, her parents said that Cheryl was a high achiever. And so while most people would stop with a degree in chemical engineering, Cheryl had other plans. After she completed her undergrad at University of Tennessee, Cheryl decided to enroll in medical school at Mahairi Medical College, where she studied to become a pediatrician.
In the late 1990s, Cheryl moved to Memphis. According to those close to Cheryl, she was a very independent woman and was enjoying the career that she had chosen as a pediatrician. And Cheryl being the kind of woman that she was, it didn't take her long to become a well-respected pediatrician in the Memphis area. Friends of Cheryl said that she was a very friendly person who was not only well-respected, but also well-liked. No one who knew Cheryl was aware of any issues or any enemies in Cheryl's life.
In 2002, Cheryl was living alone in Bartlett, Tennessee, enjoying the successful life that she had built for herself. Cheryl was a huge fan of the Memphis Grizzlies, and so she would attend games all the time because she was a season ticket holder. Cheryl, being an independent woman, had no problem going to the games alone, either. Now, there's not much information about Cheryl's personal life and only a brief mention about a boyfriend in some reporting, but it seems like Cheryl was very happy and satisfied with where she was at her life at that point.
On Friday, January 4th, 2002, the Memphis Grizzlies were scheduled to play the Atlanta Hawks, and so Cheryl made plans to attend the game. The game was being played at the Pyramid in Memphis, which was the temporary home of the Memphis Grizzlies between 2001 and 2004. The Pyramid now is apparently a Bass Pro Shop. But in the early 2000s, it was a sports arena that held basketball games and boxing matches. And Cheryl went to the game that night alone. And according to her parents, she called them from the game and they spoke briefly. Cheryl was a severe diabetic, and her mother, Hazel, said that she had mentioned to her that she was feeling a little lightheaded and kind of weak. However, she must have begun to feel better and decided to just stay for the game. The Grizzlies ended up losing the game to the Hawks and Cheryl, a diehard fan, was disappointed that her team had lost. After the game, Cheryl left and headed home and according to reports, arrived back at her house in Bartlett around 10:30 p.m. Not long after Cheryl got home, two of her girlfriends came over to hang out for a few hours. According to Cheryl's friends, by the time they saw her later that evening, everything appeared to be fine. Whatever she had been experiencing related to her diabetes had seemed to have passed by the time Cheryl's friends saw her.
Now, her friends said that they stayed and talked with Cheryl for a few hours. When interviewed by Deline, Cheryl's friend, Andrea, one of the women at the home that night, said that Cheryl didn't say anything about anyone coming over or anything about her going anywhere. In fact, the ladies left Cheryl's home around 1:00 a.m. because she said that she needed to get in the bed and get some rest because her sister was bringing her kids over early in the morning so that Cheryl could babysit. Cheryl was a doting aunt and she was planning to watch the kids so that her sister could go to work. Now, watching her nieces and nephews was something that Cheryl did often. She loved them and she loved spending time with them. She had always been someone that her sister could rely on. Michelle's two friends left her home that night having no idea that it would be the last time that they would see Cheryl.
The next morning, January 5th, Cheryl's sister, Linda, arrived at her house around 7:00 a.m. to drop the kids off. According to reports, Linda knocked on Cheryl's door, but she got no answer. Linda was surprised when she knocked several times and her sister didn't answer the door because like I said, Cheryl was someone her sister could always rely on. And so there was no way that she would have forgotten about watching the kids. Now, after a few knocks and no answer, Linda realized that her sister's car was not there. Linda immediately became worried. Her first thought was perhaps Cheryl's diabetes had caused her to maybe become disoriented and maybe she had gotten into an accident coming back home from somewhere. Linda decided that the best thing to do would be to call the police and to report her sister missing.
Now, usually in these cases, police take their time before they will investigate, even after they take the report. But in Cheryl's case, police immediately believed that something may have been wrong. The fact that Cheryl was a severe diabetic worried them. And so based on what they learned from her family, they believed that it may have something to do with her missing. They also knew Cheryl's reputation in the community. And so nothing about her life indicated to them that she would have just left.
When Linda called her parents to tell them that Cheryl was missing, Hazel and Leon immediately got in their car and drove to Memphis to look for their daughter. Hazel, replaying the last conversation that she had with Cheryl, was concerned that her daughter had an accident related to her diabetes and both of her parents were worried sick that something had happened to Cheryl because of it. Now, Cheryl's parents had a spare key to her home. And so when they arrived, they were able to access the house. According to reports, when Hazel and Leon entered the house, nothing seemed to be out of place. There was no signs that a struggle or anything had happened there. However, after looking around a little bit more, Cheryl's parents found her cell phone and her pager on the dining room table. But Cheryl was on call that weekend for work. And so finding her cell phone and her pager in the home meant either Cheryl had not left on her own or wherever she had planned to go, she wasn't planning to be there long. And as if finding her cell phone and pager in the house wasn't alarming enough, Hazel and Leon also found Cheryl's medicine inside her home, too. Now, at this point, it was pretty clear that wherever Cheryl had gone, she had not intended to be there for a very long period of time.
