A 28-year-old Chicago transgender woman named Sherry Berry who had been missing since May 6, 2015 has been located according to her father Jerry Nicholas, Sr.
However Nicholas believes she remains in an extremely dangerous situation both medically and in terms of her surroundings.
Nicholas and family friend Derek Banks said that Berry had undergone brain surgery at Rush University Medical Center April 27. The surgery followed an incident which Banks said Berry vaguely remembered as being pushed down a flight of stairs.
Nicholas told Windy City Times that the family noted multiple injuries and lacerations to his daughter's face and body when visiting her following surgery. He stated that on May 6 an individual who was not a family member visited his daughter at Rush. Shortly after she was permitted to sign herself out and left the hospital.
On May 15, Nicholas told Windy City Times that the individual who accompanied Berry out of the hospital had seen fliers and reports about her disappearance and immediately contacted the family to inform them that she was alive and currently staying with a relative. However Nicholas remains extremely concerned because he maintains his daughter has refused to return to the hospital for treatment for what he characterized as a "life threatening problem."
"According to Rush as of May 15 x-rays [of Berry] determined blood clots in her lungs that have spread to her stomach," he said. Nicholas also believes that whomever initiated the attack on Berry still presents a grave threat to her safety.
In an earlier interview with Windy City Times Nicholas detailed Berry's life—one fraught with challenges that began when she was six. "She was taken from school and arrested by the CPD when she was six," he said. "They took her and put handcuffs on her. They took all six of our children away with juvenile arrest warrants."
The arrest reports Nicholas provided Windy City Times were issued on July 26, 1993 for each of the six children and listed neglect as the offense.
However Nicholas asserted that, to this day, neither he nor his wife Joanne have any idea why their children were taken away from them. "We never went to court. They never did nothing about it. We had no legal help. It didn't make any sense."
He said that Berry was placed in a home with Princess and two of her other siblings. "The home Sherry was raised in was dangerous. When she was eight she almost died," Berry said. "A lot of what she went through contributed to her having difficulties in school and in life in general."
It would be 10 years before Nicholas and his wife saw her again. "She was 16, going to school, working at Burger King and as a life guard," he said. "When she first saw us, she couldn't believe it. Then she told us what had happened to her."
Nicholas said that as a child Berry was placed in the home of a relative. "How they obtained custody, we don't know. [She was allegedly raped], Sherry got Chlamydia and a respiratory infection. The Children's Advocacy Center knew about this and they did nothing."
According to Nicholas, Berry was instead admitted to Michael Reese Hospital on Chicago's South Side. "She was in the psychiatric facility," he said. "Sherry told us they restrained her and she got electroshock therapy. But she didn't have psychotic episodes. Never tried to kill herself. She just kept saying 'my parents are going to save me'."
Nicholas insisted that while agencies such as the Department of Children & Family Services and Catholic Charities knew about Berry's case nothing was done. "They never came to her rescue," he said. "All these psychotic drugs were injected into her and she was never the same again. Her nervous system, her writing skills were completely destroyed. She inherited seizures, asthma, severe headaches."
The Michael Reese facility has since closed.
At 16, Sherry began her transition. "She was discriminated against," Nicholas said. "They denied her low-income housing. Workplaces were mistreating her. She was treated like she didn't deserve to be equally protected. The streets just took her over. She turned to alcohol, smoking, cocaine. She became homeless. But she never came to us. Our daughter would write us off saying 'we don't love her.' I kept saying 'We do. We accept you. We don't accept what happened to you. We don't like it.' She didn't want to stay with us."
Nicholas said that Berry survived by engaging in the sex-trade.
On April 25, 2015 Berry left her sister Caroline's home at 4 a.m. "We don't know why," Nicholas said.
Two days later she was admitted into Saint Bernard Hospital on the South Side. At 3 p.m. she was transferred to Rush where she underwent brain surgery the same day.
"We've no idea what happened to her," Nicholas asserted. "All we know is that the clothing we recovered after she was at Rush was soaking wet with the smell of beer all over it. Her skull was fractured. The bruising on the top of the right side of her head was swollen real big. There were scratches and a whole lot of scarring—like cuts—on her back on both sides. Her lips and her left eye was swollen. The stitches from the surgery went from the top of her forehead all the way to the back of her neck. She was strapped down and hooked up to a ventilator. It was terrible to see her like that."
"Rush told us that visiting restrictions were put in place on April 28," Nicholas added. "If we didn't know [a person], they couldn't see her without a code or our consent. Only we could as her parents. We don't understand why this guy was allowed into her room. This would have never happened. I asked Rush how this person was allowed to step by security even with the restrictions placed on her room in order to be protected. She could barely walk. She lost a tremendous amount of weight [current weight 120lbs according to the CPD report]. But they let her sign herself out. Rush don't care. They explained nothing to us. They said 'she's grown and she wanted to leave'. There's something wrong here."
Nicholas stressed that he was very clear to the CPD that Berry is a transgender woman. The CPD report issued and then reprinted by the Chicago Sun-Times May 7 listed her as male.
He noted that he is also angry with the Sun-Times. "The reporter did not contact us as to who Sherry is instead of just writing this sample," he said. "I'm upset about it. The police wanted to put the picture of her in the paper of Sherry in the hospital with a bald head."
Banks confirmed Nicholas's story of what occurred between April 27 and May 6 at Rush. He added that when Berry was in the hospital she had begun to slowly remember details of what had happened to her. "She told me somebody threw her down the stairs," Banks said.
"I don't think anybody should be leaving the hospital a week after brain surgery," he asserted. "Even as an adult a family member should be contacted from the hospital for you to be able to sign out and they should have to come and pick you up."
Ald. Leslie Hairston ( 5th Ward ) and Affinity Community Services had released fliers appealing for the community's help in locating Sherry.
"The system has failed Sherry completely—from childhood to this very day," Affinity Executive Director Kim Hunt told Windy City Times. "I talked to her father and he did go into the DCFS stuff but also talked about how when Sherry made her transition she was not able to find resources to support her. Even though she apparently has a very loving family they couldn't find resources either. Because of this, there was no role model for her."
Windy City Times reached out to Rush University Medical Center in order to determine why a woman was allowed to sign herself a little over a week after having brain surgery, in her condition and with a stranger despite the visitation restrictions Nicholas said were supposed to be enforced. Their only response to these questions was "the patient was medically cleared for discharge."
Earlier coverage at the link: www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Transgender-woman-reported-missing-following-brain-surgery-/51474.html .
