One day in October 2018, Cheryl Coker left her home in Riverside, Ohio, and vanished; she has not been seen since. That night her SUV was discovered in a restaurant parking lot; the doors were locked, and her cellphone, credit cards, and other belongings were found inside.
Family, friends, and investigators don’t believe Coker had any reason to run away. Her mother, with whom she had a close relationship, had recently been diagnosed with cancer. She had two daughters, Mikala, with husband Bill, and Marisa, from a previous marriage, Marisa had also made Cheryl a grandmother.
Everybody states that Cheryl would never go anywhere without her cellphone so she could always remain in touch with everybody.
Even though a body has not been found, police have classed this as a murder investigation. They have also suggested that their primary suspect remains Cheryl’s husband, Bill. Cheryl had filed for divorce from Bill Coker after 19 years of marriage just a few days before she disappeared; she told friends that he had a girlfriend who he refused to stop seeing.
The pair certainly had a rocky relationship, and Bill suggested to police at the time of disappearance that she may have run off with another man; he said the couple had an “open marriage.” Even friends referred to the couple as “swingers.”
When a local radio station interviewed Bill, he told them, “She was behaving in some risky behavior right before she disappeared, and I haven’t really been willing to put that out there because I didn’t want (our daughter) to hear about it.”
When asked directly if he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance, he said, “I did not. I’ve never in my life hurt anyone.”
The case remains unsolved.
Watch the case on People Magazine Investigates at 10/8c on Investigation Discovery.