Some bonds are difficult to explain.
Twins often speak of sensing when something is wrong with the other—even from miles away, even before there is any reason to worry.
For Terry Lewis, that uneasy feeling began when her sister failed to show up for an evening they had planned together. Sherry was dependable, successful, and in the middle of building a life she loved. There was no obvious reason for her silence.
But Terry knew her sister.
And before the night was over, she would learn that her fear had been justified.
A TWIN ALWAYS KNOWS
Life was going wonderfully for Sherry Lewis. She had just purchased and was remodeling a beautiful home on the lake. She dressed like a queen and drove a Corvette. She was at the top of her game as a real estate agent for the Massey and Bagley Realty companies in Decatur, Illinois. Sherry had an afternoon house showing, then would head down to the 1994 Decatur Fall Festival to meet her twin sister Terry for a night of fun.
The request to see the house on Finch Drive came in the night before, after office hours. Sherry was the agent on call, and made plans to meet with the prospective buyer at 1 p.m. As the night wore on, Terry kept trying to call Sherry at home and at the office. She was nowhere to be found. For Terry, this was unlike her sister. At 11 p.m., the Festival closed, and Terry drove to Sherry’s house, where she found police cars stationed in front. Back on Fitch Drive, there were more police cars, where Sherry Lewis’ body lay on the kitchen floor. She had been beaten and strangled. The county coroner estimated she was killed in the afternoon.
Panic soon swept area realtors. They would now go to showings in pairs; they would ask for identification from everyone coming into the home; they would ask all visitors to sign a log-in sheet. Meanwhile, Sherry’s keys were missing. Keys that opened every house for sale in the Decatur area.
Police found an appointment book. At 11 p.m. it said “Finch Drive,” and next to it was a man’s name. They traced him to a local hardware store, and found the call made the previous night had also come from the store. But police could never tie him to Sherry or the scene.
And then they were onto another suspect...
Read the Full Story in 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed
Sherry Lewis’s murder is one of the haunting Midwestern cases revisited in Bob Cyphers’s 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest.
Through careful research and decades of reporting experience, Cyphers follows the evidence, the suspects, and the unanswered questions that kept this case alive long after Sherry missed that final meeting with her twin.
Who arranged the showing—and who was waiting for Sherry inside the house on Finch Drive?
Read 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed from Genius Books
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