In the late summer of 1980, a young woman's life took a turn into decades of unresolved mystery. On September 5, 1980, 17-year-old Sherry Lynn Quinn was last seen in the Dale City/Woodbridge area of Virginia. A teenager with brown hair and brown eyes, Sherry stood about five feet three inches tall. Friends and family sometimes called her 'Frizz.' Like many young people of her time, she was known to occasionally hitchhike, sometimes traveling long distances.
On the day she vanished, she informed her family that she was heading to an acquaintance's home to pick up some of her personal belongings. She left, and was never seen again by her loved ones.
The days following Sherry's departure turned into weeks of silence, deepening her family's concern. The only semblance of contact came weeks later in the form of a collect phone call. A family member answered a call from Sherry, which was thought to have originated from somewhere in Texas. This brief communication offered a glimmer of information, suggesting she may have traveled out of state, but it would be the last time her family ever heard from her. The conversation ended, and with it, the trail to Sherry Lynn Quinn went cold, leaving a void of information and an absence that would stretch across the years.
For decades, Sherry's disappearance remained in the shadows, generating very little media coverage and leaving her story largely undocumented. It wasn't until 2021, more than forty years after she was last seen, that a formal missing persons case was officially opened by the Prince William County Police Department. The circumstances of her case are few, marked by her stated intention to retrieve her things and the mysterious, untraceable phone call from another state. The investigation into what happened to Sherry Lynn Quinn after she left her Virginia home remains open, a quiet and lingering question for a family who has waited decades for answers.Last Seen: Sep 5, 1980
