Death of Cindy James | How Seven Years of Harassment Led to a Death Nobody Could Explain

For seven agonizing years, a nurse from Vancouver endured over a hundred anonymous calls, arson, threatening letters, and physical attacks. Despite 24 hour police surveillance, her stalker remained completely untraceable. Then one night, she vanished, only to be found bound and dead outside an abandoned house. Does she the victim of a ruthless stalker who managed to escape without any evidence? Or is there more to this story? Today, we unpack the dark and perplexing death of Cindy James. This is Redweb. Welcome back Task Force to another episode of Redweb, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, through crime and the unknown. I'm your resident mystery enthusiast Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing this case for the very first time Alfredo Diaz. This is, uh, it sounds intense. It's an intense and confusing and honestly detailed case. There's a lot to look at when we talk about this one. Right. I mean, yeah, someone being stalked to that degree, and then also, I guess, there was physical altercations that happened as well, yep, that'll happen throughout these seven years. Yeah, it's, it's truly haunting. And I think what's most perplexing about this is the amount of detail we have, the amount of eyes on this entire case. And then when we get to the theories, there's going to be a suspect that feels loud and clear that by the time we get there and we talk about them, you're going to be like, okay, good, I'm glad we're discussing this, but then the other angle, which is it's going to kind of be a surprise. So I want to set you up for, for that. But like, it's a, it's a perplexing case to be sure. And it's, it's definitely a mind bender. And it, and it is a morbid one. It's a true crime case to its fullest extent. So I do want to say, you know, every time we talk about true crime and there's a death and whatnot, I do want to point out when there is sensitive topics. And we have quite a few of them, some of them like stalking and harassment will be omnipresent in this episode. But periodically, you're going to see other themes that pop up. So if you're looking for those, those will as always be in the description. But thank you so much to task force member cat B for submitting this one. Again, we had a lot of just rabbit holes to go down when looking at this case. And then again, just mind boggling when it gets to the theories, when you try to wrap your mind around a case like this, yeah, it's just so unfortunate and you'd like to think that there's things that you would have done in their place. Mm-hmm. And so my, my mind went to buy a firearm, leave that door unlocked and just sit there laying down right. Point of the doorway. Anyone's walking through that's, that's odd you should not be walking into my damn place unannounced like that. I mean, after all this time and you're going to see the twists and turns that Cindy James tries to take in order to cut this tail off, it is truly sinister. It's, it's real horror. But I'm with you, man. At a certain point, you, you just kind of like let them make the wrong move and like let this be done. Right. Exactly. Try and see if I could find patterns or anything and then, and then just take the matters in my own hands because if it seems like they've gone to the authorities, nothing's coming up of it or maybe they did some investigating but nothing came up. But then again, you just left vulnerable. So what are you to do at that point? Right. When you're driven to desperation and then ultimately what happened? The worst. Right. Right. Yeah. You don't want anything to come to violence. But at the same time, when you're losing your sanity in a case like this and eventually like I would, I would love, I would love for there and I've brought this up like many, many hundreds of episodes ago. I was like, I would love to never have to touch or own a firearm ever in my entire life. That's the ideal, baby. But someone comes in with a firearm and threatens me and my family, what am I going to do with a bat? You know what I mean? Yeah. What am I going to do? And then like the possibility of just like watching something horrific happen like absolutely not. Like I'm sorry. That's just the way the world works. And sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Yeah. Well, spoken like a true American. The rest of the world goes, we don't, you know, I don't understand it. I say take all the, take all the firearms away. Take it all away. Well, it doesn't seem like we're going to do that anytime soon. It's like what other choice do I have? And then also us being content creators, it's like there's a level of security that we need to have to defend ourselves with. It's awkward to talk about and I'm not going to get specific, but we have been surrounded by good friends and colleagues that we know and love very deeply who have absolutely been the victims of many levels of this kind of thing. And so talking about a case like this is very personal. Yeah. That's not a fiery about it. It hits home. No, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And like I said, I don't want to get any more personal than that because yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. It starts to get very, yeah, personal. But yeah, a case like this, it's, it's almost why like as morbid as they can be, sometimes it's worth being aware that this kind of stuff happens. And to know, I mean, learn as much as one can about a case like this with hindsight. And everything. But. But also, I think that's what makes it so scary because it's so real. Yes. Right. Yes. Absolutely. Not even necessarily to this degree, but you know, how many female friends of women that you've talked to that at some point in time had a stalker or someone that's borderline on that. And it's just like, that's, that's a dangerous, unsettling mindset and world to live in. And it's just, you feel helpless and you don't want anyone to ever feel that way. Yeah. But it's just wow. Because again, you know, we talk about cryptids and paranormal and this is the kind of stuff that is real. This is the kind of stuff. Yeah. Someone could be listening to this right now and they're going through it, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. It's just a, you know, you get emotional about it because it's just, you think it just should be something that never happens. Right. Right. I think even more