Nearly 21 Years Gone..Amy Sher Still Missing

Amy was a battered woman and her abuser, her husband, remains free

Sometime in early 2022, I made contact with a writer named Alexander Ferrick. Ferrick’s Amazon author page was full of interesting biographical information. Ferrick was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the summer of 1996. He had moved around a bit. California, Arkansas, and was now attending college full time in Oxford, Mississippi. Ferrick is a self published author. His niche isn’t really my bag but I decided to pick up his latest title, an interesting fantasy novel named ‘‘Demonslayer’ with the hopes of reading the book and emailing the author, regaling him with my vast knowledge of his works. That’s the thing about author’s, they cannot resist someone that has read their work and wants to discuss it(Trust me I know) I read it (halfheartedly) and made my introduction to the author via email. I played the part of doting fan boy the best I could and are dialogue, although sporadic, continues to this day. The thing about my and Ferrick’s relationship is I know something he doesn’t know. I know his name is not Alex Ferrick, its actually Michael Sher. I know that his mother is a missing woman, and I know his father has likely been brainwashing him his entire life. Lastly, I know his mother’s wonderful doting family knew nothing of his existence until many years after he was born.

On October 14, 2002 Amy Sher left the finance department at Lahey Clinic in Burlington for the last time. Amy did what we have all done a time or two or twenty, she left work early, sick. This was the last time anyone at Lahey, who had been concerned about her for years, would see her alive. Over the next two business days, Amy called her bosses and phoned in sick. On October 17th, Amy’s husband, Robert Desmond phoned the Lahey clinic and reported his wife would no longer be reporting for work. On the 18th, according to phone records, Robert Desmond phoned the clinic for the last time and requested Amy’s bosses, Chris Luchessi and Jeff Holden’s email address. When pressed why Amy couldn’t call herself, Desmond simply stated that she was ‘‘Unable to do so’’ Less than an hour later, Holden and Luchessi received emails from the email address Rdesmond@att.net in a tone that he didn’t recognize, ‘‘Amy’ resigned from her post at Lahey officially from her husband’s email address. The brass at Lahey were suspicious and contacted the Billerica Police department to report Amy missing. Officer Michael Casey took the first report. Holden and Luchessi had every right to be suspicious. Employees at Lahey who worked with Amy have painted a sinister picture to me about just how tortured Amy Sher was in the weeks and months leading up to her disappearance.

Everyone knew that Amy was in a mentally and physically abusive marriage. Robert Desmond would call Amy at work and berate her so loud over the phone that she would leave the receiver on her desk while he ranted. Amy would show up to work with missing teeth. Clumps of Amy’s hair would look to be seemingly ripped out of her head, leaving painful looking bald spots she would hide the best she could. Amy could often be seen limping around the office and burst into tears after the long phone calls with Robert, once gregarious and outgoing, Amy would eat alone and talk to nobody. Amy Sher was so seemingly damaged, her co workers would quietly leave domestic violence helpline pamphlets on her desk and leave handwritten notes begging her to get herself, and her son some help. Amy’s family was helpless, they hadn’t spoken to her in years. Since she married Robert Desmond in New Hampshire in October of 1994, Desmond had set out to completely alienate Amy from her family, and shut them out. When their son, Michael, was born in 1996, nobody in Amy’s family knew of his existence. Amy was completely alone.

Robert Desmond, from all I could find came from a good family. Desmond was born and raised in Acton, Massachusetts. Over the years, Desmond became a master manipulator. He was a womanizer and an excellent social engineer. When he met Amy Sher in the early 1990’s she was a happily married woman, married to a man named Paul Pomerantz. Sher’s family initially was appalled that Amy would leave Pomerantz for such a domineering jerk like Desmond. When Desmond and Sher got married after her divorce was finalized, no member of the Sher family was invited. Sher’s family would have to resort to getting a restraining order on Robert Desmond in the mid 1990s due to his incessant harassment of his new wife’s family. Amy’s mother and sister would wake up to harassing phone calls from Desmond. He would call them things like ‘‘Kike’s’ and ‘‘Jews’ in reference to the Sher’s Jewish heritage. At one point Desmond threatened to ‘‘Wipe the entire Sher family out’

(The High School in Parkin, Arkansas Michael Sher graduated from)

