Family hopes billboards help solve cold case disappearance in Billerica

BILLERICA, Mass. – Two new billboards were unveiled Tuesday with the hope of helping investigators learn what happened to a missing Billerica woman.

Amy Sher left her work in October 2002 and suddenly vanished. Her sister, Joani McCullough, said the family believes she is dead, and her husband Robert Desmond is to blame.

“It’s a cold case. It’s 16 years later. But we have no body, no crime scene no eyewitness,” McCullough said.

Two new billboards are being posted with Sher’s picture in hopes the image will jog someone’s memory.

"We're trying to get the word out. Somebody must know something," she said.

She added that she is humbled by people's eagerness to help her and her family.

"People who know nothing about us but they're willing to help and willing to find answers," McCullough said. "It makes me feel like we can do something."

>>PREVIOUS: Local group setting up billboard to help find woman missing since 2002

“Robert Desmond is a person of interest, and that's because he was the last person to be seen with Amy. There was a lot of domestic violence in their relationship, and he gave inconsistent statements to police,” Wendy Murphy, the family’s attorney, said.

McCullough said Desmond isolated and abused her sister.

“The Lahey Clinic, where she worked, documented the abuse. She would come into work visibly beaten,” she said.

In addition to helping solve the mystery, family members hope the billboards serve a secondary purpose – spare another family suffering from domestic violence.

“I hope thru this effort there’s another family who won’t have to suffer the way we have,” McCullough said.

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