Who Was Sharon Marshall?

Someone, Somewhere Knows
Editorial by Kim Cantrell

This is a follow-up editorial to yesterday’s book review of Matt Birkbeck’s A Beautiful Child.

>> Warning! The Following May Contain Spoilers!

Her headstone reads only “Tonya” even though that isn’t really her name.

Only one man knows her true identity.

The man who took her; the man she called “Daddy.”

Franklin Delano Floyd, a.k.a. Daddy, no doubt acquired Sharon when she was just a small girl. How old? No one knows, but it was undoubtedly before she was able to form any long term memory of life before him.

Whether she was abducted or given away, we may never know. But what we do know is that Sharon’s nightmare began before Adam Walsh’s and Etan Patz’s parents made the voices of missing children heard loud and clear.

While statistical data is limited to what Floyd permitted (which is falsified, of course), according to those who knew her personally, Sharon was an extremely beautiful, very intelligent, ambitious girl who excelled in school and dreamed of working for NASA.

Yet, it was these very characteristics that kept the abuse she suffered a secret.

There is a stigma attached to abused children that says, typically, they suffere behavior problems and stuggle academically. Neither of which applied to Sharon.

So she fell through the cracks.

And even today, in a world of intense media, she continues to fall through cracks.

Because her story is so seldom shared.

You won’t see her story on 48 Hours Mystery, Dateline, or 20/20. Why? I don’t know. I can only assume that it is because hers is a story that cannot be told in a tidy 60 minute segment. Or maybe it’s because the story is antiquated.

Yet Sharon’s is a story that should be told. Must be told.

By telling her story, maybe her identity would finally be known. A family could have closure.

And Floyd would lose the last bit of control over her that he seems intent to hold on to. As long as only he knows her identity, he “owns” her.

I don’t know about you, but I want to take that away from him. As they put the needle in his arm, I want him to know that he has NOTHING.

Sharon Marshall’s story touched me in ways that I could never imagine. I will always remember this young woman who never had a real childhood. It wasn’t one filled with only hardships and abuse but one that undoubtedly had a void, not having ever known who she really was.

I hope that Sharon’s soul is at peace; she deserves it after living a hell on earth. But can one ever truly be at peace until they know who they are?

Please share this others. If the big dog media doesn’t share it, then we, as people who care, can pass along her story.

Someone, somewhere knows. A cousin, an aunt, a grandmother, a father. Somebody has heard the tales of a missing child in their family.

Somebody, somewhere can lay the mystery of Sharon Marshall to rest.

Sharon’s Known Aliases: Sharon Marshall, Suzanne Davis, Tonya Dawn Tadlock, and Tonya Hughes

Franklin Delano Floyd’s (real name) Known Aliases: Warren Judson Marshall, Clarence Marcus Hughes, Charles Hughes, Trenton Davis, Preston Morgan, and Kingfish Floyd.