In the winter of 1986, the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Sheryl Evans from the streets of the Talladega area marked the beginning of a grim mystery. An African-American female, Evans was known to hitchhike between Talladega and Anniston. Around the middle of February, she vanished, and for about a week, her whereabouts remained unknown. The search for Sheryl came to a tragic end on or around February 22, 1986, when her body was discovered discarded by a rural road in the neighboring Calhoun County.
Investigators with the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office determined that Evans had been killed and then transported to the location where she was found. While the specific cause of her death was not publicly released, the case was immediately classified as a homicide. The discovery of Sheryl's body coincided with a series of other brutal strangulation murders in the Talladega area, prompting investigators to explore a possible connection. This cluster of killings included the deaths of a deaf college student, her two young sons, and another female student.
The investigation into the other murders quickly led authorities to a drifter and itinerant art teacher named Daniel Lee Siebert, who was using the alias 'Danny Spence.' Evidence, including fingerprints and eyewitness accounts, tied Siebert to the other slayings. Investigators publicly stated that they 'strongly believed' Siebert was also responsible for the death of Sheryl Evans, as the timeline and the manner of body disposal were consistent with his other crimes. However, Siebert fled the area around the time Evans's body was found.
After a manhunt that lasted for more than six months, Daniel Lee Siebert was apprehended in Tennessee on September 3, 1986. While in custody, he confessed to five murders in Alabama and alluded to others. Despite the strong suspicions of law enforcement, Siebert never made a formal confession to the murder of Sheryl Evans. Prosecutors, who were already building capital cases against him for the other homicides, did not file a separate indictment for her death. Siebert was ultimately convicted of five murders and received multiple death sentences. He died of cancer on Alabama's death row in 2008. Although investigators have long considered him the primary suspect, the murder of Sheryl Evans officially remains unsolved, as no one has ever been tried for her death.
