From threatening phone calls to violent attacks, Cindy James suffered years of terror before her death — though some investigators think she may have staged every bit of it.
Unsolved Mysteries WikiCindy James was harassed for six years and seven calendar month before she was found dead .
In 1982 , Canadian nurse Cindy James received a strange phone call . She had no estimation it was the beginning of a chain of mountains of effect that would go to year of poisonous harassment and only end with her demise .
Over a six - and - a - half - yr period , James would file nearly 100 complaints with local police for belongings scathe , jeopardize notes , home invasions , arson , and even violent flak . But investigators could never determine the informant of the harassment .
Unsolved Mysteries WikiCindy James was harassed for six years and seven months before she was found dead.
The Vancouver suburb of Richmond was rattled when James ’ body was ascertain in the yard of an abandoned home in June 1989 . She was beaten and injure , and she had a lethal dose of morphine in her system . However , police force at last determined her death was a clear - cut self-annihilation , despite the fact that her hands and feet were bound behind her back .
James ’ family and friends were insistent that she had not taken her own life , but police force point to the want of any solid evidence of an outside perpetrator over the nearly seven days they ’d been investigate her case . Cindy James , they said , had stag everything .
Cindy James’ Six Years Of Harassment Began With A Simple Phone Call
Cindy James was born Cynthia Elizabeth Hack on June 12 , 1944 , in British Columbia . Her father Otto was a retired Canadian Air Force colonel , while her female parent Tillie was a housewife and loving mother of six small fry .
After high school , James enrolled in nursing school . There , she met Roy Makepeace , a doctor near 20 yr her fourth-year . James graduate in 1966 , and she and Makepeace we d five month afterward .
Cindy James seemed to be living a happy life working at a treatment center for children with emotional and behavioural yield . When James and Makepeace split in July 1982 , however , her ambition liveliness became a incubus .
Twitter/@MyFavMurderCindy James received numerous threatening letters.
Just three calendar month after James and Makepeace separated , she begin receive strange calls . harmonise to theVancouver Sun , the first came on Oct. 7 , 1982 . While most calls consisted of bare whispers of her name , she once closed her screen only for the caller to ring back and recount her that there was no enjoyment in hiding , as he sleep with she was in the life room .
But the calls were just the showtime . Over the next two weeks , James report that a mysterious culprit threw rocks through her windowpane , smashed her porch lights , and even broke into her house and slashed her pillow . She received a threatening substance piece together with slew - out letters from magazines that say “ before long Cindy , ” and someone make out her telephone job .
James was frequently in impinging with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police , and according to theEvidence Lockerpodcast , she presently strike up a romantic relationship with Officer Pat McBride . He moved in with her temporarily in November 1982 after more and more forbidding notes and trope appear outside her habitation
Twitter/We Didn’t Do It PodcastCindy James’ body was found near an abandoned house in Richmond, British Columbia.
presently after travel in , McBride reported that he come across James ’ ex - husband in the alleyway behind her planetary house with two accelerator pedal . Makepeace tell McBride that he was patrolling the area for James ’ condom .
McBride moved out after a calendar month , but the mystifying harassment of Cindy James soon became much more menacing .
Threatening Notes Soon Turned Into Violent Attacks
harmonise to a timeline printed in theEdmonton Journal , the first physical attack on Cindy James took place on Jan. 27 , 1983 . Her friend , Agnes Woodcock , went to her house for a visit and found her in the garage . James had been attack with a incisive object and had a black nylon stocking tied tightly around her cervix .
James say police she ’d heard a roast at her back room access and opened it to find a man who draw her into the service department and attacked her . However , she conk out two polygraph tests while being question about the incident , and she admitted that she had recognized one of the attackers but refuse to name him because he ’d threaten to go after her family next .
Twitter/@MyFavMurderCindy James received legion threatening letters .
The molestation continued . In October 1983 , a year after the first earphone call , she bump three dead khat hang from trees in her yard , one with a banknote tied to it that understand , “ You ’re next . ”
James decided to hire a secret investigator named Ozzie Kaban . He gave her a two - fashion radio so they could be in ceaseless communication . This came in ready to hand when Kaban overheard an odd commotion on Jan. 30 , 1984 .
