Fifty Years Later: The Unsolved Murder of a 15-Year-Old Miranda Girl Still Ripples Through Her Classmates’ Lives
Screenshot of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department’s Unsolved Cases map showing the location where Sherry Smith’s body was found fifty years ago today.
Fifty years ago today, the battered body of a long-legged 15-year-old girl was found in the Fruitland Ridge area near Miranda. She was later identified as Sherry Lynn Smith, a student at South Fork High School who had attended a dance in Garberville on April 30. She had last been seen leaving the dance sometime around 2 a.m., and, five decades later, her classmates, friends, and family still have little idea of what happened to her.
Despite an extensive investigation, her murder has never been solved.
In the years since, the case has often been discussed in terms of suspects and timelines. One man, John Annibel, was a suspect during the investigation but has never been charged in Sherry’s death. He was later convicted in an unrelated homicide of another woman and remains in prison. No one has been held criminally responsible for Sherry Smith’s killing.
Fifty years later, those who knew her remember more than the crime, they remember who she was.
Sherry Smith in a South Fork High School yearbook photo. This image was cropped from a larger photo showing her and another girl who dressed as the school mascot.
“Her smile was infectious,” Cynthia Winter said.
“She was a wonderful down to earth person,” Becky Marrington added.
Friends describe a teenager who was funny, strong-willed, and a bit wild for the small-town world she moved through. “Sherry was always laughing,” classmate Mary Bushnell recalled. “She was funny and kind. She also wasn’t someone to back down from anyone.”
Tim Thurman, who described Sherry as his best friend, said her loss still sticks with him. “Still hurts, still brings tears,” he said, remembering her pride in being first chair clarinet in the school band.
Debra Kennedy, who spent time with Sherry during their junior high years in Miranda, recalled everyday moments that have stayed with her for decades.
Sherry Lynn Smith composite [Image on right from Eureka Times Standard article on May 8th, 1976]
Their friendship shifted over time, but remained intact.
“We grew apart because basically I couldn’t keep up with her, but we were still friends.” Kennedy said.
Yolanda Ruiz-Williges, another classmate, said she knew her well. “[W]e were sophomores at the time/at SF. [I] partied with her multiple times, until she started getting too wild.. ran away from home and hung out with others i didn’t not know.. older people.”
The news of Sherry’s disappearance and death brought those memories into sharper focus.
“[W]hen she had disappeared, her body was found just up the road from where I grew up. It was just terrible,” Kennedy said. “[S]he was just so full of life and energy. I was very sad for her.””
For many, the shock of her murder was like a wall between the safety of the world before and the sudden awareness that evil could snatch someone you knew and leave them lifeless.
“I remember being stunned and not fully grasping the fact that she had been murdered,” Bushnell said. “To me, our small, safe community had been changed forever.”
At the time, Southern Humboldt towns like Miranda, Garberville, and Alderpoint were places where people recall leaving doors unlocked and moving freely. That changed quickly.
Janine Lynn, who was 16 and living in Fortuna, said the killing altered how young people viewed the world. “It made us more cautious and look at people we didn’t know differently—with distrust and suspicion…just like living in a city,” she said.
Others describe a similar shift. “It sure scared me… to never trust older strangers—and I still don’t, 50 years later,” said Yolanda Ruiz-Williges.
Jeff Stevens, who grew up in the Garberville area, said the tragedy revealed something many had not previously considered. “We all felt fairly protected… Looking back I can’t imagine how close we all were to the evil of others.”
For some, the impact was deeply personal.
Valerie Sutherland Welzbacker remembered being in seventh grade with Sherry’s younger sister, Paulette. “It was so devastating to all of us,” she said. Shortly after the murder, the family moved away. “My friend was gone out of my life forever… It was a very confusing and heartbreaking time.”
Julie Tatro recalled a similar loss, noting that Paulette not only lost her sister, but her friends and community as well.
Others remember the night of the dance itself—groups of teens and some young adults traveling from Alderpoint to Garberville, piling into cars for the ride home. In the confusion at the end of the night, no one could later say with certainty whose vehicle Sherry entered.
Mary Ann Machi, who worked at the Garberville substation at the time, said the case weighed heavily on law enforcement. “There was a suspect but… no direct evidence,” she said. “It weighed on all the officers that they couldn’t arrest him.”
That lack of resolution remains.
Today, the case is still unsolved. Advances in forensic science have led some to wonder whether new evidence could one day bring answers. For now, the questions persist.
What endures more clearly are the memories.
“She was a very vibrant young lady with a wonderful personality,” Jeff Stevens said.
Fifty years later, those who knew Sherry Smith describe a teenager full of life—someone who laughed easily, played sports and music, and whose death left a lasting imprint of evil on a small community that continues to hope for some resolution.
Anyone with information related to the death of Sherry Lynn Smith* is asked to contact the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip Line at 707-268-2539 and reference case number 197603718.
