Remains found in Stephens County may belong to Fort Worth woman missing since March 2023
North Texas authorities believe they have found the remains of a woman who went missing from Fort Worth in March 2023, according to Fort Worth police.
The remains were found on private property in the western portion of Stephens County, according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities were notified of the remains by the property owner, who found them on rural property Sunday evening.
Sheri Vickers, 44 at the time of her disappearance, has been missing since she went with a man and another woman to Breckenridge, a small town on U.S. Highway 180 in Stephens County about two hours west of Fort Worth, on the evening of March 23, 2023.
Detective Joey McAnally, a homicide investigator with Fort Worth police, told the Star-Telegram in December that she feared Vickers was dead. Now, a search of the area has turned up human remains.
McAnally told the Star-Telegram in an email Tuesday that investigators aren’t certain the remains are those of Vickers, but she thinks they are. She’s already notified the family about the remains and that investigators believe they could belong to Vickers.
Along with the remains were items police have been able to confirm as Vickers’ belongings, including her purse and cell phone, McAnally said.
McAnally told the Star-Telegram last December that Vickers cut contact with her family on March 23, 2023, something that was exceptionally unusual for her.
Vickers was in contact with her family every day. She had a young son with autism who needs care and lived in the Haltom City and North Fort Worth area so she could be close to her mother, who she also cared for.
But since the trip to Breckenridge, Vickers hasn’t been seen by family or friends in the Fort Worth area. Her mother, son and two adult daughters haven’t heard from her. And McAnally said her digital footprint has gone dark. Her last appearance in Fort Worth was at a hotel on Cherry Lane, where she got into a truck with a man and a woman. Detectives used digital data to track the three people from that hotel to Breckenridge.
“I think I can say with confidence that that was the last time that anybody saw her and I don’t think she is alive,” McAnally told the Star-Telegram in December.
McAnally said at the time there was no evidence that Vickers was necessarily killed by someone; no bloody crime scene, no murder weapon, no witnesses relaying a story about an argument or fight. It’s possible that Vickers died of natural causes or of an overdose and that someone panicked, not wanting to call 911 to report her death, and hid her body somewhere, the detective said.
McAnally said in December she’d love to be wrong. But Sheri Vickers had no connection to Breckenridge other than the man she went there with, and she had every reason to return to Fort Worth.
Vickers and John Brown Lewis had been dating off and on for several years, McAnally said family members told her, and it wasn’t a healthy relationship. Lewis is suspected of dealing drugs while he was with her, and family members told investigators he may have been abusive.
The best theory, based on witness interviews, was that Lewis was going to Breckenridge for a drug deal and he took Vickers and another woman with him, McAnally said. It was hard to know for sure because Lewis, who was later jailed on unrelated charges including a parole violation, wouldn’t talk with her.
Witnesses told McAnally that at one point Vickers was seen asleep in the truck while Lewis and the other woman were out of the vehicle talking to the witnesses.
The other woman who was in the truck has been cooperative and is not suspected to have anything to do with Vickers’ death or disappearance, according to McAnally.
This story was originally published February 6, 2024 at 4:13 PM.