The strange case of Cindy James

Did she just hogtie herself then?

She wasn't hog-tied, but yes, the theory is that she tied herself up, or possibly tied the bindings and slipped into them.

This is my Oscar..

There was another case like this, in Wichita, in the 1980s, a woman named Ruth Finley who was stalked and persecuted for years by a man known as The Poet (as he sent her threatening letters in rhymes). Eventually the police discovered Ruth was The Poet, and she was the victim of a severe dissociative disorder due to her having been raped as a child.

Made into a book, a tv movie, another tv movie, and soon a documentary,

I was molested.

I believe she was stalked and harassed, probably by the 18-year older ex-spouse. She was an attractive blonde and seemed to have good reviews at work. She may, as well, have had psychological issues but I don't believe she committed suicide.

I don't believe Rebecca Nalepa in Coronado CA committed suicide either.

It was the ex husband. He was a psychiatrist who had access to drugs. The harassment began when Cindy began dating a cop.

R5. For FUCK'S sake! It's BRAWLEY!

I just listened to two podcasts on this story - it’s nuts and incredibly compelling.

I've read a bit about this case and don't believe she orchestrated it. R8 has it right, IMO.

She fabricated the whole thing

I read the entire case OP linked at Wikipedia and what she dealt with was absolutely horrific.

There were clearly incidents where other people were present when an incident happened so to say she fabricated it all doesn’t seem possible.

Why wasn’t she given round-the-clock police security? The police could also have installed security cameras in every room in her house.

I can’t imagine her having to live its this for years on end. When I was in residence at university 40 years ago I had threatening calls for about 3 months. (I’m a man.) It was awful. I feel so badly for this poor woman.

I'd completely forgotten about this case. I don't even remember where I first heard about it -- probably DL.

Dissociative identity disorder is a rather bogus diagnosis.

I agree with r8.

[quote] The police could also have installed security cameras in every room in her house.

Not back then unfortunately

There were no security cameras in the 80s? I find that hard to believe. I was an adult then, but I’m not sure myself.

I remember they featured this case on Unsolved Mysteries back in the 80s or 90s. Very strange. I think she did a lot of it to herself (the harassing phone calls clearly sound like her attempting to disguise her voice) but I’m not convinced she killed herself. The fact that she was dating a cop makes me think evidence could have been covered up.

Sounds Ike the Margaret Millar story come to life.

She was found tied up more than once. One knot expert said about one of the times that he believed it highly unlikely she could do it herself. It's possible both things are true--there was a stalker and some of the incidents, like the fires, she could have done herself so the police wouldn't forget about her.

I'm sure it would have been possible technologically r16, but probably too costly. Video surveillance was a big expensive setup back then. In 1987 I was 27 and had just bought my first condo for $68,000. Ground floor. Was burglarized less than a month later. Got a security system. I asked about cameras and was laughed at and quoted something ridiculously high. Then I laughed.

But we co-owners did seriously consider them for our common areas. I have a friend who still lives there and I visit often. They got their cameras after 2000.

[Quote] Made into a book, a tv movie, another tv movie, and soon a documentary,

It was also an opera, three comic books, a smoke signal, and a billboard outside Ebbing, Missouri.

From that hairstyle, also she likely disassociated to the point that she thought she was (late country singer) Lynne Anderson.

IS THIS THE COCKSUCKER RESIDENCE????

Oh wow. Very fascinating.

R22...I beg your pardon...

Wow when you read the Wikipedia page it suggests there was an actual stalker as an unknown man was seen and phone calls made to Cindy’s boyfriend present while Cindy was also present. I wonder if the stalker was someone in law enforcement, high up, and thus ultimately murdered her and covered it up using her mental health as a shield.

Btw this case sounds eerily familiar to an episode of SVU that I am almost positive it was inspired by this story.

I think it was an Italian goblin pretending to be black people on the internet.

Cowbell can fix stealth trolling.

