A side-by-side shows the image of Cherrie Mahan at 6 years old, the age she was at the time of her disappearance, and a rendering of what she might look like in 2023. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

For 40 years now, the world has wondered what became of Cherrie Mahan, the 8-year-old girl who went missing from her home on Cornplanter Road in Winfield Township on Feb. 22, 1985.

For four decades, Janice McKinney, Cherrie’s mother, has returned to the site where her daughter was last seen — the bottom of her old home’s driveway where Cherrie would have been dropped off after school on that Friday afternoon — for a vigil. She has said the vigil is her way of keeping Cherrie’s memory alive and the search for her active.

On Tuesday, Oct. 21, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pennsylvania State Police joined forces to conduct a digging operation near a residence in South Buffalo Township, Armstrong County. A state police sergeant confirmed digging was the result of an ongoing investigation, which a private investigator deduced was related to Cherrie’s disappearance.

Details on the FBI and state police investigation into this South Buffalo Township site are slim, but it’s amazing they are performing this type of work potentially for a cold case that became known across the nation and beyond.

This search is happening in no small part to McKinney herself, who has kept the case alive over the decades, capturing the interest of investigators and individuals who also want to know Cherrie’s whereabouts. Private investigator Steve Ridge took up the case earlier this year, offering a $100,000 reward for any information on Cherrie’s disappearance.

The state police and FBI have not confirmed finding anything in the search Tuesday. But Ridge is hopeful the search could be tied to Cherrie.

If it is a step toward finding more about Cherrie’s disappearance, that’s what McKinney is still seeking all these years later.

— ET