What started like an ordinary Tuesday in suburban Ohio quickly turned into a nightmare for the family of Cheryl Coker when she suddenly vanished after a seemingly normal morning.

When her SUV turned up in a Kroger parking lot with her purse and phone still inside, it was clear that Cheryl had not left on her own accord.

Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a true crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa.

Hi, Melissa.

Hi, Mandy.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

I still have my Zoom background that has like Christmas trees and stuff in the back. I just turned that on yesterday on November 2nd. So you'll get to enjoy the Christmas spirit with me now for the remainder of this year, I guess. This is a long time. It's like 20% of the year. This is a lot. I know. Well, you know, you always hear complaints about how right after Halloween is over, like immediately it turns on to Christmas. And I hate to admit that I am that person. I'm part of the problem.

I am part of the problem. I love Halloween. I hype up Halloween. I get really into it. But yeah, I like took down my Halloween decorations immediately. I did not put up my Christmas stuff because, well, my husband also like rolled his eyes a little bit. And he was like, you don't really want me to get the Christmas decorations down to you. And I was like, I love that kind of a question. You don't want this. It's not,

you want me to. It's you don't want this, right? It starts off as like a statement. My husband does that to me all the time. I'm like, ask a question. Don't say I do or don't do something. Ask a question. Right. I feel like you're making the witness. Leading the witness. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we haven't quite gotten there yet, but we are in spirit. We're on Zoom. I'm in a Christmas house right now.

Really happy for you. I hope to be there one day, too. Yeah. So getting into the story for this week, if you asked anyone who knew Cheryl Lynn Carol Coker to describe her, you'd get the same three words right out of the gate.

Bubbly, talkative, and someone with a laugh so infectious that it could take over a room.

She was that person who never met a stranger, whether she was chatting it up at the grocery store checkout line, or making sure holidays were over-the-top events that everyone would remember.

She just had a larger-than-life personality. She loved being a hostess, and she loved taking

family trips, like the ones that she and her mom, Mary, took to New York City to catch Broadway

shows, and most of all, she loved her own role as a mom and grandmother. Cheryl had two daughters who she absolutely adored.

She was a very hands-on mom who did everything from helping with homework to driving them to cheerleading.

When her oldest daughter made Cheryl a grandmother, Cheryl was all in. She spoiled her granddaughter

with the same enthusiasm that she had for everything else in life.

She was always planning and always giving. Cheryl was divorced from her daughter's dad, but she

later met William or Bill Coker, and to outsiders, he seemed like Cheryl's opposite in just

about every possible way. While she was very bubbly and chatty, Bill was quiet and more reserved, maybe even a little standoffish.

...