I was a child of the early 2000s who grew up watching Unsolved Mysteries reruns on Lifetime, which is where I was first exposed to this case. It creeped me out beyond belief, especially because they showed photos of her hogtied dead body in the segment. I remember researching the case online and coming across the voice message that her alleged stalker left her, where he said "CINDY...DEAD.....MEAT.....SOON" in a gravelly, hideous voice. I believe this was on a website that Cindy's sister maintained. It scared the living shit out of me.

As an adult, I've still maintained an interest in true crime and unsolved mysteries like this. This remains one of the most haunting to me. I tracked down both the books that were written on it at the time (one by Neal Hal, the other by Ian Mulgrew) a couple of years ago and bought them online. They are long out of print and really expensive, but there are so many fascinating details in them that weren't widely publicized outside of them. One of the creepier details I remember was Cindy's claim that she witnessed her husband commit a murder while vacationing with him in the Gulf Islands, and dismember the corpses with an axe.

My feelings on whether or not she concocted all of this or if it was perpetrated against her are extremely conflicted. There is evidence that supports both viewpoints, which is why it is so frustrating and perplexing. There have been other DL threads on it before, and I seem to remember the consensus being that she'd done it herself. Whether someone was terrorizing her or she was mentally ill, the fact remains that what this woman went through for the last 7 years of her life must have been psychologically horrifying. It is a sad, disturbing story.

IIRC she was in bed with her boyfriend when the first threatening phone call occurred.

A fascinating, mind bending, scary story—and a tragedy. I have long thought this case would make for one hell of a good miniseries if done right.

While to some extent it seems plausible that she was mentally ill and staging these things, what gives me pause from drawing that conclusion more than anything else is the fact that she was missing for so long before her body was discovered in the yard of the abandoned house. She disappeared on May 25th, and the coroner estimated her death to have been between June 2nd and June 8th. If she had been the culprit, where did she go for those 8–14 days? Nobody saw her, she wasn't at her home as she had a roomate/tenant who would've noticed; she never contact any of her family or friends either.

The abandoned house whose yard she was found in was in a suburban area at an intersection which apparently had a lot of foot traffic. I find it difficult to believe that nobody would have noticed anything for that many days. Her body would have been decomposing for several days, so there would have been a horrible odor that I think people would have noticed, right?

In case you feel like having nightmares:

Based on the hairdo I would say that photo was taken quite a bit earlier than 1981 more like 1974 or earlier.

R35 I own the book that that photo was published in ("Who Killed Cindy James?" by Ian Mulgrew), and the author does date the photo as being from Christmas 1981. It does look like a photo that could've easily been taken in the '70s, but I'm not sure.

[quote]I remember researching the case online and coming across the voice message that her alleged stalker left her, where he said "CINDY...DEAD.....MEAT.....SOO - N" in a gravelly, hideous voice.

I've heard that voicemail. It's obviously a woman's voice trying to sound like a man.

R31, she was having intimate relations before marriage?! The whore deserved it!

Creepiest thing would be a combo of real stalker + doing some things herself as mentioned. Desperate to be believed and going a bit crazy herself especially if someone protected by LE.

She did it to herself. She also called herself. You can tell it’s her voice if you listen to the recordings.

The really good one is the guy who owned a restaurant who was harassed no matter where he went by a child’s voice. He had come from a war torn country to the US and thought it may be connected. Unsolved Mysteries covered it back in the 90s.

R40 but how do you explain the calls that were made when she was home with her ex husband and the new boyfriend. Who was calling during those times.

I believe her 100%. Why would anyone make up such a crazy story?

Munchhausen’s. She also made up a fiancé in France to her parents in letters. She was an attention whore.

She was also a drug addict.

This was all her. There is zero compelling evidence that there was a perpetrator involved.

Was she sexually assaulted?

No.

It seems like a high effort undertaking, even for someone who is crazy...

I really fell into a rabbit hole about this case online last night. I’d heard about it in the past but didn’t know the details.