He rushed to James ’ house and found her rest unconscious on the storey with a blackened nylon stocking tied around her neck and a line stab through the back of her paw with a paring knife . It read , “ NOW YOU MUST DIE , C—. ”
Kaban after said of the incident , “ She told me that she noticed a military personnel coming through the gate . The next affair that she remembers is being hit on the side of the head with a piece of Sir Henry Joseph Wood or something of that nature . She then remember being held down on the floor , and she remember a needle fit into her arm . ”
At this point , police became suspicious . There were no polarity of hale entry , and though there was a needle mark on James ’ arm , there were no heart and soul in her system . They still continued to investigate the caseful , though , and they brought Makepeace in for inquiring after James admit to them that he had been violent on several occasion during their wedding .
James was attacked again in July 1984 , once again with acerate leaf stigma on her arm and a dim nylon stocking attach around her neck . law tap James ’ phone and stationed officer to monitor her menage in shift , but they stopped after months take place with no further incidents . They ’d spent nigh $ 1 million on the probe at this period and were no closer to finding answers .
On Dec. 11 , 1985 , she stir up up in a ditch six miles from her house with the same needle marks and stocking that had become a touch of her attacks .
presently , Woodcock and her married man began staying with James in the hopes the molestation would discontinue . One nighttime in April 1986 , James ran into their chamber and said she ’d heard a haphazardness . Tom Woodcock allege he ’d heard it too , and he go on a lower floor to investigate only to find James ’ basement in flame . He told investigators he ’d picture a man stand outside on the street who ran away when he border on him , but law believed Cindy James had fix the fire herself .
harmonise toUnsolved Mysteries , newsman Neal Hall save after the incident , “ There was no dust or fingerprints raise up on the exterior of the windowsill . But somebody place the fervency from inside the home . And would ’ve had to climb through that window . ”
Cindy James was presently admitted to a psychiatrical facility . She spent ten weeks there , and two dissimilar psychiatrists decide she had been staging her own attacks while suffering psychotic breaks . James also wrote in a diary while there , “ I still palpate self-destruction is my best choice in an intolerable situation and as soon as I get out of here I will carry out my programme . ”
After she was released from the installation , James was fired from her job , changed her last name from Makepeace to James , and moved into a fresh firm . While seeing a therapist during this time , her mental wellness seemed to be improving remarkably . And for about a class , she did n’t report any molestation — but the attacks soon started again .
Was Cindy James Murdered Or Did She Take Her Own Life?
In October 1988 , Cindy James was find out unconscious in her car at home , bare from the waistline down , hogtied , and with another black nylon stocking around her cervix .
James secern police force during this time that she believed her ex - husband was behind the attempt , but he persist in to deny his involution — he had even been out of the land when one of them take office .
Then , on May 25 , 1989 , Cindy James disappeared . The day she vanished , she had deposited her paycheck from her new breast feeding job , purchase a gift for a ally ’s son , gone to a knockout salon , and bought groceries . But when Woodcock showed up at James ’ household that night for a aforethought card secret plan , she was n’t there .
Her car rise at a shopping promenade parking lot with blood on the number one wood ’s side door and items from her notecase beneath the fomite , with the grocery and envelop talent still in the back seat . But James was nowhere to be found .
But two calendar week later , on June 8 , 1989 , Don Vinish , a metropolis employee , stumbled upon her body in the yard of an desert theater . “ Her face was whole black — I think it had been punch in . A cord was wrap around one ankle joint and a wrist , ” he recalled .
Twitter / We Did n’t Do It PodcastCindy James ’ body was recover near an abandon house in Richmond , British Columbia .
“ This emphatically was n’t a suicide , ” Vinish said . “ You could n’t possibly put yourself in that position . ”
But law did n’t agree . She had a lethal dose of morphine in her organization , but they argued it would have taken at least 15 transactions to take effect , and a knot specialiser determined that James could have tie herself into the bound position in just three minutes .
Otto Hack , James ’ father , later recalled , “ The police did not investigate the possibility of homicide , of somebody slay her , but zero in on seek to turn out that she commit self-destruction . ”
He continued , “ There is no elbow room that she could have been able , after take in that amount of drugs , to wed herself up . There was dead nothing at the crime view to indicate that she had used any manakin of syringe . ”
But once police had prevail her death as self-annihilation , they did n’t look into any further .
innumerous questions remain about James ’ end . If she planned to kill herself , why did she buy groceries and go to the beauty parlour ? If she had shop all the headphone birdcall and threatening notation , how did she still receive them when other people were around ?
There may never be answers to these questions . But what ’s undeniable is , as forensic psychiatrist Anthony Marcus once put it , “ This woman was under siege from whatever source — inside or out . ”
After learning about the eery harassment and leery end of Cindy James , read about the unsolved execution ofDenise Johnson , the North Carolina charwoman who received unusual call before her decease . Then , discoversix more unresolved murder casesthat will keep you up at night .