frustrating if it does, it should feel like, and it's easier said than done. Feel like something that's handled easily. You would really want it to be in a lot of cases, there are right restraining orders and stuff like that. People back off. But I can tell already there's going to be a lot of frustration with this person going to people, going to authorities, be like, hey, help. And whether or not they, you know, don't put in the effort or put in the effort and still come up short, it's just so unfortunate to see essentially it all laid out miles ahead and go, man, we couldn't divert this. Yeah. Yes. And there's variables in here too that even complicate that. So, yeah. So that's what I'm very interested in because it also seems like there's a hint of maybe they weren't completely a victim in some way, shape or form. Yeah. There is a possibility that the call was coming from inside the house so to speak, right? And that's where I want to be very respectful that there are corners of this case that might not ever become clear that so I won't speak with authority, right? I'm going to speak to what we understand, what we know, what's what the information that is out there. And when it comes to the theories, it's one of those cases where always I want to tread with respect and also knowing what I do and don't know what we collectively do and don't know. 100%. And again, we're speaking from people that are looking further back, right? And having to witness or be a part of the situation at all whatsoever, so everything is with all due respect to everyone listening and then the parties that were involved. But it is, this is the zeitgeist that we are in, right? And I don't want to, I don't want to say straight, I don't want to do every episode. It's like, oh, but right, you know, there are episodes that are emotional in our hot topic or debate. And yeah, we want to cover those occasionally. Right. And that's why we do cycle so many different subgenres of true crime unsolved and all of that because sometimes you just need a palette cleanser. I can't do two or three weeks in a row of cases like this. I get emotionally drained. I get, I get too personally invested in like really wanting to know what's going on and give it a true understanding and analysis and it, yeah, there's a weight, I guess with that when you look really closely at something so morbid, but, um, but yeah, a lot going on. But before we dive in, as always, I want to do some housekeeping, keep it light before we dive into the woods here as to what's going on in the Red Web universe. And as always, some housekeeping, Fredo, this Wednesday, we have a poll task force. You have determined our futures in so many different ways. We've determined where we go ghost hunting, what we're going to do here on Red Web, what topics we explore, what movie clubs we do, what fieldwork games we play, and a lot more. So join us at redweb pod.com. If you want to decide our fates this Wednesday, then our Friday movie club, when we're doing the 1999 film, the mummy, super exciting, very nostalgic. Another one coming out with the original cast was a mummy for mummy for dude. So watch that episode to gear up and get ready for that. Yeah, dude, man, we've been meaning to do the mummy for a while. I'm glad we're doing it and a quick reminder, all of this is available at redweb pod.com. And all of friends, September, every Thursday this month, it's free. So come on over. You don't even need an account. Just come join and hang out with us. All right, back to the episode. Okay. 44 in Oliver, British Columbia, Canada. She was the middle of six children all born to her parents, Matilda, aka Tilly, and Otto Hack. Tilly was a homemaker, while Otto was an English teacher, but former colonel of the Royal Canadian Air Force, both of her parents were of Russian descent, and she wrote in her diaries that she grew up in a very strict household. In fact, her father was often using corporal punishments, which often comes in the form of physical, and this is important because this is a foundational element to the person we're going to talk about very deeply this episode. In her teenage years, her family relocated to Ottawa, where she attended high school, and then in 1962, she decided to pursue a nursing career and enrolled in a nursing school in Vancouver, so kind of the opposite side of the country way out west. During this time, her father re-enlisted in the Air Force, and the family was then relocated to France. So, she's in Vancouver, her family's in France, and so ultimately, she's got a lot more distance and independence, but she did visit France and her family during holidays. She kept in contact with her parents, writing them letters during her time at school, and in these letters, she would occasionally refer to another intern that she had met. She never named him specifically, but eventually, she went on to say that the two of them had been engaged. However, unfortunately, upon learning that this man had terminal cancer, this unnamed fiance, ultimately committed suicide while the pair were on a skiing trip. So already, in her young life, she has gone through and experienced quite a lot, and so much so that she's talking about this young love, and now he's taken his own life. And none of her family living in France had ever met this young man, and ultimately, he remains unnamed to this day. But after all of this, Cindy stayed in nursing school, and in 1965, she met a man named Roy Makepiece. I have an image of the two of them at some time during their relationship, but it's important you have a face to both of these names because they will be cornerstone identities through this episode. Okay. Yeah. It's just two people embracing each other, hugging each other on a dock, pours behind them and everything. Yes, so Roy here on the right, you might be able to tell that he's a little older. He was a South African psychiatrist, which I underlined in my notes because I want you to think about that, and he is 18 years older than she is. At the time of the meeting, I believe she was around 21, he would have been around 39. I don't know what they are in this photo, specifically 18 is a sizeable gap. It's a sizeable gap for someone who's 21 years old to be pretty candid, you know what I mean? That's true. They're 30 and they're 48, they're still sizeable, but you could make that work. But 21, whether male or female, there's so much growth there from like 21 to 25. There's a lot of growth