In the spring of 1981, a young mother named Terrie Bea Ehrhart was looking forward to celebrating Mother's Day with her family. On the evening of May 10th, the 23-year-old called her mother from a motel in Champaign, Illinois. During their conversation, she mentioned that she would be returning to her mother's home in Decatur the following day. She promised to bring a Mother's Day gift for her mother and a new dress for her young daughter. This phone call would be the last time her family ever heard from her. Terrie never arrived as planned, and the gifts she spoke of were never received. Concern for her well-being grew with each passing day that she did not make contact.
The months following Terrie's last known contact were filled with uncertainty and a lack of official action, as she was not formally reported missing until November 1981. Before her disappearance, Terrie's life had seen some significant changes. She had previously been married to James V. 'Jay' Ehrhart, whom she wed in Texas in 1978. Their marriage ended in divorce in California in October 1980, just a month before he remarried. At the time she vanished, Terrie was described as a white female, standing between 5'4' and 5'5' tall, and weighing between 115 and 140 pounds. She had brown hair and hazel eyes. Her distinctive features included pierced ears, a one-and-a-half-inch scar on her right collarbone, a tattoo of a marijuana leaf on her upper right arm, and a tattoo of the letter 'J' on her right buttocks.
As the investigation into Terrie's disappearance eventually began, authorities from the Decatur Police Department, Champaign authorities, and the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement became involved. Over time, investigators came to suspect that she had been the victim of a homicide. While they have not publicly named any suspects or detailed a motive, their investigation led them to seek a wiretap on a home in Decatur. The absence of Terrie's remains has presented a significant challenge to the investigation and any potential prosecution. Despite the passage of decades, her case remains an active and open investigation, leaving her daughter and other loved ones without definitive answers about what happened to her after that final phone call from a Champaign motel. The central mystery of who, if anyone, she was with at the motel and what transpired after she expressed her plans to come home continues to be the focus of this long-unsolved case.
Last Seen: May 10, 1981
