Dr. Cherryl Pearson vanished 14 years ago with hardly a trace after going to a Memphis Grizzlies game at the Pyramid. Years later, the well-liked pediatrician from Bartlett was declared dead. Her body was never found.
Local 24’s Katina Rankin spoke with one of the police officers who worked this case, looking at people once considered persons of interest. Was this a real life case of “How To Get Away With Murder?”
January 4, 2002 was the last time Dr. Cherryl Pearson’s family would hear from her. Pearson called them from a Grizzlies game that Friday night. Hours later, a telephone call was made to her home in the early hours of the morning she disappeared, from a pay phone at a gas station about half a mile away.
Bartlett police interviewed several people about Pearson’s disappearance. They spoke to her brother-in-law, her sister Laurinda’s husband Chuck Hilbredth, several times.
“Chuck had a checkered past, so to speak,” said BPD Captain Tina Schaber. “He was a person of interest for quite a while. He was interviewed several times. Every time that we would get something that maybe he had told us that didn’t quite add up to what we had before, we would interview Rin, which is Laurinda, or interview Chuck again. We interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Pearson again about Laurinda and Chuck to see what they thought, and it just never panned out.”
Police confirmed that Cherryl left a life insurance police worth $150,000 for Laurinda, but was that motive for murder?
Schaber responded, “It could have been, like I said in the course of the investigation there was evidence that they did have some marital and financial problems, so $150,000 could possibly go a long way. But, it was my understanding that that money was to be used to go to Laurinda for her children.”
Also, Chuck provided an alibi. “If he said he was at a store, we pulled the video to make sure he had been there. The time may have been off. So, we did do our best, including making a couple of trips out of town where he said he went to verify where he said he was.” But, Schaber added, “Some of them he was. Some of them he wasn’t.”
Chuck Hilbredth was eventually cleared and no charges were ever filed against him. Schaber also said in the hours when Dr. Pearson was first reported missing, her parents cleaned her home. By doing so, they may have wiped away any clues inside.
Then, in 2013, police got a new lead.
“We did get some information from a gentlemen who had been incarcerated,” said Schaber. “He talked to another person who was incarcerated with him who had some information, and provided a letter that got sent to us and, I believe, sent to the district attorney’s office and about what they saw happen, what he said he knew and different things like that.”
The new information was about some women in Georgia who supposedly knew something about Dr. Pearson’s disappearance, but that led to another dead end.
Fast forward to the present, and the Memphis Grizzlies no longer play at the Pyramid. Her family no longer wants to talk. It seems as though the case has gone cold. Could it be that Dr. Cherryl Pearson just wanted to start a new life?
Schaber replied, “Oh, no ma’am. From all accounts of her friends that we talked too, Cherryl was very happy. She enjoyed her job. She loved spending time with her sister’s children, and she enjoyed going to the Grizzlies games.”
Until new evidence or testimony surfaces, The disappearance of Dr. Cherryl Pearson appears to be a real life case of “How To Get Away With Murder.”
“I still hold out hope that someone out there knows what happened,” Schaber added. “The $41,000 reward is still outstanding for anybody that comes forward with any information about it.”
If you have any information on the disappearance of Dr. Cherryl Pearson, call the Bartlett Police Department at (901) 385-5555.
