- [Narrator] What is up EWU Crew?
Today, we have some insane stories for you guys.
We are covering three unbelievable,
solved disappearances with unexpected twists.
Let's get right into it.
Number three, Jerika Binks.
On the morning of February 18th, 2018,
Jerika Binks told her roommate she was leaving
their sober home to go running.
She put on her running shoes, grabbed her phone,
and slipped into a hoodie
and a pair of leggings before she left.
She was always a runner since childhood,
as her mother, Suzanna Westring,
fondly recalled in an interview.
Her destination was the Timpanogos Cave National Monument
in the American Fork Canyon.
She would never return from this trip.
Jerika had not been seen since that trip
to the Timpanogos Cave National Monument.
She was reported missing,
and her family sought out the source
of her mysterious disappearance.
The only evidence left of her whereabouts
was the camera footage on Timpanogos Cave National Monument,
which documented her running down the trail.
Desperate to find her,
the family held an event at the Art Dye Park
in American Fork to remember and pray for Jerika,
and hopefully to find her.
They put up signs,
offering a sum of money for her return,
but their desperate attempts were in vain.
Jerika had been staying at a sober home
to combat her past drug issues.
Even with her issues,
Jerika was clean and responding very well
to her treatment in the recovery home.
She was dedicated to her recovery,
but authorities began to wonder if she relapsed.
If that were even a possibility,
there was a chance that Jerika could've run away,
covering up her disappearance and relapse
with the excuse of running at the national monument.
This theory was never proven.
Authorities assured Jerika's family,
that they were extensively searching
the American Fork Canyon using helicopters,
drones, rescue teams, and airplanes.
The search teams also searched other areas besides
the Timpanogos Cave National Monument,
but no one turned up with any real evidence,
explaining Jerika's strange disappearance.
Psychics began to come forward with sights of Jerika,
but no sources were credible enough to follow.
The thought that Jerika was kidnapped
was radical to the family and friends of Jerika,
who had known her as
an avid runner since she was very young.
She ran daily to keep herself healthy and in shape,
even running marathons every so often.
Jerika could run for very long periods of time,
so the idea that a kidnapper could have run after Binks
was almost out of the question.
Confused,
her family continued to search
and refused to give up hope
that Jerika was out there somewhere.
The search could not be done extensively
because of the snow on the ground,
but authorities vowed to continue searching,
once the warmer months hit and the snow began to melt.
After over a year of Jerika vanishing,
a man was hiking along the same trail
that Jerika mysteriously disappeared from.
He innocently decided to go up along a drainage ravine
that he had never explored before.
There, he found Jerika's decrepit body,
her legs bent unnaturally,
and her body rotting under the melted snow.
Jerika Binks was found 850 feet above
the trail she was running on the day of her disappearance,
which most people passing by did not see or acknowledge,
since the area where Binks was found
was a drainage ravine rather than along the trail.
- The human remains found in American Fork Canyon
have been identified.
Utah County Sheriff's Office confirming
the remains are those of Jerika Binks.
- [Narrator] Binks was 24 last time she was seen,
leaving her home to go on an innocent run
that turned so dark, so quickly.
The belongings found on the corpse were declared to be
the same things Jerika was described as having worn
when she left her sober home that winter day.
But what they discovered next
wasn't anything like they expected.
One of Jerika's legs was severely broken,
which was the leading cause of death
that authorities released.
- Had suffered a, what looks to be,
a severe break, to her tibia/fibula,
so that could have played into what happened up there.
- [Narrator] The theory,
that is still widely believed today,
is that Jerika attempted to climb the ravine,
which had difficult terrain to climb.
She broke her leg and no one was there to save her,
so she perished.
It is unknown how long she stayed on the mountain alone
before she finally died.
No foul play was suspected in the case,
but it taught all runners a lesson that day.
It taught them how dangerous something
as simple as running could be.
Jerika's family is devastated,
but the discovery of her body,
finally allowed them to grieve,
while understanding what happened to their sister,
daughter, and friend.
Jerika's disappearance, and how it was handled,
questions the idea of how drugs were involved,
and how the investigation changed based
on the firm idea that Jerika could have relapsed that day,
leading to her untimely death.