through your 20s. You're not the same person coming into your 20s as you are leaving, and honestly, a little foreshadowing here, maybe there's a power dynamic with an age gap like that when someone's so young. Yeah, and you said he was a psychiatrist, and I was like instantly, I was like, okay. Yeah. Good flag. Now despite this age gap, you know, we can't blanket statement, love is love, and we don't know these people in and out just yet again, I'm just using hindsight here. But the pair fell in love and married on December 9th, 1966. This would have been later in the year, so Cindy had just graduated sometime in the spring, and now they're married in December. Cindy's parents became skeptical of their marriage, and given the age gap, they felt that Roy might have taken advantage of her, so they're having the same kind of heebie that you and I are feeling, but family then testified that the pair were emotionally distant at times, and that their marriage overall was troubled. Cindy later accused Roy of spousal abuse, to which Roy replied, quote, "only slapped her twice." Okay. Okay. It should never be once. Right. Only any number above zero is inexcusable. Absolutely not. And at this point, I'm going to give you some information ahead, because it gets there, but I'm going to go ahead and say here, because I was curious, does is this a one and done thing, or a two and done thing, or what have you? It never is, though. That's the unfortunate part of it. That's the thing. Right. Now, despite their pains, the two did remain married for 16 years, and so I was curious, does this, like, situation that does this abuse permeate the relationship? Is it just this moment? Is it just when she's young? None of it's excusable, but I want to know more details here. Yeah. I mean, more than likely, right, to reoccurring thing, not necessarily every day, but something that's like, oh, it happened a couple times this year, and maybe one time this next year, et cetera. They stayed together for 16 years, but people stayed together, and it's hard. It's hard to eat. Even if someone is, like, so terrible, it's hard to break away from that. Because people, especially nowadays, are so hyper-dependent. Yeah. I can see that. I can see that. You know, I can see it also just back then, just sure this is, because here's the thing too, because if she grew up in chaos, then this is also chaos, and that's what she knows, right? And that's what her nervous system is familiar with. You get into the nuances of it all, but that's why it's like, okay, if this person's doing these terrible things that are physically, probably mentally, as well verbally, and you go, why stay in it for 16 years, especially when you go back then, or it's like, well, don't divorce, you know, and that thinking isn't all that old, man. Thanks. Stay together. It's a little more taboo for the back you go, being divorced or being a divorcee. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you know, nowadays it's like, you know, hey, get out of there. Divorce, if you have to, if the terrible situation, do what you got to do back then, it's like, well, like, especially for, for females, like you're a divorce, like, you know what I mean? You're a divorcee, like, yeah, there's a lot of stigma. Like, oh, it's like, what do you, what do you mean applies to both men and women? What are we talking about here? Yeah. Oh, there's just so much unpack. Yes. I think I put something like this in my notes later on, but you're tapping into it. So if you don't mind, like, there's something I've learned, and I am not an expert in psychology, whatsoever. I lived experience and I, and I, I enjoy psychology. I like to learn about it and read about it. But you tapped into something here. There is familiarity and then there's safety and the brain is a pattern recognition machine. And when, especially if you grow up in a chaotic environment, like you said, or if you're used to something where a person is familiar, you can easily mistake that familiar pattern as safety. And so you might see this when people start having things good happen to them. And they go, well, this has never happened to me before. It's because it's breaking the pattern. That is safety, but your brain isn't familiar with it. And so it is one of those moments where my heart breaks because I'm like, you don't deserve that. No one deserves that. It's so easy from the outside to say, leave it. But then this person, unfortunately, Cindy James here is like caught in it. And it's not so easy in her seat, you know? Oh, yeah. Anyway, we could wax poetic, but it is a, it's hard not to. It's such an emotionally like jaunting thing to hear. So yeah, it very likely permeated their relationship. That's something that comes to light a little bit later here. But yes, they stayed together for 16 years. And in that time, Cindy worked as a pediatric nurse at Vancouver General Hospital before being hired at Blenheim House in 1975. Blenheim House was a Vancouver facility specializing in the care of children with behavioral disorders. You can see that she's a very giving, caring person to willingly, like, it's a difficult role to be in. And she's giving herself to it. Now her colleagues remarked on her intelligence, her professionalism, her friends called her meticulous and deeply empathetic. While her professional life thrived, her personal life continued to suffer with the catalyst being her separation from Roy. Now these 16 years later, it is the summer of 1982 to give you an idea she's now 38. She's 56 and this is where the cornerstone of this seven years of terror for her begin. I wouldn't maybe not begin because her life has been kind of hard, but this is where the case that we're talking about begins. So Cindy begins to take notice of strange happenings just a few months later. It's September 1982. Again, a few months after the separation from her husband and in late September, she tells her friends and family that she believes someone might be lurking around her house. Shortly after that, she begins to receive strange phone calls, sometimes obscene in nature. The first call comes on October 7, 1982. Tilly, her mother, said that Cindy was reluctant to talk about these calls, but shared that they had consisted of one person, as best she could know, one person, one voice, speaking in different voices, and sometimes they would be sexual or violent in nature, other times she would answer the calls and she was met with dead silence at