On a summer evening in Salt Lake City, Utah, 17-year-old Sheri Martin was working at a Winchell's Donut Shop. It was August 17, 1971, and what began as a routine night would tragically become her last. Two men, Sherman McCrary and his son-in-law Carl Taylor, entered the donut shop, their presence casting a dark shadow over the otherwise ordinary establishment.
After robbing the shop of a small amount of cash, the two men abducted the young female employee, forcing her into their vehicle and leaving behind only her parked car as a silent witness to the crime that had just unfolded.
The days that followed were filled with unimaginable horror for Sheri. Her captors, members of the nomadic McCrary-Taylor clan, were in the midst of a violent crime spree that spanned multiple states. As they transported her from Utah to Nevada, she was subjected to repeated sexual assaults. Her terrifying ordeal came to a brutal end near Wendover, Nevada, where she was shot to death and her body discarded in the desolate desert landscape.
The McCrary-Taylor family's reign of terror continued for several more months, marked by a pattern of robberies, kidnappings, and murders, often targeting young women working in donut shops. Law enforcement officials in various states began to connect the series of similar crimes, realizing they were dealing with the same group of perpetrators. The family's crime spree finally came to an end in June 1972 after a botched supermarket robbery in Santa Barbara, California. A shootout with a police officer led to their capture.
Following their arrests, the full scope of the McCrary-Taylor family's horrific crimes began to come to light. While Sherman McCrary and Carl Taylor were convicted and received life sentences for the murder of another young woman in Colorado, they were the prime suspects in numerous other killings, including that of Sheri Martin. Fingerprints belonging to Taylor were discovered on a coffee cup at the donut shop from which Sheri was abducted, directly linking him to the scene of the crime. Although a confession for Sheri's murder was not formally obtained, authorities were confident that McCrary and Taylor were responsible for her death, bringing a close to the investigation but leaving a permanent scar on the community she left behind.