By the time Cheryl's parents had arrived in Memphis, it had been hours since anyone had seen or spoken to Cheryl, and everyone who knew her was worried. Everyone who knew Cheryl knew that what was happening was completely out of character. And so no one ever thought even for a second that Cheryl was missing voluntarily. When the people Cheryl worked with found out that she was missing, they immediately began to search for her, too. They printed up flyers and within a day they were passing them out all over the area. Now, Cheryl's car was also missing. She drove a blue Audi and so they were trying to locate her vehicle. Also, Cheryl's disappearance was a mystery at that point and no one had any idea where Cheryl could have been and where she was. But their hope was that she would be found soon. Like, you know, maybe this was just all a misunderstanding and Cheryl was fine. But everyone who knew Cheryl felt in their gut that it was not a misunderstanding. There were too many things wrong about what was happening. Cheryl not only wasn't home to watch her sister's kids, she left her phone and pager at home when she was on call, and she left her medicine that she would have needed if she was planning to go somewhere. Cheryl's family, friends, and co-workers spent the weekend searching for Cheryl. But no one had seen Cheryl or her Blue Audi.
As part of their investigation, detectives were able to access Cheryl's phone records, and they discovered that she had received a call at 1:58 a.m. the morning of July 5th, a little while after her girlfriends had left. The call had been placed from a pay phone at a sitgo gas station not far from where Cheryl lived. Now, there was no way for detectives to know what was said on the call, but they suspected it had something to do with whatever happened to Cheryl. Was Cheryl lured from her home, or was she kidnapped? Both questions police would have a very hard time answering.
In the early morning hours of January 5th, 2002, 37-year-old Cheryl Pearson, a pediatrician living in Bartlett, Tennessee, disappeared. The night before, Cheryl, a season ticket holder, attended a Memphis Grizzly game before heading home to hang out with a couple of friends. But when Cheryl's sister, arrived the next morning to drop off her kids, Cheryl was nowhere to be found. And after a quick search of her home, her cell phone, her pager, and her medicine were found inside. Within a day or so of Cheryl missing, investigators on the case were able to pull Cheryl's phone records, and they discovered that a call was placed to her home at 1:58 a.m. from a gas station just a few minutes away from where she lived. The length of the call, however, is unclear. Now, several reports stated that the call only lasted 5 seconds, but in a 2016 interview with ABC 24, an investigator said that the call was just under 2 minutes. Now, the police suspected this call could have had something to do with Cheryl's disappearance. But if the call lasted only 5 seconds, then what could have been said to Cheryl that would have made her leave her home and leave her phone and pager behind? However, if it was a two-minute call, then that could explain a little bit more. It's just not clear which is the actual case. If the call was closer to 2 minutes, it could have been someone she knew luring her out of her home to an unknown location. Either way, the timing and the location where the call was placed is very suspicious.
When Cheryl was last seen, it was late Friday going into Saturday, and so her family and friends had spent the weekend searching for any signs of Cheryl, but had come up with nothing. On Monday, January 7th, 2 days after Cheryl was last seen, investigators got what they hoped would be a huge break in the case, one that would lead them to Cheryl. Now, not far from where Cheryl lived, detectives found Cheryl's blue Audi parked in the parking lot of an apartment complex. The detectives were happy to have found the car because they hoped it would give them clues to help them find Cheryl, but they were also alarmed that the car was found so close to where Cheryl lived. In a 2016 interview with ABC24, a detective on the case said that prior to finding the car, that the entire area, including the woods near the home, had been searched and no one had seen the car. And that led them to believe that the car had been placed there shortly before being found. Now, after discovering the vehicle, investigators spoke to the neighbors in the apartment complex, but none of them could recall anyone dropping the car off, and none of them knew how long the car had been there.
When detectives searched the Audi, what was inside only added to the mystery. Inside the car were the Grizzly tickets from that Friday night game. And in the trunk of the car, they found a medical bag that they believed that Cheryl had been carrying as a purse. And inside the bag, they found the keys to the car and a bank envelope with $140 in cash inside. But there was no evidence inside the car aside from Cheryl's personal belongings. Whoever had driven the car to the apartment complex had also wiped the car clean because there was no forensic evidence inside, not even a fingerprint. It was clear that whoever had put Cheryl's car there was trying to hide something and it led investigators to believe that they may now be dealing with a case involving foul play.
Now, after locating the car, investigators began to speak to people who knew Cheryl, so they could try to get a better sense of what was going on in her life. But they learned pretty quickly that Cheryl was living a normal life and no one close to her knew of any issues in her life. Her colleagues who spoke to investigators said that Cheryl was happy at work and she was loved by her patients. As far as investigators could tell, Cheryl had no known enemies and nothing in her life gave them any motive or reason why someone like her would just disappear without a trace.
