The Disappearance and Murder of Sheri Jo Elliott solved
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On November 16, 1983, 16-year-old Sheri Jo Elliott went missing on her way to school.
Sheri Jo, a sophomore at Carman High School, left her home in west side Flint along Seneca Street that day at around 6am and walked in the direction of the bus stop on West Dartmouth Street and Lavelle Road, never to be seen alive again.
She was dressed in a maroon-coloured jacket and blue jeans at the time she went missing and was carrying her schoolbooks.
Sheri Jo, who previously lived with her father near Battle Creek, had moved to Flint with her mother the summer before.
She was described as sweet and friendly, and the type of girl who would call her mother, whom she was very close with, if she was going somewhere. It was out of character for her to go off without letting her parents know where she was, and her grandmother said she was not the type of person to run away from home. She would always leave a note for her mother before she left the house.
She was a creature of habit, and would return home from school each day at 1:05pm, go up to her room to put away her school books and change clothes, before making herself something to eat and watching TV.
On the day she went missing she neglected to turn up for a 5:30pm babysitting job. It was at this point that her family became concerned.
When Sheri Jo’s family realised she was missing they began canvassing the local area, searching for her and asking anyone in the vicinity if they had seen her, but turned up nothing.
According to an article published in The Flint Journal in July 1984, a witness claimed to have seen a man in his 30s or 40s with gray hair, drag a girl into a dark coloured vehicle around the time Sheri Jo went missing. Another witness described the vehicle differently and although police weren’t confident in the statements, they looked for vehicles matching both descriptions.
On November 20th, 1983, Sheri Jo's body was discovered by a muskrat trapper in a drainage ditch in Saginaw County on Muller Road, in Blumfield Township, Michigan. Her body, which was reportedly shot multiple times, was found adjacent to an eight foot deep, water-logged drainage ditch that connected to nearby Cool Creek.
The area consisted of isolated farmland with empty fields that had been sitting unused. The Flint Journal reported that a starving, abandoned dog laying 50 yards from Sheri Jo's body was the only sign of life in the remote area.
Autopsy later revealed that the victim had been dead for approximately 24 - 36 hours by the time her body had been found.
Police at the time believed she may have been alive for up to three days before she was murdered, and according to reports, she had been sexually assaulted.
The search ended when a police officer showed up to Sheri Jo's house and presented her mother with the victim's jewellery, a ring from her father.
Sheri Jo's mother, Joyce Schultz, said in a heart breaking statement published in The Bay City Times: "We still don't know for sure how she was murdered, or how long they abused her. I can just picture her in a dirty room being abused for days and her wanting me."
The Flint Journal reported at the time that police believed due to the nature of the gunshots, that Sheri Jo may have been in the company of someone she knew or someone who gained her trust.
The medical examiner who performed the autopsy stated that Sheri Jo could have been killed around the time police appealed for information pertaining to the teenager’s disappearance and the story hit the media.
Despite the best efforts of investigators, the case went cold for decades.
Four decades later, the case was reopened, leading to the arrest of 75-year-old Roni Collins. Collins resided in Grand Blanc in Flint at the time of the murder.
Not much is known of Collins, other than what is believed to be his obituary now shows a 404 link when viewed. The obituary detailed that he was a well-liked musician in the Michigan scene.
He was identified as a suspect in the case in 2023; however he took his own life before investigators could obtain a voluntary DNA sample.
DNA was collected during his autopsy and compared to that of the DNA evidence collected from the victim back in 1983. It was determined to be a match.
DNA evidence found on the victim’s body was collected at the scene and preserved as evidence but it wasn't until decades later that it would be used to create a DNA profile of the killer. With the assistance of MSP Forensic Science Division and Othram Labs, investigators used genetic genealogy techniques, leading them to relatives of the suspect, and eventually, the suspect himself.
At the time of writing, it is unclear if Collins had any prior connections to, or was known to the victim or the victim's family.