The initial Billerica officer who took the report from Sher’s bosses did no follow up. He was not obligated to. Hell, why follow up on a woman’s husband calling her work to get an email address for her boss so she could resign officially? It wouldn’t be until 18 months after Amy left the Lahey clinic that day in October 2002, that she would be reported missing. The Sher family had retained the services of a private investigator. At that point, Amy and her family had been estranged for years, and they were concerned Robert had taken Amy out of state, or maybe something even worse. What the private investigator brought back to them, shocked them to the core. The PI had seen Amy dropping off a young child at school, that he later confirmed was her and Robert’s. The investigator caught up with Amy in the parking lot of Lahey clinic and confronted her about her estranged family. The PI gave her pictures of her nieces and nephews, of whom she had never met. Amy Sher became physically ill at the sight of her estranged family members. Hours later, Amy Sher contacted the private investigator, a man named Joel Picchi and told him she had no interest in reuniting with her family. Months later, Picchi figured out Robert Desmond was now living alone with the child and Amy was no longer employed at Lahey, Amy’s family went to the police and the first official contact with Robert Desmond was made. Authorities questioned Robert at his apartment, and he told them a story he has stuck with for two decades. According to Robert Desmond, Amy had come to him sometime after she resigned from Lahey and told him she wanted to leave him for another man. Desmond told the cops he dropped Amy at Alewife train station in Cambridge, and he never saw her again. She simply up and left her husband and young child, never to be seen again.

Robert Desmond told officials that he ‘‘Assumed Amy was fine’’ and expected the police and the public to believe that Amy would leave and never make contact with her family, in which she had not been in contact with for years. Amy never had anymore action on her bank accounts, and her final paychecks from Leahy were never picked up. Amy never renewed her expired drivers license and let the registration on her 1994 Pontiac expire. She simply vanished.

Police had no evidence that there was foul play in Amy’s disappearance. The prevailing theory was that Robert may have had something to do with it. Police have treated this as a missing persons case with an asterisk. The asterisk being Robert Desmond was a controlling, violent psychopath who had isolated his wife and son from his maternal family and abused his wife physically and mentally. With no body and physical evidence, the Sher family grew restless. In 2007, the Sher’s filed a paternity suit for visitation rights to Michael, and won. How did Robert Desmond respond? He ran. He took Michael and moved to California, then a few years later, Desmond fled to Arkansas. Desmond has been running since the day the decision came down in 2007. He continues to run to this day and the Sher family has never met Michael.

To this day, investigators believe Robert Desmond to be the main(and only real) suspect in Amy Sher’s disappearance. I started looking into the case heavily in 2020. I learned that Robert Desmond owned a boat in 2002, and the theory of a few investigators was that Desmond could have disposed of Amy’s body in the water. Also, Amy’s neighbor in Billerica in 2002, a registered nurse, vividly recalls the Desmond house stinking of burning flesh during the time of Amy’s disappearance. The neighbor (who does not want to be named) is still haunted that she didn’t push the issue harder with police about the smell. As far as I can tell, Desmond never had a search warrant served, and the time between Amy’s disappearance and when investigators learned of it was long, 18 months long. Ample time for Desmond to dispose and clean up, had he killed her. The nurses statements could have been probably cause for a search warrant, and the smell of burning flesh is distinct, its one not many could forget.

(Lahey Clinic)

Amy’s former bosses and coworkers continue to be tortured over her disappearance, and believe they could have done more. Some of Amy’s former work mates had even privately taken up a collection before she disappeared to help her flee Robert if needed. They were good people trying to navigate a delicate situation. My heart goes out to them. A few years back, Amy’s sister, Joani Mccullough, commissioned a billboard with Amy’s likeness to be put up around Massachusetts and Missouri. The billboards did a bit to get Amy’s case back into public consciousness. Amy’s case was featured on multiple true crime podcasts with big followings online. Web sleuths on sites like Redditt took up the case, but no new heat on Robert Desmond, the last person to see Amy alive, presumably.

I know now that Robert Desmond has been interviewed by police at least twice. I know that Billerica PD investigator Roy Frost made a trip to Arkansas in January of 2013 to check in on Desmond, right before Michael Sher graduated high school. Desmond remained steadfast his wife left him, and she is probably fine. I tracked Desmond to Arkansas as well in 2021, I know that he worked with his hands made halfway decent money. I know that Desmond had lived in Anaheim and Fullerton, California in the 2000’s with his son. I could find no girlfriends or trouble with the law Desmond had been in since his wife disappeared and I have no idea if Michael knows what became of his mother.

The key to this whole story is Michael, whom I mentioned earlier writes under the name Alex Ferrick. It would be interesting to know what Michael has been told by his father of what became of his parents marriage or if he knew of his fathers abusive, psychopathic tendences. I do plan on taking a trip to see Robert Desmond as soon as I can, and doing a series of podcasts around Amy’s disappearance. If there’s no evidence Robert did something to Amy, I need to talk to Robert myself, I want to see how he reacts to questions about his wife .I will also continue my correspondence with Alex Ferrick, waiting for the perfect moment to drop the bomb that I know who he is, and what he may or may not know is of great interest to me, and many others who care about what happened to his mom.

Until then, I will continue to write and speak Amy Sher’s name.

Injustice for one is injustice for all.

Talk soon