the other end. Nobody answering, who is this? Why are you calling? It's unclear why she was reluctant to discuss the content of these calls. We can wax poetic about those possible ideas, but ultimately that's just the truth here. Now her family had theories. They said that maybe she was threatened that if she called police, this person would then harm her family, her siblings. That's what her family thinks might be going on and maybe that's why they weren't getting the full picture we don't know. But just four days after her first call, it's October 11, Cindy receives another call. She answers the phone as she does normally. This time she's met with simply and terrifyingly loud breathing noises and that's it. Just someone huffing and puffing on the other side. That line. Yeah, man, when you're receiving phone calls in general, that's already disturbing. But. Absolutely. When the person on the other end is just swinging wide with these emotions, that's terrifying. You know, you could even jump to the conclusion of life threatening. Yeah, it feels deeply unnerving and. It really does. It's. I know you put this word in my head. It's a new level of chaos. It's unpredictable. It's confusing. It's. It is haunting. It just flat-out is. Yeah. Because if you have someone that's like, "Oh, maybe just like, I love you." Can't wait to be with you or whatever. Or you have someone that's just like angry or whatnot. It's like, "Okay, you can. They're in a state of anger or in there is a state of limerence. Something." Yes. You know the nature of it. But when it's swinging this way, then that way, and this way, it's just. The good analogy of like every day is Texas drivers. Sure. Like, I've driven in New York or driven in San Francisco. I've driven in LA. I've driven in places where people are either super chill or super aggressive. But it's predictable. That person's going to come off. That person's going to speed. That person's driving slow. They're going to take fair and emerging lanes. I run into people like drivers in Austin and it's people that are confused. Kind of like that half commit and then pull back. Dude, I know exactly what you're talking about. And I'm just like, "That is the worst because I can't predict that. I can't predict you deciding to go into this lane and then deciding not to and then drifting back into it." Like, what? I don't know. I don't know. You're just going to go then you can go, right? And that's the same thing here, which is like, it's unpredictable because of the swings. If you know the nature of it, you can kind of compartmentalize. Right. A little bit. Yeah. Shout out to Chicago, some of the most aggressive drivers I've ever seen. Love the city. Love the people. You guys drive. Okay. Uh, Cincinnati doesn't know what a red light is. That's my experience. I'm just going to the city of the city to say, "I'm going to take you all down." We all drive terribly. Let's just say it flat out. Yeah. Dude, Austin, that's a great analogy. Various student observation because I think that is exactly what makes this extra, extra haunting. Ugh. I hate it. I know. Yeah. This episode of Red Web is sponsored by RocketMoney. 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Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/redweb that's better h-e-l-p.com/redweb. So loud breathing noises on this call, the following day she gets another call, she bravely picks it up yet again this time the person is whispering and this is where it starts to really, really get bad right? They whisper quote, I'll get you one night Cindy end quote, one night and now you never know what it's going to be, what night, when, how, whenever, you're forever on edge, you can never settle. You are now permanently your nervous system in fight or flight, horrible, horrible. So more calls begin to pour in and she wisely reports them to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP. I looked into this, there is, you know, your bog standard city police, your local police. You'd call the Mounties at least nowadays depending on where you live. If you're more rural, or if you're in certain provinces, the Mounties are more up your alley. If it's a federal crime, the Mounties get involved, otherwise there's a subtle nuance there. Canadians might be able to help me out in the comments, but ultimately though the Mounties do come to her home, they advise her to get an unlisted number and suggest that she keep a log of each and every call and what the contents of those calls are. That way they can build a pattern, they can start to try to figure this out, who might it be if it's calling it certain hours, just any information. October 15th now, someone throws a rocket one of her windows and then enters her home. Let me remind you that's only been eight days since the very first phone call began and things have terrifyingly escalated very quickly. She reports this to the police as well, but noted that nothing seemed to be disturbed. Somebody came in, but it doesn't seem like they stole anything. Something seems to be moved. Then on October 19th, she reports that someone had broken in and slashed either one or both of the pillows on her bed. Oh my God. Yeah. Terrifying that they got inside. Violation of privacy to the deepest extent and safety. At that point, like, yeah, you report everything, but also, I mean, like get them in their own confidence, right? If they're going to come in, booby trap that thing, like there's no tomorrow. If you can. Yeah, dude. I guess. Yeah, whatever you got to do, whatever you got to do, you know, sit in the dark corner with a shotgun. I don't know. I would, I would pay like five of my biggest friends to just literally just spend, I don't know, a couple days just in the apartment coming at different times. So then that way doesn't look like it. Like we're all together and then just we're just standing there with bats. Just ready. I don't know, I don't even, I don't even think that's a good plan, but I just, I'm just like, it's what comes to mind. Yeah. It comes of mind. I try it. Yeah. I'm just in my head. It doesn't mean in my head. Like what the heck would I do? Yeah. It's a morbid fascination. That's the Omni question of true crime. It's, it's the draw. We're disgusted, but we're pulled in it's, it's, you know, it's, it's nature. Perfectly said, we're disgusted, but we're pulled in. And I think your instincts are a hundred percent right on. I love that you're saying that because it is kind of, maybe