Fresno police confident they'll solve the Sandra Kerby case

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno Police are confident someone knows something and believe they'll eventually solve the Sandra Kerby case. It's been 15 years since the 52-year-old Fresno teacher went missing. The case has grown cold despite her family's hope for closure.

The halls are quiet at Gibson Elementary where Sandra Kerby taught first grade. The students are out for summer break and the gates are shut. The pink ribbons and posters which once decorated that same fence have long since been taken down. 15 years later the lead investigator on the case is a police chief in a different city, but the Kerby case still hangs over his head.

Selma Police Chief Greg Garner said, "It's probably the first case that comes to mind because it's unsolved and will hang out there forever and other high profile cases have a conclusion and this one hasn't and will stay with me the rest of my life."

It was Chief Greg Garner who realized this case was more than it seemed on the surface. "There was a number of circumstantial pieces of information that we were able to pull together that indicated there may have been foul play involved."

Kerby's Ford Explorer was later found in the Target shopping center at River Park. Her keys and purse locked inside. There've been searches and press conferences and police turned their focus on Sandra's husband Frank Kerby. Homicide detectives who are still working the case today say that focus hasn't changed.

Bartlett Ledbetter said, "We still believe Frank Kerby is a person of interest we'd love to talk to him hopefully he'll come forward and talk to us someday."

Frank Kerby told us he has no comment on the matter and Ledbetter says detectives need new leads and they need to find Sandra.

In the meantime her family holds out hope with every passing year. They, like police believe someone knows something.

Chief Greg Garner added, "I know anniversaries like this must be terribly hard on them and even me and I was looking at it from a professional basis it's just hard and I'm sure they would like closure in some form."

But he says until then, her family and the community in which she lived and worked, still remember her, and still believe answers will one day surface.