Breckenridge Texan

By Tony Pilkington and Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

Stephens County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies are investigating the discovery of human remains in the western portion of the county. Officials suspect that the skeletal remains are those of Sheri Lynne Vickers, who was last seen alive in Breckenridge last March.

A property owner discovered the remains in a field off of County Road 288, near the shore of the western edge of Hubbard Creek Reservoir, near Baker Cemetery, on Saturday, Feb. 3, and called the sheriff’s office. After an initial investigation on Saturday evening, the law enforcement agencies involved decided to wait until today to continue working in the daylight. The scene was secured overnight.

A Fort Worth Police Department mobile crime scene unit was brought to a location near Hubbard Creek Reservoir, where human skeletal remains were found on Saturday, Feb. 3. (Courtesy photo)

This morning, Sunday, Feb. 4, at the scene there were four Texas Rangers, several members of the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office, the Stephens County Justice of the Peace, the Stephens County Constable, the Breckenridge Police Department, crime scene investigators and homicide detectives from the Fort Worth Police Department, as well as the investigator for the 90th Judicial District Attorney’s office. Also at the scene to assist with the investigation was a forensic anthropologist from the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center, Stephens County Sheriff Kevin Roach said.

“We have not positively identified the person, but due to the ongoing investigation at Fort Worth PD, there’s a very high probability that it’s going to be Sherry Lynn Vickers that they’ve been searching for and believed that she was… within a 60-mile radius. And that encompass most of Stephens County and a lot of Shackelford County,” Roach said, adding that Vickers’ family has been notified that her remains may have been found.

Although some items apparently belonging to the deceased person were located in the area, a positive identification won’t be made until the skeletal remains have been further examined. The remains are being sent to the Center for Human Identification on the campus of the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Roach said.

In November 2023, law enforcement investigators from Fort Worth were looking for the body of a woman they believed was last seen alive in Breckenridge in March 2023. A bulletin from the Fort Worth Intelligence Exchange fusion center, a Texas center that works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in fighting crime, stated that Sheri Lynne Vickers was believed to be deceased and her body may have been dumped within an hour’s drive of Stephens County. Earlier last year, the Breckenridge Police Department and Stephens County Sheriff’s Office assisted Fort Worth detectives in an investigation into her disappearance.

In 2023, the Fort Worth Police Department had also issued a missing person bulletin about Vickers. At that time, her last known location was in Fort Worth. Since then, additional information was discovered, leading investigators to believe that Vickers was in Breckenridge the last time anyone saw her alive. When she was last seen, she was in a white Dodge Ram pickup with John Brown Lewis of Abilene, age 57, according to the FWIE bulletin. Vickers was wearing a white tank top, jeans and red sandals and was in possession of a bag of clothing. Click here to read the Nov. 30 story about Vickers.

The current investigation regarding the human remains that were found Saturday is being conducted by the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office and the Fort Worth Police Department’s homicide unit and is being supported by the Texas Rangers.

If anyone has information about the case, they may call the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office at 254-559-2481 or Fort Worth Police Department Detective J. McAnally at 817-392-4382.

Investigators and other officials gather outside a mobile crime scene unit near Hubbard Creek Reservoir on Sunday morning, Feb. 4. They were investigating human remains that were discovered at the location on Saturday.  (Courtesy photo)

Cutline, top photo: Law enforcement personnel and crime scene investigators were at a Stephens County location near Hubbard Creek Lake on Sunday morning, conducting a search and investigation where human skeletal remains were discovered Saturday. (Courtesy photo)