Unsolved Mysteries - Linda Sherman

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In Bridgeton, Missouri, at the Casa Gallardo Restaurant, two women having lunch noticed something strange outside the window. There, in the bushes, was a human skull. Police Chief Walter Mutert described the bizarre scene:

“It’s a very well-manicured area. Plants and gravel and what have you. And the way it was situated, it would give one the impression that, you know, somebody put it there so you would see it. During that time period, there was the relocating of a cemetery that was in the area, and a lot of bodies were being exhumed, graves were being moved, so it gives you the impression now that this may be a prank, and there would be no reason to suspect that there was any foul play.”

The skull, determined to be from an adult woman, went into the evidence room at the morgue and was soon forgotten. One year later, at a police station 25 miles away, a mysterious letter arrived. It stated, “The Bridgeton Police have L. Sherman’s skull.”
Dental records showed the skull was, in fact, that of Linda Sherman, a 27-year-old wife and mother who had been reported missing five years earlier, on April 22, 1985.

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On April 22nd, 1985, Linda left her night job at around two in the morning. Don Sherman offered his account of that night:

“She didn’t come home from work until about 3:00 in the morning. We got into an argument about the fact that she wouldn’t tell me where she’d been. And we stayed up until at least 4:00 in the morning discussing that.”

Linda was lying on the sofa later that morning when her daughter Patty left for school:

“She always took me to school, but my dad took me to school that day. And I remember her laying on the couch with her face to the back of the couch. And she didn’t get up. She didn’t get up to kiss me good-bye. She didn’t say anything to me. She was just laying there.”

That would be the last time Patty ever saw her mother. Don claimed that when he returned to the house that afternoon, Linda was on edge:

“When I came back home, Linda was still there. She should’ve been at work by then. And she was mad ’cause she was running late.”

Don says Linda drove off at about 6 p.m., but there are no witnesses that saw her leave. Linda never arrived at work and never returned home. Don claimed to know nothing about her disappearance:

“When she didn’t come back, I assumed it was typical of the previous times that she had left and I thought that she took off with somebody.”

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Was it possible that the killer placed the skull there to threaten Don? Or did Don have a reason to put it there himself? Some speculated that Don wanted to remarry and needed proof that Linda was dead. Only one thing is certain: for Don, the skull provided the perfect piece of evidence. But for Linda’s daughter Patty, the find was devastating:

“When the skull was found, I just kinda lost all hope in life. I didn’t know that she was dead. I guess there was always some hope that she had just left.”

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