Book Lover
Born and raised in Salt Lake City, 64-year-old Sherry Black was a book lover ever since she was little girl. It wasn't until her early fifties that she fulfilled her lifelong dream: opening her own bookstore.
Together with her husband, Earl, Sherry opened a quaint bookshop along a busy 8-lane avenue right next to her home. They named it B&W Billiards and Books. Little did their neighbors imagine that this tiny, picturesque shop would be at the center of one of the city's most gruesome crimes.
A Picturesque Bookstore
B&W was no ordinary bookshop. Earl had built most of the shelves out of old pool tables, giving the place an old-fashioned, even magical atmosphere. "It looks kind of like a little log cabin almost", South Salt Lake City Police Detective Joe Sutera said.
Sherry, in turn, had made a huge effort into purchasing all sorts of rare, valuable books, though she mainly focused on texts and artifacts related to the Mormon faith. "It's a niche bookstore, mostly LDS books, which was Sherry Black's passion", Sutera explained.
Sales Took Off
Fortunately for Sherry, sales started taking off a few years after going into business. Before she knew it, B&W had become one of the most popular religious bookstores in the area.
Without a doubt, nobody would've imagined something terrible happening in a small, religious bookshop like Sherry's. This being said, the whole town was left in shock when tragedy struck this log cabin on a cold, winter morning...
Weird Feeling
At noon on November 30, 2010, Earl was still at work when he received a frantic phone call from his daughter, Heidi. "I called her cellphone and I called her home and nobody would answer, and it was just so strange. I just had this really weird feeling", Heidi recalled.
As soon as he hung up, Earl headed to the bookstore to check in on his wife. He called out her name the moment he entered the bookstore, but for some reason, she didn't reply back. As he made his way in between the endless stacks of dusty books, he came across his worst nightmare...
Horrifying Scene
To his horror, Earl found Sherry's body lying on the floor soaked in blood. The sight was so incredibly gruesome that even detective Joe Sutera was disgusted.
"I’ve been doing this for quite a while and this was probably one of the most brutal scenes I’ve seen. She was beaten and stabbed, and it was a violent, brutal scene", Sutera confessed. What had happened?
The Autopsy
While the facts were initially unclear, the results of the autopsy proved that Sherry had put up a fight against the killer right before being stabbed to death.
The fact that she had been brutally stabbed so many times left the police wondering whether it had been a hate crime instead of a mere robbery. Was it possible that she had previously known the killer?
Was It A Robbery?
For starters, the investigators quickly ruled out the possibility of a robbery, mainly because there was still cash in the cash register and the rest of the store seemed to be unruffled.
In this sense, Sutera pointed out that "She kept the most valuable books in a safe, and it appears that they were all accounted for". But if it hadn't been a robbery, then what could've been the motive behind such a grisly crime? Was there any evidence found at the crime scene?
Evidence At The Crime Scene
Luckily, the police landed on plenty of evidence at the crime scene, including some of the alleged murderer's blood, fingerprints, and partial palm prints.
Even though it was quickly confirmed that the blood belonged to a male, neither the blood nor the fingerprints matched any entry in the FBI's fingerprint or DNA databases. However, this was not the only evidence they found...
A Mysterious Object
To everyone's surprise, this Armani Exchange male belt was found just a few feet away from Sherry's corpse, and both Heidi and Earl confirmed that it didn't belong to anyone in the family.
The belt measured roughly 37 inches and it had a sticker on the back of the buckle that read the number "323". "We were never able to confirm what that actually meant", Sutera pointed out. Had this mysterious belt been used as a weapon?
Ruling Out Theories
Upon examining the body, the team of forensics confirmed that Sherry body didn't have any belt wounds. "We don't believe it was actually used in the attack but we believe maybe he was planning on using it in the attack", Sutera confirmed.
In other words, none of the evidence found at the crime scene provided any concrete and decisive clues. If it hadn't been a robbery, the next logical hypothesis was that one of her close relatives – most likely her husband –, had been responsible for the murder...
