A 'Blue Ridge' Journey to Hear Mountain Man's Painful Story

Keith Ford, father of 1997 murder victim, Sheri Ann Ford

There's a hit song from my childhood that I used to perform for relatives, always at my mother's behest:

"Almost heaven, West Virginia

 Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River...."

Even though I was a city kid, a bus driver's daughter growing up in Queens, New York, John Denver's 1971 classic--which he sang with a clear, earnest tenor--resonated with me, and anyone else, who longed for the place where they could feel most comfortable:

"Country roads, take me home

 to the place, I belong...."

Ten years ago, in July 2014, I drove to the Blue Ridge Mountains from New York City with photographer Kenton Young, my colleague at PIX11 News.  During the eight hour journey south, I made sure to buy a frosted, heated Cinnabon roll at the rest stop, when Kenton refueled on the New Jersey Turnpike. It was always a treat that I allowed myself when I went on a road trip.  I was shocked to learn I was inhaling 885 calories of sweetness.  Later, I was nostalgic, when we passed by the Shenandoah River, famously mentioned in John Denver's song.

We were going to the Blue Ridge Mountains to tell a difficult story, after scheduling an interview with the father of a cold case murder victim who was killed in Brooklyn in 1997.  Keith Ford lived in Blackwells Hollow in Crozet, Virginia, and he wouldn't quit his fierce efforts to get the killer of his 22 year old daughter, Sheri Ann.  

Sheri Ann Ford was just 22 when she was killed in a Brooklyn, N.Y. basement apartment

Sheri Ann Ford was murdered in brutal fashion: stripped, tied with belts to a reclining chair, sexually assaulted, and shot behind the head in the basement of an East Flatbush house on November 9, 1997. She had only been in New York City six months and told her father in a phone call the Friday before her death that she was ready to come home.

"I have seven old houses in the hollow," Ford's dad recalled telling her.  "Pick one."

Sheri Ann Ford's on-again/off-again boyfriend was always a person of interest in the vicious murder. The boyfriend had told detectives two home invaders rushed into the basement apartment in the early hours of Sunday, November 9, tied up and fatally shot Sheri Ann, only to allegedly misfire when they tried to shoot him, as they fled.  Problem was,  one neighbor had heard a muffled gunshot at 5:30 a.m. and the boyfriend didn't make a 911 call until 8:30, three hours later.  Sheri Ann Ford's white Suzuki Jeep was found--still running--five blocks away from the basement apartment on Linden Boulevard in East Flatbush.

Sheri Ann Ford was renting a room in a basement apartment in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY

I was a bit nervous about going into the woods of the Blue Ridge Mountains, not sure how Sheri Ann's family would feel about a couple of city slickers from the media.  Her father and stepmother knew we were coming, but we had to find our way there first.

Keith Ford's wife, Mary Ellen--Sheri Ann's stepmother--told me "a hollow is a dip in between two mountains."  In the dictionary, It's also described as a sheltered valley in the 'hollow' of a mountain.  

My only experience with a 'hollow' came in the form of Loretta Lynn's song, 'Coal Miner's Daughter,' when she recalled growing up in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky.

When we approached Blackwells Hollow in Crozet, Virginia--less than twenty miles west of Charlottesville--I was struck by the grandeur of the Blue Ridge mountain range and large trees that ushered us into the valley, with the sunlight filtering through branches in the woods.  The sun seemed to form dancing, golden beams on the ground.  It truly did seem like "almost heaven."

Sheri Ann Ford’s family property in Blackwells Hollow, Virginia

The family farm had a number of mules (don't say donkey!) and license plates on the pick-up trucks with names like "All Mule," "Virginia Mules," and "Mountain Mules."

A mule is a hybrid animal that's the result of mating between a male donkey and a female horse.

Keith Ford, the straight-talking patriarch with striking blue eyes and a finely-trimmed white beard and mustache, talked about Sheri Ann being a "fearless" child who rode the mules with him and hunted with him. 