In reality, her broken leg,
most likely was her cause of death,
or at least played a major role in it.
The disappearance of Jerika Binks was finally solved,
letting her family bury her
and finally begin recovering with real answers.
Number two, Mary Cerruti.
Mary Cerruti did not have it easy growing up.
Born and raised in Kingsville, Texas,
she was the daughter of a professor.
Both of her parents passed away before she even turned 21.
She attended the University of Houston,
but she never graduated.
After, she got married twice,
both marriages ending up in a divorce.
Mary was a very lonely woman,
but she still had a few friends and some family
to support her and show her care.
But toward the end of her life,
the care she received dwindled massively,
especially after Mary went missing in 2015.
- Hi, my name is Mary Cerruti,
and I live at 610 Allston,
and, literally, this project is going to be in my backyard,
and I'm surrounded.
- [Narrator] Mary was the sole protestor
of an apartment building being built beside her small,
yellow home before her strange disappearance.
Despite her fiery protest,
the apartment builders went on with the project,
towering over her small home and concealing it in bushes.
No one knew Mary went missing
because barely anyone could actually see her home.
It wasn't until neighbors became concerned
with the amount of mail piling up outside of her home
and a broken window.
They began to search for her, but turned up nothing.
The sight of Mary's home was growing incredibly eerie.
Her car was still parked in the driveway
and her belongings were still in the home, untouched.
A friend of hers officially reported her missing
in August of 2015 after she wouldn't return his calls.
The search for Mary began.
- Just too many apartments for such a small space.
And I think the character of the neighborhood
will be damaged.
Thank you.
- [Narrator] Mary had been last seen
in March, or February, of 2015.
Her disappearance sparked confusion
in both her friends and the authorities.
She was a 61 year old, frail, old woman.
Where could she have gone?
Because of the window being broken,
people began to think she was kidnapped.
Her friend went to grab some of the mail
out of the broken window,
finding that she purchased some items in May,
assuring her status at that time.
An animal cruelty case was filed against Mary,
after her disappearance.
Mary was an avid cat owner,
and the cats had been in the house alone
while Mary was gone.
Authorities found that her cats had perished
by the time they had gotten to them.
There was a hefty amount of evidence backing up
the fact that Mary had gotten kidnapped.
There was no way that she would have left her darling cats
and her car behind, right?
The broken window also played a role in the theory.
A kidnapper must have taken Mary from her home,
which is why her disappearance went completely unnoticed,
and her house was left with the cats and the car.
That had to be it, right?
Wrong.
Mary's house had been sold
at foreclosure after her disappearance,
and a tenant rented the home, which was now painted blue.
Within just his first few days of living there,
he made a call to 9-1-1 on March 4th, 2017.
He made a startling discovery
and found something simply unbelievable.
- [Woman] What is your emergency?
- [Tenant] So I just called to report this,
I didn't know exactly how to do it.
But I just moved into this house, I'm renting it.
Just moved in a couple of days ago,
and I found between two of the walls,
I found a human skeleton.
- [Narrator] A body was wedged between two walls
in the attic.
Authorities raced over to examine the body,
which had already been partially consumed by rats.
The body was immediately taken in for examination
and Mary's family and friends prepared for the worst.
Their nightmare had come true,
it was Mary's body they found in the walls that day.
The body was beyond repair to take any teeth samples
to see if it was truly her.
Because Mary only had cousins
as remaining live family members,
DNA testing was inconclusive.
Then examiners took her jaw,
one of the only parts of Mary's body, still salvageable,
and they compared it to her jaw using photos
and footage of Mary.
The footage you're seeing right now
is the exact same footage investigators poured over,
searching for clues.
Sadly, the glasses Mary wore in the footage
didn't match the glasses found on the remains,
but they did notice something absolutely chilling.
As Mary spoke in this video,
they noticed that she seemed to have
a hard time moving her jaw as she spoke.
They then decided the jaw was identical,
down to the shape of her almost indented square chin.
The body also had a pair of tattered sneakers
and Mary's red glasses,
two things that Mary was known for.
