Account
Jul 18, 2009
Aug 03, 2022
Cherita
Thomas
65
21
65 inches
135 lbs
Black / African American
Female
In the late summer of 1980, a young 21-year-old mother named Cherita Janice Thomas vanished from the small community of Au Sable Township, Michigan. On the evening of August 3rd, Cherita, a Black female, had been enjoying a night out with her friend and neighbor, Patricia Call. After visiting a local bar and a baseball game, Cherita borrowed Patricia's brown AMC Matador to go and pick up her four-year-old daughter and Patricia's children from the babysitter. She was last seen wearing a white blouse and maroon pants. The plan was simple: get the children, drop off the car at her friend's house, and then head home to her fiancé. However, Cherita would never complete that short journey. The borrowed car began to have trouble, stalling once at the intersection of U.S. 23 and River Road where three people helped her get it started again. It wasn't long before the vehicle stalled a second time on Sunset Street, a mere two blocks from the babysitter's residence. It was there, at approximately 11:15 p.m., that witnesses reported seeing Cherita getting into a blue pickup truck driven by a white male with a beard. The truck was seen driving off in the direction of Old U.S. 23, and Cherita has not been seen or heard from since. The initial hours after Cherita's disappearance were filled with confusion and growing concern. When Patricia Call returned home at 2:30 a.m., she noticed her car was not in the driveway as planned. A call to her sister confirmed the children had never been picked up. Patricia then alerted Cherita's fiancé, who immediately began to search for her. They soon discovered the abandoned AMC Matador parked on the side of the road. Inside the car were Cherita's cigarettes, her house keys, and a note with directions to the babysitter's house, but the car keys were missing. The investigation into her disappearance would span decades, marked by a series of complex and often misleading leads. For many years, a violent federal fugitive who was in the area at the time and drove a similar blue pickup truck was considered a primary suspect. However, he was eventually interviewed in prison and had an alibi, ruling him out of the investigation. The case was further complicated by a bizarre incident involving a cadaver dog handler who was later found to have fabricated evidence. Years later, the focus of the investigation shifted to a man named Jimmie Allen Nelson, who was Patricia Call's brother-in-law and had even participated in the initial search for Cherita. Nelson, who resembled the description of the man Cherita was last seen with and drove a blue truck, gave conflicting statements to the police over the years. He initially denied seeing her that night but later admitted to giving her a ride after her car broke down. In 2004, Nelson was arrested and charged with obstructing the investigation, and in 2005, he was charged with her murder. He was eventually convicted of the murder, but this conviction was later overturned in 2014 due to new evidence that reportedly implicated another individual. The details of this new evidence remain sealed. The case of Cherita Janice Thomas is a deeply troubling story of a young mother who vanished under suspicious circumstances. Despite the passage of time, the investigation has been fraught with unusual turns and a lack of definitive answers, leaving her family and community without closure. Foul play is suspected in her disappearance, and her body has never been found.
Aug 03, 1980
Ausable Township
Michigan
Iosco County
20601
Oscoda Township Police Department
Au Sable Charter Twp.
Michigan
Iosco County
48750
Mark David
Chief of Police
110 S State St., Michigan
9897399113
Local
Law Enforcement
80-2927
Oscoda Township Police Department
7059
Black
Brown
Brown
05/31/2026
