Sheri Jo Elliott was 16 when she left her home on Seneca Street in Flint, Michigan, at about 6:30 a.m. on November 16, 1983, heading for her school bus stop near West Dartmouth and Clio Roads. She never reached the bus and was not seen alive again by her family.

On November 20, 1983, a muskrat trapper found her body in a watery ditch along Mueller Road in Blumfield Township, Saginaw County. The autopsy showed she had been sexually assaulted and shot multiple times with a small-caliber weapon; investigators believe she may have been held alive for up to three days before being killed. The trapper reported the body had not been there the previous day, placing her disposal between November 19 and November 20.

No arrests have been announced and no suspects have been publicly identified. A significant amount of DNA evidence was collected and the case remains open; investigators think she may have known her abductor because her family believed she would not willingly get into a stranger’s vehicle.