not with the bats and the big friends, but like it is part of what she does, right? So a constable of the RCMP was named Patrick McBride. He is another cornerstone individual to this case, and he believed that the culprit was likely her ex-husband Roy, but Roy, of course, denied any involvement. Cindy had reportedly made conflicting reports about Roy's involvement. On one hand, she was telling police that she didn't think that he was capable of this level of torment. While on the other hand, she was telling friends and co-workers how he was violent and abusive during their marriage, right? This is where I noted down that safety versus familiarity, that psychology. Are you willing to say this to friends because maybe no ramifications will happen to somebody that yes is wrong, but also you still love them. But if you tell the police this, like necessary ramifications, but negative ramifications happen to someone that you still love, there's, there's conflict. Yeah. So I can see why there's conflict. I can see why there's confusion, but hold on to this confusion that these, these conflicts of reports, because it will show up in the theories. It does complicate some matters. So now it hasn't even been all that long, it's October 20th. And this is where we come to learn that she has two tenants renting her basement. We don't have any other information about them or what they heard prior to this, but we We do know that on October 9th, 2020. 20th, the two tenants living downstairs heard strange noises on the main floor of the house. They knew she was at work, and they didn't, so they were like, "It's not her dog, and it's not her. These are strange noises." The next door neighbor also reported seeing a man standing outside the house on at least three different occasions. This neighbor maintained that whoever it was, they did not resemble Roy Makepiece, her ex-husband. We don't know how they described this person, that's all we know. The neighbor said I saw a man three times, but it wasn't Roy. So at this point, Constable McBride and Cindy had formed a close friendship, and he actually moves into her house on October 31, 1982. McBride had also recently separated from his wife, and while some sources allude to a romantic relationship between him and Cindy, others say that it was strictly platonic, we don't really know, and it's neither here nor there, potentially, but Cindy told her friends that McBride had offered to stay with her for two weeks to help survey the home and make sure she felt safe. So this is where you'll see Cindy's taking action, to feel safe, to be safe. I almost wondered, too, if that ends up becoming an even bigger issue because in the person that's stalking her, she's like, "Oh, now she's living with a guy and escalates." Right. That's what I thought. So yeah, I know I say this a lot, it's right around the bend, so hold on to that. So soon after moving in, McBride actually discovers, "Make peace!" The ex-husband, sitting in his parked car in the alley behind Cindy's home, McBride then confronts Roy. He then says, "What are you doing here, right?" Roy then claims he's watching out for Cindy. He's trying to catch Cindy's stalker, quote, "in the act." So McBride, after some conversation here, tells Roy that he had moved in, he's doing the surveillance that she will be safe. And reportedly, this is when Roy leaves. So he is now aware, the ex-husband is now aware, that some other man, yes, is staying in the home. Platonic or relationship-wise, we don't know, but he knows now. Flash forward a few weeks, a couple weeks, it's mid-November. And McBride is the one receiving the chilling phone call this time, right? This happened while he was home with Cindy, and once again, the caller was silent. But McBride could hear what he described as a woman's voice over a PA system in the background of this call. So someone calls, they're quiet, but in the background, you hear this. The call was eventually traced to an exchange center in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. I think initially the thought it was an airport, etc., some public location. And I couldn't figure out if they were tracing calls consistently or how they were able to figure out where this call came from, but ultimately that's where they trace it to. Richmond. Okay, now it's November 28th. McBride notices that the phone lines outside Cindy's house had been severed in five different places. And I was, again, we don't have a whole lot of information here. I was curious, was it severed so someone could tap into it, was it severed so she couldn't make calls out all viable options here, mate. Yeah, they are. Now we're jumping to December 1st, McBride is now moving out of Cindy's home. That doesn't stop the harassment, but again, it indicates to me maybe platonic, but also some reports say that they casually dated despite separating here from him living with her. But shortly before Christmas, and I know I'm jumping a lot, you're gonna see a lot of jumps here, Cindy found a note outside of her house, the first of many to come. This one just says, "Mary Christmas." However, terrifyingly attached was a photo of a dead woman who had her throat slashed. Yeah. Okay. I mean, we, at this point in time, we have contacted the authorities or anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She contacted the, the Mounties, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Just doesn't seem like we've got updates on that. No updates. I mean, McBride himself is a constable, right? And so he is a police officer. And so they are very aware, she's marking all this down, they're documenting, he's there on site to surveil, he sees Roy. But other than that, you know, the neighbors sees someone, and not a lot of progress as far as we're aware. Dang, it's walk is like not only, you know, dude, it's like let's get the authorities involved, but it's also just like, one is living there, and it doesn't seem like it. Do you think it would be like this big, huge leg up, and it's really not. It doesn't seem like it, it almost like you said, it almost seemed to loop him into it. Now he's getting a call, maybe now because of him being there, she gets a Christmas card with visual violence on it. Basically, in uncertain terms, a threat to her, right? True, yeah. But then you also think that because now that he's involved, then he takes it personally, right? And now he's going to use the authority that he has and the force behind him in his title