Sheila JARVIS Missing Person Case

Aug 13, 2024

Aug 15, 2024

Sheila

JARVIS

69

22

62 inches

110 lbs

Black / African American

Female

On a day shrouded in uncertainty in the autumn of 1978, a young mother named Sheila Jarvis vanished from Buffalo, New York. The 22-year-old woman was last seen on November 3rd of that year. At the time of her disappearance, Sheila was described as a Black female, standing 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighing approximately 110 pounds, with both brown hair and brown eyes. Little information has ever been made public about the specific circumstances of the day she went missing, including what she was wearing or her intended destination. Her sudden absence, however, was alarming enough for the Buffalo Police Department to suspect that she had met with foul play. The initial investigation began with very few leads, a challenge that would persist for decades. The heartbreak surrounding Sheila's disappearance was compounded by a subsequent family tragedy. Just over a month and a half after she was last seen, her seven-month-old son, Rodney Milton Jr., passed away while in the care of his aunt. Authorities stated at the time that there appeared to be nothing suspicious about the infant's death. This devastating event added another layer of sorrow and urgency to the search for the missing young mother, leaving a family to grieve for a child without knowing the fate of his mother. In the weeks that followed, the investigation into Sheila's case would intersect with another grim discovery in the city. In December 1978, the torso of an unidentified woman was found in a vacant apartment on North Street, prompting police to scrutinize the cases of more than a dozen missing women, including Sheila's. However, by the end of January 1979, investigators were able to definitively rule her out as being the victim. The unidentified woman was found to have been three to four months pregnant, a condition that did not match Sheila's circumstances at the time she vanished. Following this, tangible leads in her case seemed to dissipate, and the search for answers grew cold. The case of Sheila Jarvis is a somber example of the many long-unsolved missing persons cases that leave families in a painful state of limbo. With the passage of more than four decades, her disappearance has become one of Buffalo's numerous cold cases from the 1970s. Despite the lack of significant breakthroughs, her case remains open. It is listed in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), ensuring her information is accessible to a wide network of law enforcement agencies. Authorities have indicated that such cold cases are subject to periodic re-examination, with the hope that modern forensic tools and renewed public appeals might one day shed light on what happened to the young mother who disappeared so long ago.

Nov 03, 1978

Buffalo

New York

Erie County

No

151447

Buffalo Police Department

Buffalo

New York

Erie County

14202

Molly Sanford

Detective

68 Court Street, New York

7168514444

Local

Law Enforcement

bpdny.org

24-226-0701

1978-12-12

Buffalo Police Department

Brown

Brown

Brown

09/07/2026