Crime Junkie
Crime Junkie

WARNING: Roger Hueber

July 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In August 2005, a 33-year-old woman named Cheryl Ruchie vanished from her apartment complex in Lockport, New York, just days before she was scheduled to testify before a grand jury against a corrections officer named Roger Hueber. Cheryl had learning disabilities that put her mental age at about 16, and she had been in a relationship with Roger since she was a teenager herself. She had just confessed to investigators that she and Roger had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl together in 1999. The day she disappeared, Cheryl learned that sheriff's deputies were looking to serve her with a subpoena. She called her mother, left a voicemail, and then was never seen or heard from again. But her case was not treated as a potential homicide. Instead, authorities told her family she had likely run away to avoid testifying—an assumption that, two decades later, still haunts the search for what really happened to her.

The Journal That Started Everything

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (02:04) **The Journal That Started It All** - 16-year-old special education student Emily journals about her friend Megan's relationship with an adult man named Roger, prompting a school administrator to investigate.
  • 2 (04:34) **The Investigation Begins** - Sheriff's investigator Joe Taylor formally investigates the allegations against Roger, but faces a legal hurdle with the age of consent.
  • 3 (05:58) **Confronting Roger** - Taylor interviews Roger, who denies a sexual relationship and claims Megan is just a family friend and babysitter.
  • 4 (07:07) **Cheryl Ruchie: Victim and Perpetrator** - Taylor learns about Roger's live-in girlfriend, Cheryl Ruchie, a woman with a learning disability who was groomed by Roger.
  • 5 (08:38) **Expanding Web of Abuse** - The investigation reveals Roger's predatory pattern extends to Emily and other minors.
  • 6 (10:10) **Cheryl's Bombshell** - After leaving Roger, Cheryl confesses to a 1999 sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl that she and Roger committed together.
  • 7 (13:45) **Roger's Arrest and Cheryl's Plea Deal** - Roger is arrested on felony charges from the 1999 incident, and Cheryl is offered a plea deal to testify against him.

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Show Notes

In August 2005, a woman disappeared just days before she was supposed to testify against her boyfriend, a corrections officer accused of sexually abusing minors. For years, her family says she was treated like a fugitive instead of a missing person. But when we looked deeper, we found a witness who has never spoken publicly before — and a sighting from the night she vanished that could change the way this case has been understood for more than twenty years.

  • If you know anything about the disappearance of Sheryl Rucci, please contact the Niagara County Sheriff's Office at 716-438-3393. If you’d prefer to remain anonymous, you can submit a tip on their website.

 

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Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.