to apply pressure back. And it just doesn't seem like we're doing any of that, which is just, it does feel like that. And that's the thing is like, if there's nothing to go off of, who do you go for? How do you apply the pressure back, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's completely true. How do you apply the pressure back? It's just wild because, you know, if there wasn't authorities involved so closely, we'd be sitting here like, if only there was authority closer to the situation, we would be asking for that. Yep. And we'd think it was a solve all, yeah. We have that. And it just, it doesn't solve what we thought it would be solving, doesn't make things easier. It's a great point, man. You know, we'd assume, like, place someone in there with authority and bang, we're not necessarily case solved, but like, we've got to leg up. We've got solid ground to stand on. We have that. We would have asked for it. We have it here. And it's done nothing. It's crazy to think that like, how many times anyone with like, you know, just listening to true crime, covering true crime, the episodes that we've done are like, what if they just have this? Doesn't mean it's the solution. Doesn't mean it actually fixes it. It's always the water could have shut us. And then when you got the water, it's not sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. It's very rarely does it come across our table like this. And then from here, makes us really think about it, you know? Yeah. Absolutely. It's like, well, what if, and that's like, well, here you go, then do anything like day. We feel like Captain hindsight. And now we got Captain foresight here and it doesn't change the game at all. This next quote, I want to quote her coworker, Agnes Woodcock, because she being intimately familiar with Cindy was thinking, okay, whoever this is, I think they're just there to torment her. I don't think anything more is going to come of it. Actually, I'll just quote her. She told me many times that he wanted to scare her to death. She said, he doesn't want to kill me. He wants to scare me to death. So whoever this person is, like, that's what Cindy's disposition is. This is a little bit of insight, thanks to her friend, into that moment in Cindy's head, because we don't have a lot of those clearly throughout this case. I would always like to think on the brighter side and think they know what? Like maybe it's not if they're just trying to get into your head or not, but I would never be the one to say that because I don't want anyone's guard to be put down because I'm just kind of trying to make lighter of it, make them feel better about because that's just too much. There's too much guilt that can come with that. I also don't want to put those words out there to challenge anybody who that's capable of doing whatever this is, right? Like, because then they go, oh, you think I won't do this? Well, yeah. Now that I say that this is going to kind of be a weird segue, it's not all because her friend Agnes said this, but coincidentally, you know, it's January 27, 1983, just into the next year, and this is unfortunately where these threats do turn physical. Woodcock had visited Cindy's house and found her unconscious in her backyard with a nylon stocking around her neck. Woodcock said this, quote, "I went up and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I assumed she was having her bath. She did every night. But I thought I heard something, I wasn't sure what it was. I found her crouched down with a nylon tied around her neck." Cindy said she had gone out to the garage to get a box and someone grabbed her from behind. All she saw were white sneakers." End quote. So some sources state that Cindy was attacked from behind while she was then brought into the garage where another man was waiting. So now we have two individuals here, and then the pair strangled her together. Now this next part of what happened there is available task force if you're curious. It gets a little grotesque, and it's almost not necessary to have all these details for the sake of the long-term case and the theories. So all I'll say is this, they did something quite unusual and deeply unnecessary with a knife. After this, they threatened to kill her younger sister if she reported this attack to the police. And later she was examined by doctors who found no concrete evidence of sexual assault. This led to police being kind of ambivalent about her claim of what happened in the garage. A lot to unpack there. "Yeah, there's a lot." It won't be the first or last time police start to get a little uncertain on how to take her claims, which is unfortunate, but we will get into that. And why? "I mean, I understand the need to have to look at all the angles." "Mm-hmm." "Well, that's understandable." "Yeah, I'm very interested to see how hard they push in that direction." "Yeah." "After this, very, very quickly after this, in fact, on February 1st, 1983, for her safety, Cindy relocates to a different house in West Vancouver. As best we could tell, this is very rough. would be about five miles away. or eight kilometers or a 20 minute drive away, right? So not super far, not like moving away out of town, but certainly relocating across a pretty dense city, hopefully getting yourself lost in the weeds so someone can't follow you. But despite this man, she continues to not only receive threatening calls, but letters. Whoever this person is was either watching or somehow has access to know where she's moving to. So she receives a letter and this one reads, quote, run, rabbit, run. I'll show you how effing good I am soon bang, bang, you're dead end quote and there's some other letters with other threatening imagery on there that kind of come to this address. But it's just what do you do? She relocates houses again in April. So just whatever she can do to kind of cut off these threats and nothing, nothing she does stops it. She then hires a man named Ozzy Kaban, a private investigator to help catch this stalker, someone who could be off the map a little bit, but still keep an eye. Try to figure out what the heck is going on. In addition to hiring Kaban, Fredo, you got to hear this. Not only does Cindy move twice, she goes to great lengths to protect herself. She does all sorts of things like wearing a portable panic button. She's got a whistle. She always carries pepper spray with her. She installs alarm systems. She repaints her car to change the color of