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 torn down 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 on her), Kelly Lee Carr, Kelly Karr, Shannon Wiley, Cheryl Kaufman and Sharon Wiley; none of which were found to be her real name. She was known to have lived in various states prior to her death, including Texas and Louisiana, and was alleged to have worked as a prostitute. While alive, Mercedes had shared varying accounts of her past suggesting that she had been arrested in the past, had one or two children and had possibly been involved in a bank robbery on the East Coast. Her murderer was identified as her ex-boyfriend and alleged pimp James McAlphin and he was quickly convicted but her true identity remains unknown as of May 2017. 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 an African American family in Irving, Texas. Arrest record: - December 31, 1990 - arrested (as Cheryl Ann Wick) for prostitution at La Casita Motel in Dallas, Texas - January 26, 1991 - arrested in Dallas - February 8, 1991 - arrested (as Cheryl Ann Wick) for public lewdness at the Carousel Motel in Garland, Texas - May 1991 - arrested (as Cheryl Ann Wick) for writing bad checks in El Dorado, Arkansas James McAlphin: Mercedes met James McAlphin while in Dallas. They would begin a relationship sometime after which would often land Mercedes in the emergency room to treat injuries suffered at the hands of McAlphin. Before McAlphin, Mercedes had been involved with men named Tyronne and J. D. In June 1991, Mercedes finally left McAlphin and moved in with a friend named Andrea Cooksey. McAlphin continued to reach out to Mercedes threatening her after the move out. On July 10, he managed to get Mercedes to come over to his room at the Whitehall Motel with an offer of money. A neighbour, 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. 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. Crying "get back in the room, bitch," he would drag her back into the room as Menon left. From next door, Menon would hear the two arguing back and forth before a gunshot ended the dispute. Witnesses would then see McAlphin flee, getting into his vehicle and speeding off. Investigation: McAlphin was soon arrested and charged with first degree murder and second degree battery. He denied killing Mercedes claiming she shot herself committing suicide and he only hit her. The police dismissed his claim. McAlphin further refused to identify the decedent unless the police did something for him only saying he had met her mother and sister when they visited from Florida. With McAlphin not being cooperative the police looked to Mercedes's possessions to glean her identity. There they found a social security card and an identification card with her photo that identified her as Cheryl Ann Wick. 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 was stolen while she was working as a dancer for a Minneapolis company called Party Time and denied ever knowing Mercedes. The police were left dumbfounded with no clue as to the true identity of Mercedes. Accounts of her past from Mercedes: Mercedes told varying stories about her past making it hard to glean 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 who she didn't get along with. To others, she had said she was in the witness protection programme and that her father was in the Mafia. Some people heard that she was wanted for bank robberies on the East Coast. Police investigating her identity could not discover any bank robberies she could be tied to nor any connection to a witness protection programme or the Mafia. Another story Mercedes told was about being with an African American male at truck stops where she had been tasked with luring truck drivers to rob them. She claimed that one of these truck driver interactions had ended with the death of the truck driver. This made police suspect that Mercedes was 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. No definitive ties have been able to be established, however. To a volunteer at the Salvation Army in El Dorado, Mercedes shared a story about living on 1100 Cadiz Street in Dallas which was the location of a homeless shelter. She said that a daughter had been taken from her while there and she had been unable to get the child back because she was using another name. This information could not be verified because records from this shelter for this period had been destroyed by the time this story was being investigated. 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 to know her real identity, he had shared select information he claims to be of her past. McAlphin says that Mercedes has been on the streets since she was 16 when an African American she fell in love with forced her into prostitution in the Dallas/Forth Worth area. By the time she was an adult she came to do it willingly, he believes. Further he shared that Mercedes had avoided been trafficked to Mexico by developing a relationship with a pimp named Jeffrey "JJ" Davis of Dallas before running away with another pimp named Tyrone. McAlphin also claimed that Mercedes grew up being friends with three girls (Julie Ann Moseley, Rachel Trlica and Lisa Renee Wilson) who had been abducted and trafficked in the Dallas/Forth Worth area. Police have dismissed McAlphin as unreliable.