The Disappearance of Jennifer Cahill-Shadle

Jennifer Cahill-Shadle was in the middle of a terrible divorce in 2014. It was almost over, but it was a hard time for Jennifer. She didn’t initially want the divorce, and her biggest struggle was being away from her kids for any length of time.

It was such a rough time for Jennifer, that in November of 2013, she moved from her home in State College, Pennsylvania, to live with her mother in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. Her mom has said that she needed to get out, the situation at home was not good.

But by April of 2014, she could no longer stand being so far away from her children. Her mom drove her back to State College.

Her divorce would be final soon, and the order for spousal support for Jennifer was $5,000 a month. Certainly, her husband Sean wasn’t happy about it, but I think everyone wanted the divorce to be over.

On May 15, 2014, Jennifer went to Wal-Mart, a tanning salon, and possibly a Mexican restaurant.

Jennifer was never seen or heard from again.

Where is Jennifer Cahill-Shadle?

Jennifer Cahill was born on January 6, 1966. Her parents, Johanna and Ed, describe their daughter as fun-loving, charismatic, very interested in art and film, and also was very conscious of her health.

When she met Sean Shadle, Jennifer was very young. She was instantly attracted to his confidence, ambition, and his good looks.

Jennifer’s family recalls that Jennifer changed after she met Sean, not necessarily for the better. She had low self-esteem, and at one point there was a family argument that involved Sean, and Jennifer would take Sean’s side over her own family’s. Now, that could be pertinent information to her case, or it might not be. She was young, 20, and without knowing the specifics of the situation, it’s hard to pass judgment as an outsider.

At 21 years old, Jennifer would marry Sean.

They lived in State College, Pennsylvania, and did pretty well for themselves, financially. Sean worked in the insurance industry and built up quite a reputation in the area. He was well-known, and either well-liked- or- completely disliked. It seems there are two different sides if you ask people in and around State College.

State College is located near the center of the state of Pennsylvania. It is the home of Penn State University and has a population of just over 42,000.

Sean was well-connected in the community. Jennifer, however, began to have some struggles with alcohol during their marriage. At one point, she did join AA and began weekly therapy. She was doing much better. On her, one-year anniversary of AA, a friend of Jennifer’s said that Sean gave her a bottle of alcohol to celebrate.

Again, we have different stories. Some say that Sean wasn’t supportive of her at all. While others said it was Sean that pushed her to get help and into AA.

In 2013, after 27-years of marriage, Sean had filed for divorce. Jennifer originally didn’t want the divorce and would fight it.

After some time, the stress of the divorce was getting to Jennifer, understandably, and she went home to live with her mother in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. Orwigsburg is about a 2 ½ hour drive from State College. Jennifer needed to get away.

While in Orwigsburg, Jennifer got a job in an insurance agency.

In April of 2014, Jennifer couldn’t stand being away from her three children any longer, and her mom drove her back to State College. Jennifer didn’t have a car of her own, and for the next few weeks, Jennifer stayed with friends and in low-budget hotels. She wanted to find an apartment and settle down on her own but needed to save up the money to do so.

Eventually, as divorce negotiations finally started to wrap up, the judge in the case ordered Sean to pay Jennifer a monthly spousal support payment of $5,000 — per month. This would certainly help her start over, and get a place of her own. She began to look for apartments or places to rent.

THE DISAPPEARANCE.

On May 15, 2014, Jennifer went to run some errands. She was back staying at a local hotel, she often bounced between the Rodeway and the Quality Inn in State College, and she used either taxis or just walked, to get where she needed to go.

She spoke to her family that afternoon, just talking about her future plans and how she felt like things were going to be looking up soon.

The next day, Jennifer’s mother couldn’t reach her at her hotel, as Jennifer had lost her cell phone and had limited ways to communicate.

When the entire day went by, and Johanna hadn’t heard from her daughter, she just knew something was wrong.

Then another day went by- still no word from Jennifer.

Johanna contacted Jennifer’s oldest daughter, but she hadn’t heard from her mom either.

By May 20, Jennifer’s mom was in full-blown panic mode and called the local police in State College.

State College is an interesting area, and by Pennsylvania’s guidelines, it’s actually referred to as a Burrough. There are several other areas within State College, that are technically their own little towns.

Since Jennifer was last known to be in the area of Ferguson, Pennsylvania, it was the Ferguson Police that was called.

But the Ferguson police weren’t interested.

THE SEARCH.

First of all, Jennifer, at 48- years old, didn’t need to answer to anyone. Jennifer was also going through a stressful time, maybe she just needed to get away for a while.

When police asked Sean where they thought Jennifer might have gone, he shrugged and said, “Probably some rehab somewhere.”

Jennifer’s family said there’s no way she would go to rehab without telling them. She spoke to her mom daily and her daughters. Why wouldn’t she just tell them if she were going to go back to a rehab center?

Law Enforcement refused to look into it any further as Jennifer was an adult. Plus, Sean, being well-known and well-connected within the community, told police that Jennifer likely just left on her own, either to rehab or just wanted to leave. Police knew Sean well enough to take him at his word.

Immediately Jennifer’s family began calling investigators and using social media to find her. And the battles would begin.

Many, many people stood up for Sean. Many, many people…did not.

Even Sean’s sister came forward to say she thought Sean knew more than he was saying, and that he wasn’t the stand-up citizen that some thought he was.

Eventually, surveillance footage from the Walmart on North Atherton Street in Ferguson/State College was analyzed, and Jennifer is seen leaving Walmart at 4:51 p.m., by herself.

I’m curious what led them to check the Walmart surveillance footage, and how to narrow it down to a time, but I’m guessing someone reported seeing her there or it was based on a timeline from when she had spoken to her family earlier that day.