I think the rational conclusion is that she did it all. But damn, that’s a lot for one person to pull off for that many years. There are bits and pieces to the story that corroborate an actual perpetrator, but they seem scant (the ex husband lurking in the alley, the one or was it two sightings by others of random men wandering around outside during one of the incidents, the calls with voices when she was in the room and someone else answered… I think there was one of those).

Fascinating and dark case…

She made it up was nuts

[Quote] A fascinating, mind bending, scary story

Maybe to a wilted pansy

Dreading covered the story, he did an excellent job.

So were the ex lovers just lying for her?

You’re all into this Cindy James cunt why not Tracy Jo Shine?

I feel like she may have had some accomplice some of the time helping her fake things.

How you would get someone to agree to do that, and be quiet about it, or not get caught… now there is a mystery.

Maybe she indeed did every one of these things and kept getting away with it and never leaving evidence due to the same reasons serial killers are able to get away with crimes for years without ever getting caught: brazenness and the weird luck that seems to accompany it.

Another crazy bitch with Borderline personality disorder.

Thanks, R4. Just ordered Little Girl Fly Away.

If you all weren’t such asshokes you’d look into Tracy Jo Shine

ASSHOLES!

This could make a creepy-as-hell movie in the right hands.

I’m thinking Todd Haynes’ moody, slow SAFE vibes…

Stupid

Cindy James knew.

[quote]Made into a book, a tv movie, another tv movie, and soon a documentary,

[quote]It was also an opera, three comic books, a smoke signal, and a billboard outside Ebbing, Missouri.]

R21 ROTFL

[quote]If you all weren’t such asshokes you’d look into Tracy Jo Shine

Get your own thread, Tracy

What demented troll is trying to hijack this thread and make it about Tracy Jo Shine? And more importantly, what at all does her case have to do with this one? They're not even remotely similar.

Here's the entirety of the Tracy Jo Shine story: She was a pathetic junkie whose white supremacist, drug dealer boyfriend killed her and dissolved her body in a vat of acid. The end. There is literally nothing to discuss. Now fuck off, please.

Eat me!!!!!

Fuck you, cunt !!

Oh, really? You expect me to believe that this poor woman concocted an entire seven-year nightmare all by herself? Stalked, assaulted, and tormented, only to end up bound and dead in some godforsaken yard? And the police, after wasting millions, have the gall to call it suicide? How convenient. Blame the victim, label her mentally ill, and sweep the whole sordid affair under the rug. I find it highly suspicious, to say the least. If she was truly suffering from such severe mental illnesses, where were the safeguards? Where was the intervention? Something doesn’t add up. Either the system failed her spectacularly, or there’s far more to this story than what they’re letting on. And I, for one, am not buying this so-called conclusion.

Give it up r70

You’re obviously limited

I’ve had enough of this stupid ass thread and the morons replying to it have to be mentally challenged or have Alzheimer’s Disease.

R70 Read the details about the case, silly.

Fuck you!

R70. You're a cunt.

The strange, weird ass op

R10, can you share the names of the podcasts? I want to listen!

Drop dead

DEAD MEAT SOON

The latest 2 seasons of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries are EXTREMELY engrossing and are potent enough to make you turn the lights on if you’re in the dark. I’m serious and Ii’ve watched a lot of true crime stuff on TV for decades.

Thr last episode I watched was about a student being brutally murdered in an on-campus college auditorium 2 days before the start of the new semester in the fall of 1977. The whole case - including the auditorium itself is/was creepy. One of the lead suspects who died in 2016 had a very strange look in the photos shown. The murdered girl was sneaking in the auditorium green room and sleeping on the couch because she arrived too soon to meet up with her new apartment roommate so she had a few days with no place to crash. She got murdered on a Sunday night in the auditorium while practicing piano on the school stage. This was shortly after a college play had closed the Sunday night performance. The girls name was Sigrid. It left me feeling very spooked after watching it.

The way she was left tied up and still alive more than once convinced me she did all of it.

Way to stagey and a real murderer/stalker would have done more damage.

Dumbass