RIVERSIDE — News Center 7 has been following the case of Riverside mom, Cheryl Coker, since she vanished in October of 2018.
It would be four more months before police would publicly name her husband, William Coker, their suspect. As News Center 7 first reported in April, prosecutors declined to approve charges against William Coker,
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News Center 7 obtained the entire investigation through an open records request, and this is what we learned was going on within days of Cheryl Coker’s disappearance.
Margie Keenan, Cheryl’s sister, was seen on police body cam video saying, “I know she’s 46, but it’s usual for her to be gone this long,”
No one has seen Cheryl since she dropped her 15-year-old daughter off at school that morning.
William Coker was seen on police body cam video saying, “I’ve been calling, texting, no answers. We always talk after I get off work,”
Officer Mike Brewer then asks William Coker where his wife could be. He said on police body cam video “We’re getting a divorce. She has a boyfriend. I have a girlfriend,”
William Coker said he and their daughter had just returned from a trip to Florida late the night before.
Cheryl’s family found her SUV the next night in the Kroger parking lot less than a mile from her home with her purse and cell phone still inside.
Detectives brought William Coker in for an interview one week after his wife’s disappearance. They told William that he was not being arrested and was not being detained.
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Det. In an interview, Travis Abney asked William Coker to write a timeline of his actions the day Cheryl vanished.
Abney said, “I’m just going to tell you man to man some of the things that bother me about this.” He wanted to know why William Coker never made any calls to police from the time his wife was last seen until her car was found.
“37.5-hour time period, we weren’t getting the level of concern from you that we would have expected out of a husband of 19 years,” Abney told William Coker.
“I would say under normal circumstances that would be correct, but we weren’t under normal circumstances. She was seeing people. That’s what my thoughts were that she was with someone,” William Coker said.
Abney also asked why William didn’t tell police that his girlfriend had also gone on the trip to Florida with him and his daughter.
“And, I don’t like being surprised in an investigation and I didn’t find out that Erin had even gone with you and Mikayla until I did a search on her phone the other day,” Abney said.
William Coker admitted that he was home the morning Cheryl disappeared, but said he never saw her. He said he got up briefly around 8 am to try to start her work van, while Cheryl was in the shower and went back to bed until around noon.
Abney said a neighbor had seen Cheryl’s car in the driveway at 10:45.
“The only person that we know she was with during that three hour and twenty-minute time period or even a portion of that period is you,” Abney told William Coker. “We have to take a long hard look at you.”
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The detective said he noticed big scabs on William Coker’s elbows the night Cheryl’s car was found.
Abney asked, “Okay, what happened there?” William replied, “I hit the brick wall when I was cutting the grass.”
Abney brings up William Coker getting served with divorce papers two weeks earlier and how the couple’s daughters told police their mom spent the night in a hotel.
In the interview, Abney said, “Both of them said, ‘My dad has a really, really, really bad temper and mom was afraid.’” Abney indicated that Cheryl sent texts to that effect to her coworkers.
“I have never ever laid a hand on Cheryl,” William Coker said.
In fact, the only time he has talked to News Center 7 was when reporter Mike Campbell reached him by phone the day police named him the suspect in 2019.
Three weeks later, on October 30, detectives bring William Coker in for a second interview and this time they tell him they believe Cheryl is dead and they suspect him.
“We know everything you did that day. We know your timeline doesn’t match what you’re telling us,” Abney said told William Coker.
A hiker found Cheryl’s remains in April of 2020. The coroner ruled she died from homicidal violence but could not determine how.
As News Center 7 reported, Montgomery County Prosecutors last year declined to file charges against William Coker, citing insufficient evidence.
We reached out to William Coker, asking for an interview but have not heard back yet. Again, he told News Center 7 in 2019 that he did not kill Cheryl.
Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage of the disappearance of Cheryl Coker as News Center 7 talks to several key players in the weeks to come.