When a Hampton police detective spoke with Amy Collins about an unrelated investigation in 2011, she brought up the younger sister her family had been searching for since 1982. Mary Everette Harrison disappeared from her home in Hampton, Virginia, leaving four daughters behind. Nearly three decades later, Detective Randy Mayer reopened her missing person file to determine whether she had left any trace of her whereabouts.
Mary was 31 when she vanished from the family’s two-bedroom house on Shell Road in October 1982. Her daughters, ages 6 to 12, woke up to find their mother gone. She had left no note, and her purse remained at the house. New clothes with price tags still attached hung in her closet. She also didn’t have a vehicle.
The girls were accustomed to their mother’s occasional absences, which sometimes lasted several days. However, she always returned. Her oldest daughter, Sherrena Harrison, initially believed Mary had simply left briefly to run errands.
“I thought she went to the corner store and she would be back,” Sherrena recalled during a 2011 interview with the Daily Press.
Mary was never seen or heard from again.
Our Black Girls is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, independent, reader-supported publication. If you believe in amplifying the stories of missing Black women and girls, building an archive of forgotten cases, and supporting families in need, please consider donating, sending a gift via Buy Me a Coffee, or subscribing here.