(Note: though HCSO spells her name with an “ie”, her birth certificate shows her name ending in a “y’.)
Earlier: A Night of Revelry Ended in Tragedy for 15-Year-Old Sherry Smith – A Cold Case Revisited
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Kym, the caption under the third pic has a date of 1972 when, I’m pretty sure, it should be 1976.
Thanks for catching that. I updated.
I grew up on Fruitland ridge, back in the late 70s we used to live by fuzzy, about 83 we moved, a year later fuzzy went off the deep end shot at a neighbor blew up the bar bathrooms in Myers flat then left a dead body in the driveway disappeared down to Mexico, I heard later it was believed he met with foul play.
I wish my friend Bear was still around to correct the many errors in your story.
So off topic. Disrespects the person this article is about.
Was biological evidence preserved for genealogical testing?
I hope perp is caught with forensic technology. I hope all perps who do these awful crimes take it in the neck. Including another local scumbag predator of young girls – T.H. Knowing these men are guilty of rape and murder and convicting them without a smoking gun is another thing.
Sherry was raised in the hills of Mendocino County, which can be rather lonely. On 30 April 1976, she eagerly attended a dance at Garberville’s Firemen’s Hall. Unable to connect with an older man in whom she was interested, she chose to stay at the dance when her ride departed for home. Sherry was last seen headed toward John Annibel’s car when the dance ended at 2 AM the following morning.
Her body was found off Eel Rock Road on 2 May 1976, by a motorcyclist making a comfort stop. She had been severely beaten, throttled to death, raped, and left with her pants around her ankles. The similarity to such prior cases as Janet Lee Bowman and Karen Frances Fisher brought Annibel into suspicion on both Sherry’s death, as well as the two prior cases.
Despite extensive questioning of Annibel, and numerous interviews of dance attendees, LE was unable to press charges against Annibel. He went on to be convicted in 1999 of the first degree murder of Debbie Sloan.
Source: Deadfall by Robert Scott
Following was written by burblesteinWell-Known local websleuths detective;
Sherry Lynn’s Last Dance
Factually based on Robert Scott’s Deadfall. (My local insights are also included, in parentheses.) [Heads up! Lilibet’s insights are likely to be even more local.]
In early 1976, 15 year old Sherry went on a road trip down Highway 101 from bucolic northern California’s Emerald Triangle to the Bay Area city of Los Gatos CA. Sherry had been raised on Fruitland Ridge, some miles off the highway and into the woods; she had grown up there with her two sisters; her neighbors included the fraternal Annnibel twins. Now she was going south to visit her father and stepmother.
==Map: Los Gatos to Myers Flat==
Google Maps
After a week in the big city, Sherry felt overwhelmed and wanted to go home. She boarded the bus with the intent of breaking her journey to visit friends before she returned to her mom’s place. (Though Scott says Fruitland Ridge is in Miranda, the Google Map places it closer to Myers Flat.)
Sherry got off the bus in Garberville. She visited with her friend Glenda for several days. Like the Smiths, Glenda’s family also lived some miles east of the main highway, although in Alderpoint.
On 30 April, Sherry, Glenda, and Glenda’s family went to an all-ages dance at the Firemen’s Hall in Garberville, arriving at about 9:30 PM. Sherry quickly arranged for a ride with a friend at dance’s end, to elder sister Pam Smith’s place. Sherry didn’t want to barge in on their mother at 2:30 AM or so.
(Scratch your mental picture of a ballroom of sedate waltzers in ball gowns. Instead, picture an old pioneer barn dance attracting all the bush veterans, hippies, back-to-the-landers, loggers, fishermen, cowboys, Indians, and general isolates from miles about. Dub in a raucous rock sound track. Let the booze and dope flow bounteously while everyone frantically boogies down and madly socializes. Liaisons and assignations are made, dope deals arranged, hookups hooked, friendships and feuds pursued. That’s a NorCal dance.)
Over the next four hours, Sherry danced nine dances with four partners. Five of those dances were with 18 year old John Annibel, who had grown up an outcast among the Fruitland Ridge kids. (Scott says: Tell tale. Generally weird, irrational, and sometimes assaultive behavior.) Annibel wanted to leave before dance’s end. Sherry wanted to stay and socialize. They argued about that.
At some point, she cancelled her arranged ride, to switch to John Annibel’s car. Besides Glenda and two members of her family, three other individuals knew of Sherry’s change of plan.
Sherry was seen to retrieve her luggage from Glenda’s family’s car. She was also seen leaving the dance with John Annibel when it broke up at 2 AM. However, no one actually saw her get in his car. (At this point, most attendees are shopping about for post-dance parties, saying goodbye, etc.) At any rate, six witnesses stated Sherry left, or was planning to leave, with John Annibel.