As detectives continued to look into Cheryl's life and circle, they began to become somewhat suspicious of her sister Lorenda's husband, Chuck. Now, apparently Chuck had a checkered past that involved armed robbery. And since he was the only one close to Cheryl with a criminal past, investigators decided that they would look further into Chuck and what he may have been doing in connection to Cheryl or her disappearance. Investigators had also found out that Linda, Cheryl's sister, was the beneficiary of her $150,000 life insurance policy. And so investigators wanted to find out if Chuck knew about the policy and then did something to Cheryl so that he could benefit from the money that his wife would get if his if her sister died. Detectives did name Chuck a person of interest in Cheryl's disappearance. They had no direct evidence of his involvement, but they found some of the things that he said suspicious. Chuck was interrogated several times, but his alibi checked out. According to investigators and reporting by ABC 24, there were places where Chuck was inconsistent in his statements, but he ultimately had an alibi for the time that Cheryl disappeared, and eventually Chuck was cleared as a person of interest and no charges related to Cheryl's disappearance were ever filed against him. Lorinda was never suspected by police of having anything to do with her sister's disappearance and Cheryl's parents didn't believe that Chuck was involved. They told Dineine that they believed that suspecting him was unfair. However, who was involved remained a mystery.
Investigators were never able to identify who the call came from the night that Cheryl was last seen. If there was any kind of surveillance footage from the gas station, it's not clear if detectives were ever able to get anything from it, nor is it clear if they ever questioned people at the gas station that night about someone, you know, using the phone or if they saw anybody. Now, as it would turn out, finding Cheryl's car would be the last thing that investigators would find in connection to her disappearance. Well, anything that they would release publicly anyway.
Over the next few years, Cheryl's family continued to look for her, but very few clues came in about Cheryl. Investigators received no information about where Cheryl could possibly be or who was responsible for what had happened to her. In the years following Cheryl's disappearance, the story of what happened to her faded from the local headlines. And after a few years, her case officially went cold. Despite what looked like promising information in the very beginning, the case was going cold quickly, and investigators had found no new information about Cheryl since the car was found, and Cheryl's family begin to grapple with the idea that Cheryl may never come home.
Now, no family ever wants to give up finding a loved one, but there are often times when families come to the realization that the person missing may not come back, and so they have to decide how they will move forward. For Cheryl's family, they made the decision to have her legally declared dead. Her father, Leon, told Dineine in 2006 when asked if he thought his daughter was still alive. He said that he didn't think so. Cheryl's parents put up $41,000 of their own money to establish a reward. Their hope was that someone would be motivated by the money, but no one never came forward with any credible information. In 2009, 7 years after Cheryl was last seen, her family had her legally declared dead. Doing so would allow them to tie up Cheryl's affairs, but it was in no way closure for them or a full acceptance of what had happened to Cheryl. The same year that Cheryl was declared legally dead, her father, Leon, passed away. Leon never got the answers about what happened to his daughter, and he left this world with so many questions still unanswered.
In 2013, investigators told ABC 24 that they received a tip from someone who was currently incarcerated and that they had indicated that they had information that a woman in Georgia had information about Cheryl's disappearance. But after police looked into what the prisoner said, they found themselves at yet another dead end. The last article I could find about Cheryl was from 2016. And since then, there seems to be no new information about Cheryl or if her case is still being investigated. But I do know that the people who love Cheryl deserve the closure of knowing what happened to her. Despite being legally declared dead in 2009, Cheryl's remains have never been found. And so no one knows exactly what happened to her.
Dr. Cheryl Pearson was a 37-year-old successful pediatrician when she vanished in January 2002. Cheryl had no reason to leave her life, but there was also no one in her life that would have wanted to hurt her. The detectives working on the case say that they believe someone in the community knows what happened to Cheryl. And until someone comes forward, there will continue to be more questions than answers. It seems as if the people that were close to Cheryl have stopped speaking out about her case publicly. It was probably just too much. And after years of fighting for answers, they just simply wanted to find some peace. But I know finding out exactly what happened to Cheryl will always be something that they want. And until Cheryl is found, she will remain a missing person who deserves for people to care about her.
Cheryl Pearson was last seen at her home in Bartlett, Tennessee on January 5th, 2002 at 1:00 a.m. She drove a blue Audi that was found in the parking lot of an apartment building on Central Road in Bartlett. Cheryl is 5'7" and at the time of her disappearance weighed 60 lb. If you have any information about what happened to Cheryl Pearson the day she vanished or any information that would lead to her whereabouts, please contact the Bartlett, Tennessee Police Department. Thank you for listening to this week's episode. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tik Tok, and Threads.