110921 WALKER COUNTY JANE DOE IDENTIFIED 41 YEARS AFTER BODY DISCOVERED

Investigators in Walker County released new information in the “Walker County Jane Doe” case, a 41-year-old murder mystery. A teenage girl was found dead along Interstate 45 near FM 1696 on November 1, 1980, by a truck driver. She had been raped and strangled. Her body was sent to the Harris County Morgue for autopsy. After extensive investigation and DNA testing through a private DNA testing company, the Walker County Sheriff’s Office can finally identify the “Jane Doe” as Sherri Ann Jarvis. Jarvis arrived in Huntsville on Oct. 31, 1980. Witnesses say they saw her at the Hitching Post truck stop on Highway 75 in Huntsville where she asked for directions to get to the TDC Ellis Unit Work Farm, telling people she was from the Rockport area. The next day around 9 a.m., she was found dead on the side of I-45 near FM 1696 jus north of that truck stop The sheriff’s office said in July 2020, Detective Thomas Bean, who has been assigned to the case since 2015, and other investigators sent samples to a lab to begin forensic DNA testing. In March 2021, six people were identified as being direct relatives or aunts and uncles of Jane Doe. Investigators used internet resources to fill out a family tree and interviewed her family members. They were able to discover that Jarvis was removed from her home in Stillwater, Minnesota for habitual truancy. Her family said she wrote a letter to them shortly after she was removed from the home that she would return. When she was found, Jarvis was 14 years old. Jarvis was buried as a Jane Doe in the Oakwood Cemetery in Huntsville. The Walker County Sheriff’s Office said a suspect has not yet been identified and they will continue the investigation. The FBI and Texas Ranger Wesley Dolittle assisted in the investigation.