Her body was found at 6 PM on 2 May 1976 by a motorcyclist stopping to urinate. Sherry had been beaten, strangled, and chucked down an embankment headfirst. She laid just off a bypass that paralleled Eel Rock Road. The bypass was blocked at the downhill end by a fallen tree, and was accessible only from the uphill entry. That bypass was barely visible from the main road; it would almost certainly take local knowledge to know it was there. The bypass was also very near the Annibel residence.
After tracing several leads concerning various individuals, homicide investigators soon settled on John Annibel as the chief suspect. When questioned, Annibel first claimed to have left the dance at midnight. When he found out there were witnesses to the contrary, he changed his tale to leaving at 2 AM, without Sherry. He then failed a polygraph test. His vehicle was searched, apparently with no significant finds.
Despite living about a 30 minute drive from the Firemen’s Hall, Annibel did not get home until 3 or 3:30 AM. He turned around and left again at 6 AM and returned at 9. Ironically, one of the two people reporting this was Pam Smith; she was involved with the other Annibel twin and was at their family spread. The other informant on the arrival and departure times was John Annibel’s uncle.
Despite all this circumstantial evidence, John Annibel was never arrested for Sherry’s murder. He would also be suspected in other homicides and disappearances. More on him here:
Suspected in the murder of Janet Lee Bowman, 19, Eureka CA, 30 September 1975: CA Janet Lee Bowman, 19, Eureka, 30 September 1975
Suspected in the murder of Karen Frances Fisher, 21, Trinidad Head, 18 January 1976: CA – CA Karen Frances Fisher, 21, Trinidad Head, 18 January 1976
His live-in girlfriend disappeared: Andrea LaDeRoute, 22, Fortuna, March 1980: CA – Andrea LaDeRoute, 22, Fortuna, March 1980
Other websleuths have noted other cases that may be linked to Annibel. One is the double murder of Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble, 16 December 1978: CA – Kerry Graham, 15, & Francine Trimble, 14, Forestville, 16 Dec 1978
Then there is the disappearance of Karen Marie Mitchell from Eureka, 25 November 1997: CA – CA – Karen Mitchell, 16, Eureka, 25 Nov 1997
And then he was finally nailed for murdering Debra Sloan in 1998.
Was it the lack of physical evidence that stayed the prosecutor’s hand in the Smith case? Or do you, my reader, also believe John Annibel should stand trial for Sherry Lynn Smith’s murder? Or, to put it another way, if you were on the jury, would you convict him?
2022 Article by Lisa Music about murder;
Written By. Lisa Music
April 4 2022 lengthy article.
A Night of Revelry Ended in Tragedy for 15-Year-Old Sherry Smith – A Cold Case Revisited – Redheaded Blackbelt (kymkemp.com)
”When someone is murdered that we do not know, particularly deaths that occurred decades in the past, we tend to disassociate from the horrendousness of the crime that was committed. Instead, we look at the evidence at arm’s length, keeping to dates and times, often turning victims into two-dimensional characters to protect ourselves from the mental anguish. When you add in multiple deaths over a short period of time, and the possibility that murders may be the work of a serial killer, we further distance ourselves from the lives lost, often focusing on similarities between murders, transfixed on the “whodunit” aspect.
Most people are familiar with Ted Bundy, his looks, his charm, but few can give those same details, or even recall the names, of his victims. This same phenomenon began to happen in Humboldt County in May of 1976. After a third female rape/strangulation occurred within eight months, the county was gripped by the possibility that a serial killer was responsible for the deaths.”
”Deadfall, a book written by Robert Scott about John Annibel, discusses his possible connection to Smith’s murder. The book shared witness accounts that John had danced with Sherry several times at the Fireman’s Hall and that people had witnessed Sherry getting into his vehicle.
Although investigators questioned Annibel in the murder investigation, the family had not suspected John of Sherry’s murder right away. He and his twin brother served as pall bearers at the May 6th funeral for Sherry at Eureka Sunset Memorial Park.
According to Deadfall, Annibel became the prime suspect in Sherry Smith’s murder. He agreed to a polygraph test, the results of which were determined to be inconclusive by local law enforcement. Those results were later analyzed by law enforcement elsewhere that believed the original assessment was wrong. When asked to take a second polygraph, Annibel declined through his lawyer.
Four years later in 1980, Annibel’s girlfriend at the time, Andrea LaDeRoute, 21, went missing. Annibel was a suspect in her disappearance but was never arrested. Her remains were found in 2002 at a property belonging to the Pacific Lumber Company, of which, Annibel was an employee for thirteen years.”
Information found from web detective and missing person site
CA Sherry Lynn Smith, 15, Eel Rock, 2 May 1976
https://websleuths.com/threads/ca-sherry-lynn-smith-15-eel-rock-2-may-1976.367806/
Is there any stored dna that could be analyzed today I wonder? Modern DNA forensics have came a long way since 1970s
Is there any cold case detective work being done on this case using modern forensic technology?