it. She altars her own appearance. She even goes to the lengths of changing her last name, just in case they're using public records to track her down. But of course, unfortunately, none of this changes anything. It doesn't hinder her attacker. Oh man, and that's the rough part because in, you know, I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking this, but yeah, I mean, she was crossing her teeth and dotting her eyes. She was doing everything in her power to try and become intracable and also to protect herself. And it still wasn't enough. Again, here comes the hindsight stuff, right? Or just like, well, what if you change your name? What did she move? She did all that. She even painted her car, which is wild. And so, yeah, I mean, most of the things that you can think about, she's done it, which is satisfying to hear, but also so devastating to know. - Absolutely, yep. - Do you think that these things would have done something? And it's like, what more could she have done if she did all this? - Yeah, I mean, outside of truly just fleeing. Like, different city, different province, different country. I mean, should one need to uproot their entire life to escape something like this? No, but again, this is with hindsight. It paints two images, right? And these are the two theories we're gonna get really into the weeds on. Who is this person that can dodge leaving any evidence, trace her no matter what, and always torment her? Or is there something, again, kind of gaslighty, but is there something else going on here? And we'll get into that. So, the abuse continues throughout this year. I'm gonna continue to have large time jumps here, but that doesn't mean that the calls and the letters aren't happening, right? So, now it's October and November of 1983. This time she discovers the remains of strangled cats in her garden, bound up with rope on three separate occasions, right? This person is sinister now they're bringing animals into this, not for the first time. Strange phone calls and threatening letters continue to show up at both her work now and her home. And after this point, the physical violence begins to increase almost one exact year after the first physical attack. I didn't even piece this together. It's almost like the anniversary of the first physical attack. January 30th, 1984, Cindy's attacked again. Private investigator Kabon had given Cindy a two-way radio so that way they could stay in contact, not be traced on the phone, not have anyone splice into the line or what have you. And on that evening, he reportedly heard strange and garbled static coming through on the line. He then rushed to her home because something's wrong. He finds her unconscious, she's lying on the living floor and there's a pairing knife, one of those really short but very sharp knives that you might probably have in your kitchen. And it stabbed through her hand, pinning a note then through her hand down to the floor. And it has a sexist expletive at the end, but ultimately says, "Now you must die." End quote. Oh man. Now what are you doing? How many reports? I'm sure she's reporting it. Now that you have animal abuse, that's a terrible, terrible person, I'm very intrigued to see, like because it seems like we're building up to the authorities pushing back a little bit. Yeah. And I'm very intrigued to see if there's any type of evidence there that can help sustain that theory. Right, was there thinking, why are we going down these different alt, yeah. Yeah, like what did they find? Or did they come across to push down this path? Exactly, yeah. I definitely, I'm excited to talk more about that, 'cause it is one of the more confusing cornerstones of the case, but there is logic that is permeating some of it, right? We're talking about the timeline right now, but then I want to hear it through the police's eyes later on, yeah. So after this, Cindy is rushed to the hospital, where she then states that she remembers seeing a man come through the gate on her property. That's kind of the last thing she remembers. And bludgeon's her with a blunt object. She alleges that he then inserted a needle into her arm. Doctors were able to find a needle mark on her arm. However, when they tested her blood, they didn't find any traces of drugs or anything else into her system, which is all the more confusing. It seemed like, okay. So she was injected with something or at least stabbed with a needle, but we don't have anything here, nothing that stands out. Yeah, 'cause if it was anything, it'd be in her system. Right, right, very highly unlikely that the person used some kind of chemical that hasn't been used before, right? Or some kind of method that hasn't been used before. Right, something with a half-life that would decay quick enough that they wouldn't be able to trace it in this quick amount of time, I don't know. So later that year during the summer, she is once again physically attacked. On June 18th, she calls Kaban in a panic. He then rushes to her house, kind of like before, and he finds her hiding in the garden. She says she believes someone is in her house actively at this time, and inside, again, brace yourself, 'cause Kaban finds Cindy's dog, Heidi, seemingly abused, but also bound in the basement. She's alive. She does live, she's bound in the basement, and next to Heidi was a note that read, quote, "Happy Birthday." Alongside, of course, sexually explicit photos and other threats, imagery. It's unclear what these particular photos contained, but we kind of have a pattern at this point. Now the notes, the calls, the threats, they all continue to pour into her home, her work throughout the summer, and now it's July 9th, 1984. Cindy's mother, Tilly, decides to spend the night at Cindy's house. In the middle of the night, Tilly awakes. She hears Heidi, the dog barking, and discovers Cindy checking out the windows and the doors are on the main floor area. Moments later, right? Need you to know this for where we're going. Cindy is inside, she's checking out the windows, the dog is barking. Moments later, the doorbell rings. Soon after that, they find out one of the front porch windows was cracked in several areas. So a haunting night, but nothing really comes of it. And then two weeks later, July 23rd, Cindy is walking Heidi in a nearby park around 8.30 pm. She's again attacked. She claimed that she was assaulted by a bearded man in a green van, that van was nearby, and in it, she sees a female passenger. So this