All these things pointed to the fact that the body was Mary.
The evidence was enough for examiners to make it known
that the body wedged between the walls was,
in fact, beloved Mary Cerruti.
The most widely believed theory
is Mary went to get something in her attic
and found that a floorboard was loose.
Because of the unsteady board,
Mary fell into the floor,
unable to call for help
because she lived alone with her cats.
She most likely died from either dehydration
or starvation all alone in her attic.
No one had any idea that she could possibly have been there,
until she was found.
With this, the case was finally closed.
No foul play was suspected by most in this case,
but some, including Mary's cousin, Nancy,
believed foul play was involved.
In her interview with the Chronicle, she said,
"I think I'm glad that it's coming to a conclusion.
I think somebody put her there.
I still have lots of questions
that probably will never be answered."
Mary Cerruti's cause of death brought about sadness
and guilt among the people that knew her well.
Some thought she was simply not answering their calls
because she did not feel like it.
And others wished they looked harder for her,
giving up after years of turning up nothing
about her disappearance.
Number one, Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller.
On May 29th, 1971,
Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller
were on their way to a gravel pit
where they were having an end-of-the-year party.
They were both living in South Dakota at age 17.
The two were never seen again,
once they left for the party that day.
The search for Pamela and Cheryl went on for years
with many speculating that they were kidnapped and murdered,
or maybe even still alive somewhere.
There were tons of theories surrounding the two girls,
some including kidnapping, and some including running away.
But mysteriously enough,
the police never found any evidence
to pinpoint a single theory.
Most speculated they were runaways,
as that was common in 1971.
Kidnapping was not that common of an occurrence,
especially in the rural area of South Dakota.
Jim Rowenhorst,
a deputy that was 21 at the time of the incident,
spoke in an interview with the Sioux City Journal.
In his interview, he recalled,
"Back then, if a kid turned up missing,
it actually was far more likely that they were a runaway.
It was just not very darned often
that you heard about kids being kidnapped.
It just wasn't something you were concerned
about in rural South Dakota."
Many teens left for the city,
running away without a second thought.
Because of this, the case was not thoroughly investigated.
This was also 1971,
so there was no internet or alerts to publicize the issue.
Foul play was not believed to be relevant
to the case of Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller,
whose case was buried throughout history.
They were not spoken of again until 2007,
when a murder indictment case was filed against a man.
Convicted sex offender, David Lykken,
was suspected of having something to do with the case.
Charges were pressed against him,
but they were quickly dropped.
They realized that another inmate falsified the confessions.
So where did Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller disappear to?
Did they actually run away to the big city?
Were they murdered?
The answer to both of those questions is no,
they were not murdered, nor did they run away.
In September of 2014,
43 years after the girls' disappearance,
the authorities were called when a man noticed
the wheels of a vehicle in the creek beside the bridge
that the girls had last been seen on.
The car was slowly extracted from the ground
and police were baffled to see the result.
It was the Studebaker,
the car that Pamela and Cheryl had been last seen in.
According to the Argus Leader,
the car was in third gear,
with the keys in the ignition, and the lights on.
Inside it was her license,
notes from classmates, and photographs.
The case had finally been cracked.
Their vehicle had been hidden under the water
for a whopping 43 years.
Though it had clearly deteriorated over time,
it was still a complete time capsule,
still filled with their belongings from 1971.
Pamela and Cheryl were both found in the front seat
and foul play was out of the question.
All their clothes were still intact,
which fueled the idea that the girls
were not kidnapped or murdered.
The girls were determined to have died in a car crash.
The Studebaker falling deep into the water,
below the newly-constructed bridge.
The car was found only because of a drought,
finally bringing the wheels to the surface
where the passer-by noticed it.
43 years after their disappearance,
Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller were laid to rest.
They were finally able to be properly mourned
by their friends and family.
Pamela Jackson's father, Oscar Jackson, was not so lucky.
He died five days before the car was excavated
at the grand age of 102.
He wrote in his obituary that one of his biggest regrets
was the fact that he was unable to find out
what truly happened to Pam,
an endearing nickname, given to Pamela Jackson,
by people who knew her well.
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