Parents of Missing Girl Are Victims of Hoax
T H O R N T O W N, Ind., July 31 -- — William Sherrill worked seven days a week for 10 years at the same auto service station just in case his missing daughter tried to contact him there. Years later, when he finally received the call he thought he'd been waiting for, it turned out to be an elaborate hoax.
"It's like she ripped my heart out again. I wasn't ready for this," William Sherrill told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.
William Sherill's daughter, Shannon, has been missing for 17 years. When he received a phone call from a woman who claimed to be Shannon, he believed her until police called a press conference on Wednesday.
At the press conference, William Sherrill sat in shock as police revealed they had issued an arrest warrant for Donna Walker, the woman who allegedly pretended to be Sherrill's missing daughter. Walker, 35, surrendered to Topeka, Kan., police at around 5 p.m. local time Thursday.
The Sherrill family found out about Walker's scam just minutes before the news conference, during which William Sherrill broke down in tears.
"I wasn't expecting this at all. I thought they were going tobring Shannon in here," he told reporters.
William Sherrill said all the pain he experienced when Shannon disappeared returned when he discovered Walker was not Shannon.
‘I Wanted It To Be Her’
"I really just didn't want to go through this again," William Sherrill said. "I wanted it to be her so bad."
Sherill's wife, Dorothy Sherrill, said she believed Walker just as much as her husband did.
"I guess at times she acted like she remembered, I really thought it was Shannon. The more she would say, the more it seemed like it could be her," Dorothy Sherrill said.
Sherrill said Shannon was abducted while playing hide-and-seek in the family's yard when she was 6 years old.
Sherrill said Walker called him Saturday, claiming to be Shannon and asking questions about her real birthday.
"I told her it was August 12 and I asked her when she was celebrating her birthday," William Sherrill said. "And she told me December 6, and, she says, 'Good, it's close, maybe I will get to spend my real birthday with my real family.'"
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