Sherrie Ann Carville was 17 when she was kidnapped from a bar in Johnstown, New York, on October 22, 1978. Investigators later concluded she had been taken to property connected to the killer’s family, where she was raped and stabbed; her body was left exposed and was not recovered until about a year after her disappearance.

The investigation first focused on 32-year-old Albert J. Baird after he allegedly confessed, but that confession did not hold up and he was released after roughly six months as the case against him collapsed. The inquiry shifted the next summer when questioning in an unrelated reported kidnapping and stabbing led police to arrest John William Hopkins on August 16, 1979. Hopkins gave oral and written statements that included a confession to Carville’s rape and murder; he later tried to retract those admissions and raised procedural challenges that were litigated on appeal. The confession formed the central evidence at trial, and Hopkins was convicted in Fulton County of first-degree rape and two counts of second-degree murder for the October 22, 1978 crime.

Hopkins’ convictions were later affirmed on appeal, and his name was subsequently linked to a broader pattern of violent crimes in the Mohawk Valley. Anyone who knew Sherrie Ann Carville or has information about her abduction and death is asked to come forward.