Keith Ford and his daughter, Sheri Ann, rode mules together in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia

He took me into the woods in his pickup truck,  pointed out the one-room schoolhouse his grandmother founded, and even let me ride a mule.  Ford also recalled the habit he had fallen into at age 12, in the hollow where he was raised, which eventually caused him deep problems. "We drank moonshine; we made moonshine. We were moonshiners," Keith Ford told us, speaking of the home-made, potent alcohol often distributed illegally in mountain communities.

Riding with Keith Ford in his pickup in Blackwells Hollow, Virginia

Keith Ford said his daughter was four years old when he swore off alcohol for good on  Christmas Eve 1979.  He and his wife established Cavalier Septic Service, which did septic tank cleaning.

I was charmed by the Fords' main house.  One of my favorite memories was seeing a hummingbird fluttering its wings by a feeder near the kitchen.  I had never seen a  hummingbird before, and it was very tiny.

Hummingbird flutters near feeder in Blackwells Hollow, Virginia

Mary Ellen Ford recounted that Sheri Ann had begun studying radiology at the University of Virginia, before leaving school to work in a restaurant in northern Virginia.  Mrs. Ford said Sheri Ann had begun to act a bit differently and was wearing heavier makeup.

Sheri Ann left the restaurant job, after the owners were busted in a drug raid.

The 22 year old native Virginian ended up in Queens, New York--much to her father's surprise.  He remembered Sheri Ann called him and said she wanted to see the city with a girlfriend.

On November 7, 1997, Keith Ford said Sheri Ann Ford made the phone call indicating she was ready to come home.

On November 9, 1997, an NYPD detective called Keith Ford on that fateful Sunday when his daughter was murdered in the Brooklyn basement she was renting.

NYPD report on Sheri Ann Ford’s homicide

"He said it was my daughter, because of the driver's license, and I said, 'No,' I don't think so," Ford recalled.

But Ford was forced to face the grim reality, when he drove his pickup truck from Crozet, Virginia to the Kings County Hospital morgue in Brooklyn on November 10, 1997.

He wanted to take his daughter's body back home but faced some resistance from staff.

"We come to get what's ours," Ford remembered saying to the morgue personnel.  "We're country people.  We're hillbillies.  We just come to get what belongs to us."

Keith Ford ultimately got his daughter back to Crozet and buried Sheri Ann on a small hill on the family land.  He had a sketch of Mickey Mouse ears etched on Sheri Ann's granite burial stone, telling us that he bought the original, Annette Funicello, Mouseketeer ears for his daughter during an auction.

Sheri Ann's granite burial stone

His voice choked with emotion, as he pointed to a mattress on the floor near the living room window.  Ford said he pulled the mattress from his bedroom to the living room on the day Sheri Ann was buried in 1997, wanting to watch her resting place across the pond.

"We've been sleeping on that mattress ever since," Keith Ford said with a catch in his throat  during our visit in 2014.

I checked in with the Ford family this week, as I wrote this remembrance, and I reached Mary Ellen Ford.

She told me the mattress is still lying on the living room floor, nearly 27 years after Sheri Ann Ford was buried.

"We're watching over her--right across the hill," Mary Ellen Ford told me.

Keith Ford will be 82 this year; his wife told us he has good days and bad days.

Mary Ellen Ford said he's always trying to help someone out.

"We sold our business," Mary Ellen Ford told me.  "We don't have our business anymore."

Yet the Fords still send flowers twice a year to the NYPD's Cold Case Squad: on Sheri Ann's birthday in August and on the date she was murdered in November.

Steve Litwin, the NYPD investigator who shared Sheri Ann Ford's story with me, has retired and another detective has taken over the case.

The family still holds onto hope for justice.

And I will always remember the epitaph on Sheri Ann Ford's tombstone, inspired by the inscription on the grave of the country superstar, Patsy Cline.

"Death cannot kill what never dies."

Keith Ford's determination to see his daughter's killer arrested will never die either.

 the epitaph on Sheri Ann Ford's tombstone

The NYPD Crime Stoppers Unit are offering a reward to anyone who can offer information that leads to an arrest and a conviction.

The phone number for confidential tips is 1-800-577-TIPS.