Family In The Spotlight
The police went on to interrogate the victim's husband, Earl. Choking back tears, he claimed he was heartbroken at the thought that he would not only have to bury his own wife, but also close down the bookshop.
The husband's heart-wrenching sorrow made the investigators realize that he hadn't been involved in Sherry's murder. "We've cleared all the family. We've looked at them extensively. Her close friends and family have no idea who did this", Sutera said. This meant they would need to start looking in another direction. But where?
A Compelling Theory
A few days after the murder, Sherry's friend, bookseller Ken Sanders, gave the police an insightful lead. Ken pointed out that rare Mormon books such as the ones that Sherry owned were usually worth hefty amounts of money – sometimes, even hundreds of thousands!
In his view, with such valuable treasures on the line, dangerous customers were bound to be on the watch. "People will kill for a heck of a lot less than that", Ben pointed out. This posed a new, compelling question: what if there was some sort of connection between Sherry's murder and the rare books she sold?
A Rare Criminal Gang
The more the investigators thought it through, the more convinced they were by this new theory. "[Sherry's] father has several rare books and rare items from Mormon history. So it wouldn't be that much of a surprise for some bad guy to take advantage of her", Sutera claimed.
After looking into it, the police discovered that there was actually a criminal gang operating in Salt Lake City that stole rare, religious books and artifacts, and guess what? It so happened to be that Sherry had had a history with one of the gang members...
Act Of Vengeance
It happens to be that Sherry had recently purchased a few books on the Mormon faith from a young man named Lorin Nielsen. It wasn't until selling most of these books herself that Sherry found out they had been stolen.
Once Sherry discovered that her former customer was actually part of a theft gang, she tried to recover some of the stolen books and helped the authorities prosecute him. Bearing this in mind, could her murder have been an act of vengeance? Had it been a payback for her role in the dismantlement this rare gang?
Suspect Cleared
As convincing as this hypothesis sounded, the lead soon fell apart. After being thoroughly investigated, it was eventually proven that Nielsen was innocent.
Logically, Sherry's family felt extremely discouraged once Nielsen – until then, the only suspect – was cleared. Nevertheless, seven years later, just when the investigation was about to be dropped, Sherry's case took an intriguing turn...
State-Of-The-Art Technology
Seven years after Sherry's murder, the authorities were finally able to determine what the murderer looked like with the aid of an advanced, state-of-the-art DNA technology known as phenotyping.
According to Police Detective Ben Pender, the killer was 46% West African and 34% European. They also managed to reconstruct three mugshots of what he could look like. But did this new DNA technology help solve the case?
The Family's Fight For Truth
Relentless, Sherry's family spent the next three years trying to get the murderer's digital snapshot out under the public eye. "Even if it's not something that's going to solve the case, it allows us to progress the case and continue to progress this case, because it is ongoing", said Detective Pender.
Sherry's daughter Heidi and son-in-law Greg also played a decisive role, offering a $250,000 reward for any concrete information on the identity or whereabouts of the killer. It wasn't until October 2020 that their colossal efforts finally paid off...
The Killer
In October 2020, exactly ten years after Sherry's murder, a 29-year-old man named Adam Durborow was arrested by the Salt Lake City police and was charged with first-degree aggravated burglary and murder.
County Sheriff Rosie Rivera refused to give away any further details as to how Durborow was identified as a suspect or how he was caught. But what do we know about the suspect so far?
Case Solved
It turns out that Durborow had previously been arrested for shoplifting in 2010 and for theft in 2011, though this was the first time he was charged for murder.
A few days after his arrest, the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services announced that his DNA samples had matched with the blood found at Sherry's crime scene. In addition, once the results came out, Durborow allegedly confessed to the crime.
And Justice For All
As of today, even though the murderer has been put behind bars, Sherry's family and friends are still waiting for the judge's verdict. But while they're still longing for that day to come, it satisfies them that the mystery was finally unveiled.
"I just think it’s important after nine years to keep her in our memory, to think about her, to remember the good times we had with her, and show how much we miss her", her daughter, Heidi, told the press. One thing's for sure, and it's that they surely honored her memory. Or would justice have been made had it not been for their struggle?