El Dorado Jane Doe
El Dorado Jane Doe is the name given to an unidentified American woman and identity thief estimated to be between eighteen and thirty years of age who was murdered on July 10, 1991 in El Dorado, Arkansas in Room 121 of the now-demolished Whitehall Motel. The Jane Doe used multiple names while alive, including Mercedes (which is how her friends knew her), Cheryl Ann Wick (which was the name on the identification card found with her body), Kelly Lee Carr, Kelly Karr, Shannon Wiley, Cheryl Kaufman and Sharon Wiley; none of which were found to be her real name.
El Dorado Jane Doe | |
|---|---|
 Photograph of the victim | |
| Born | c. 1960-1973 |
| Died | July 10, 1991 (aged 18-30) El Dorado, Arkansas |
| Cause of death | Homicide by firearm |
| Other names | Mercedes Cheryl Ann Wick |
| Known for | Unidentified decedent |
She was known to have lived in various states prior to her death, including Texas and Louisiana, and was alleged to have engaged in sex work. While alive, Mercedes shared varying accounts of her past, suggesting that she had been arrested at one point, had one or two children and had possibly been involved in a bank robbery on the East Coast.[1] Her murderer was identified as her ex-boyfriend and alleged pimp James McAlphin; McAlphin was quickly convicted, but her true identity remains unknown.[1]
Activities prior to death
Residence
Mercedes's earliest verified location is Dallas, Texas, where she was arrested for prostitution. She also worked at a KFC there. After leaving Dallas, she traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, before going to El Dorado in early 1991. She also worked as a topless dancer in Little Rock, Arkansas prior to her death and was found to have lived with a family in Irving, Texas.[1]
Arrest record
- December 31, 1990 – arrested (as Cheryl Ann Wick) for prostitution at La Casita Motel in Dallas, Texas[2]
- January 26, 1991 – arrested in Dallas[2]
- February 8, 1991 – arrested (as Cheryl Ann Wick) for public lewdness at the Carousel Motel in Garland, Texas[2]
- May 1991 – arrested (as Cheryl Ann Wick) for writing bad checks in El Dorado, Arkansas[2]
James McAlphin
Mercedes met James McAlphin while in Dallas. They eventually began a relationship, during which Mercedes would often find herself in the emergency room due to injuries suffered at the hands of McAlphin. Before McAlphin, Mercedes had been involved with other men known as Tyronne and J.D.[1]
In June 1991, Mercedes left McAlphin and moved in with a friend named Andrea Cooksey. McAlphin continued to contact Mercedes with threatening message after she left him. On July 10, he managed to get Mercedes to come to his room at the Whitehall Motel with an offer of money.[1]
A neighbor, Roy Charles Menon, witnessed part of the interaction between Mercedes and McAlphin that night when he stopped by to ask for the return of some cassette tapes he had lent out. Mercedes had indicated to Menon that he should talk to McAlphin and attempted to leave, going out into the parking lot before McAlphin stopped her and hit her. Yelling "get back in the room, bitch," he dragged her back into the room as Menon left. From next door, Menon heard the two arguing back and forth before a gunshot ended the dispute. Witnesses then saw McAlphin flee, getting into his vehicle and speeding off.[1][3]
Investigation
McAlphin was soon arrested and charged with first degree murder and second degree battery. He denied killing Mercedes, claiming she had shot herself in a suicide attempt, and that he had only hit her. The police dismissed his claim. McAlphin further refused to identify the decedent unless the police agreed to do something for him.
With McAlphin uncooperative, the police looked to Mercedes' possessions to glean her identity. They found a social security card and an identification card with her photo that identified her as Cheryl Ann Wick.[1]
The police traced Wick to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and contacted her family to inform them of their loss. The Wick family responded by putting the police in touch with the real Cheryl Ann Wick who was still alive and claimed her identity had been stolen. Wick theorized her social security and identification information had been stolen while she was working as a dancer for a Minneapolis company called Party Time and denied ever having known Mercedes.[1] The police were left dumbfounded with no clue as to the true identity of Mercedes.
Accounts of her past from Mercedes
Mercedes had told differing stories about her past, making it hard to separate fact from fiction. She told her friend Andrea Cooksey that she used to be a stripper, was from out of town, and had two kids raised by her mother with whom she didn't get along. To others, she had said she was in the witness protection program and that her father was in the mafia. Some had heard that she was wanted for bank robberies on the East Coast. Police investigating her identity could not discover any bank robberies to which she could be definitively tied, nor any connection to a witness protection program or the mafia.[1]
Mercedes also mentioned accompanying an African American male at truck stops, where she had been tasked with luring truck drivers in order to rob them. She claimed that one of these interactions had ended with the death of the truck driver; this led police to suspect that Mercedes had been involved in the November 12, 1988 unsolved murder of truck driver Dwayne McCorkendale. A white female had been seen with a white male and a black male near the crime scene in a brown Ford Pinto. However, no definitive ties have been established.[1]
To a volunteer at the Salvation Army in El Dorado, Mercedes had shared a story about living on 1100 Cadiz Street in Dallas, the location of a local homeless shelter. She said that a daughter had been taken from her while there and that she had been unable to get the child back because she was using another name. This information could not be verified because records from the shelter for this period had been destroyed by the time this story was investigated.[1]
Account of her past from McAlphin
McAlphin has recently claimed to know the true identity of Mercedes and offered to reveal it in exchange for $4,000. To bolster his claim, he has shared select information he claims relates to her past.[1]
McAlphin has claimed that Mercedes had been on the streets since she was 16, when an African American man she fell in love with forced her into prostitution in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. According to McAlphin, by the time she was an adult, she began prostituting of her own will. He further shared that Mercedes had avoided being trafficked to Mexico by developing a relationship with a pimp named Jeffrey "JJ" Davis of Dallas before running away with another pimp named Tyronne.[1]
Police have dismissed McAlphin as unreliable.[1]
2019 developments
A second cousin of the victim living in Alabama was identified by a genealogist using genetic genealogy after uploading the unidentified woman's autosomal DNA to the GEDmatch database. The cousin did not recognize the victim but stated she resembled members of the family.[4][5]
References
- "We Know Who Killed Her. But 24 Years Later, We Still Don't Know Her Name". Huffington Post. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
- "Timeline". Wix. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
- "Finding a Name for Jane Doe". MyArkLaMiss. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
- Lohr, David (24 January 2019). "DNA Just Led To A Major Break In A Murder Case That's Stumped Police For 27 Years". Huffington Post. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
- Jeffrey, Rebecca (2019-01-29). "DNA Hit Brings Investigators One Step Closer to Identifying El Dorado Jane Doe". KARK. Retrieved 2019-01-29.