But things get weird.

Police do put out a missing person alert, but she isn’t yet entered officially as a ‘missing person’ in the system. Investigators weren’t quite ready to go that far yet.

She was listed as being last seen on Walmart surveillance at 4:51 p.m., and she didn’t have her phone or wallet with her. I know she had reportedly lost her phone, but I wonder why she didn’t have a wallet? Had she lost that also?

Walmart Survelliance (Photo Credit: Namus.gov)

One report states that she had lost her credit card, and her daughter and ex-husband were supposed to be bringing her another one.

It was also noted that she didn’t have any cash on her. Again, I wonder how we know that?

Finally, a month later, police entered Jennifer Cahill-Shadle into their missing person database.

Meanwhile, the family goes to get Jennifer’s belongings from the hotel, and is told by hotel staff that they had been trying to reach Sean for several days since the room had essentially been abandoned. Sean had ignored those calls.

People come forward with claims of Sean’s abuse, and of course, his motive, for making his wife disappear. Based on the timing of it all, it doesn’t look good for Sean.

He was just about to have to start paying her $5,000 a month in spousal support payments, and he wasn’t happy about it.

The children were living with him and fully supported their dad, however.

Investigators did bring Sean in for questioning, and they did give him a lie detector test, to which they ruled inconclusive.

Some of Jennifer’s family members say he manipulated the resorts by smoking a lot of marijuana before the exam. I don’t know how they know this, or if it’s true, why they just didn’t try to re-test him?

They also took search dogs, trained in cadaver and human remain detection, to search Sean’s home and property. Nothing was found.

Several months go by, and the family, not getting the response they want from the local police, hires a private investigator, who immediately uncovers some new information.

For a while, the last known sighting of Jennifer was the Walmart surveillance footage. But soon, the Private investigator learned that she was also seen a couple of hours later at a tanning salon in the same shopping plaza, and then a couple of hours after that, at the Don Patrone Mexican Restaurant, also in the same area.

The family reported these findings to law enforcement.

Sean and the children stayed out of the media spotlight, but a family member was able to talk to Jennifer and Sean’s daughter. She said that they knew about the later sightings of her mother, and said they didn’t report it to the police because it wasn’t important.

Unfortunately, a lot like the case I covered last week, there is a significant divide between family members here.

There was a Facebook page set up by the family for Jennifer, and you can read a lot of back and forth discussions on there. Between family members, friends, and community members, it seems there are two very distinct sides.

One year after Jennifer disappeared, the family fought to get the FBI involved. They felt the FBI offered some different resources and might bring a fresh perspective to the case. The local police refused to involve them.

The family went directly to the FBI themselves, who agreed to take a look at the case, but said they needed to be invited to assist by the local police, which of course, they weren’t doing.

A family member wrote a direct email and plea to Diana Conrad, who was the Chief of Police for the Ferguson Department at the time. Here is part of her response:

This case is still active and therefore we cannot share all information, but we have met and provided information to the family via their designated representatives, as I am sure you are aware on many occasions. Some of the statements in your email do not accurately reflect the totality of the information provided to the police, are not substantiated and are misunderstandings.

Additional emails were sent and were subsequently ignored. The family maintains that officers were disrespectful and rude to them, and some believe it is because of their close relationship with Sean.

Interestingly, we also learn that Sean tells people that someone tried to file a health insurance claim on Jennifer’s insurance. They tried three times. He told people this, telling them that he thought Jennifer was alive somewhere and living elsewhere in the country.

But there has been no activity on her social security number, bank accounts, or anything else to show that she is out there.

Jennifer’s friends and families begged authorities to track these claims, feeling that it might be a fraud attempt or stolen identity attempt. But police refused to look into it further. This baffled the family because insurance fraud should be taken seriously, right?

The family hired another private investigator to track this claim, which they did. They discovered the IP address that it came from, which looked to be from New Jersey, but they were unable to learn any more.

So all of these additional findings were discovered by private investigators that the family had to pay for out of pocket, simply because no one else would investigate.

Sean maintains that Jennifer must be alive and it had to be her. But many point out that Sean being an insurance agency knew the ins and outs of the business more than others, and felt that this lead might have been a ‘red herring’ to throw suspicion of him, and get people to believe that he is innocent.

I know we’ve been talking a lot about Sean, but there was another incident that happened a couple of weeks before Jennifer went missing, that has people wondering.

Jennifer had been hanging out at Don Patrone Mexican Restaurant with four men. She paid the tab, almost $200, that night. Investigators have asked those men to come forward and speak with them about Jennifer- what she might have said, what her demeanor was that night, etc. But they never learned who those four men were. And it got me to thinking. She was staying at low-budget hotels, could she have met someone, or someone, while there? Possibly someone not from the area?

Who was she hanging out with in those couple of weeks? Was she seeing someone?

She easily could have gone back to her hotel and left the hotel with someone without really being seen. And since police didn’t really investigate for several weeks, I’m sure any surveillance footage from the hotel she was in is long gone. If there even was any.

Jennifer might have been taken out of the area by someone else, someone she was seeing, hanging out with, or possibly had just met.

What do you think happened to Jennifer Cahill-Shadle?

Jennifer is described as a caucasian woman, standing about 5’4 inches tall and weighing around 110 pounds when she was last seen on May 15, 2014.

Jennifer has brown hair and blue eyes and often goes by the nickname, Jenny.

She was wearing a light-colored v-neck t-shirt, capri pants, and black shoes. She was also carrying a black shoulder bag on the day she disappeared.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Jennifer Cahill-Shadle, please contact the Ferguson Township Police Department at 814–237–1172.