is the second time she's attacked with a second person involved. But this would imply maybe three people, white shoes guy, guy in garage, woman in van. We now have a green van. We don't have much else. But around midnight, she was found in a dazed state, trying to enter her neighbor's home rather than hers. This time, she had a stalking around her neck. So this nylon stalking becomes almost like a calling card. It's not the first, second, third, or last time we're going to see it. Her dog is found wandering around that park nearby, and that's found by the private investigator who is still helping her out. Now at the hospital, she's found with two puncture marks in her right arm. A hospital receptionist actually told police that an unknown man called the hospital inquiring about the hotel's security policies. In an attempt to connect some dots, the police are like, okay, do you remember this man's voice? Can you picture it in your head? And then they play her a clip of Roy Make Pieces' voice. This is the ex-husband. - Oh. - And yeah, and the receptionist is like, yeah, that actually sounds like there's a strong possibility that these are the same people. That sounds like the guy that might have made this call asking about this security measures or what have you. Of course, nothing comes of this, but it continues to build what little we know at least. - It also puts me more in the camp of that she's not just doing this to herself. - Right. That there is absolutely a physical other person involved. A hundred percent, I'm with you. Now we jump forward once again. It's almost a year later. It's June 1985, and Cindy was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric unit after overdosing on prescription medication. Although she claims it wasn't accident, she goes into hospice there and she is released shortly thereafter in early July. and when she gets home, she discovers a package. It contains nylon stockings, and a note that reads, quote, "blood-blowing-really." End quote. Now it's August of 1985. There's a string of small fires that begin to break out in and around Cindy's home. Now the first instance we're aware of is August 5th. This is when she calls to report a fire in her home. The authorities arrive and they find burnt pieces of newspaper in her room. She calls the following day to report yet another fire. Then again on August 21st, Cindy calls to report a third fire had broken out in her home this time in the odd hours of 4.45 AM. When the firefighters arrived at the scene, she told them that she had taken her dog out for a walk, okay, at 3.15 AM. Sometimes the pup has to get up and go, if you got a yard, it's a confusing element to be sure, right? We'll just leave it at that. Now when she comes back home after this midnight walk, this 3 AM walk, she sees her home ablaze. Now it sounds like the whole house is on fire, but it's just one room. She goes to see the bathroom and there's a fire in the bathroom. The window is open in the bathroom. However, the soot and the dust from this fire, you know, there's a light amount of black soot, kind of all over the place, and authorities are saying, "Well, there's no indications in this soot of any intruder entering or exiting through this room." More burnt newspaper remains were found in the bathroom. Now I'm sitting here thinking while the windows open, someone could have chucked in a burning newspaper and then left. True. Right? You don't have to be inside to do it. So yeah, that's kind of what we have there. But now it's December of that year. December 1st, Cindy moves yet again to a new house this time in Richmond. Just 10 days after she moved in on December 11th, she's found semi-conscious in a ditch about three and a half miles or six kilometers from her home. She's wearing men's work boots and one single glove, confusingly. And once again, she's got a nylon stocking that is found around her neck. I don't believe this time she's tied up or strangled or anything, but it is just a round maybe draped around her neck. Do I say it in a true? Yeah, some sort of signature, right? It's cornerstone again. Due to the cold temperatures, Cindy was experiencing some hypothermia and she was once again rushed to the local hospital to treat these wounds. She was covered in cuts and bruises and doctors suspected that she was injected with some form of tranquilizer. She had no memory of what happened to her and she stated that the last thing she remembered was that she was shopping at her local pharmacy during her lunch break at work. This woman is just being terrorized. Terrorized. Physically, mentally. I mean, the frequency in which all this is happening is astounding. It is truly astonishing. I didn't know when this case was submitted to us, how deep the rabbit hole went. Or how vivid and detailed each of these instances was documented. Very vivid, very detailed. And the person has unprecedented access. It's like they live there. That's the thing. That's what makes me so confused. Now we have no evidence. You know, I even, I'll spill some of my beans here. I even started thinking was McBride, the police officer that lived with her sickeningly, a police officer that was doing this that wanted to get closer or like, I don't know. We don't have anything to go off of, but I'm like, how else would they know so much or or be able to like, I don't know, but now they're dodging a PI. Yeah. Yeah, man. This person's watching. And I guess like skilled enough of doing all this. It's so frequent. You'd like to think, I mean, get hindsight and not be institution. You'd like to think you can catch this person or set up some kind of trap or something because it's just so frequent. It's frequent, but man, it's also not like we're seeing bang, bang, bang back to back true. Right. We're looking back at the grand scope of things. Yeah. When a year goes by and it's just some letters, just some notes, just some calls, and then it goes physical again, it's just long enough to let your guard down. It's like this person knows how to torment with you, which is why I start thinking, oh right, her ex-husband is a psychiatrist. He's got access to medicine. He's got access to, well, her personal life. He knew her for over 16 years. He knows the tools of the brain, how someone might tick and talk, you know, like who better to torment somebody, maybe. Yeah. And it's always someone that's closest to you, right? So it's a good place to start. It is definitely a place that we will be exploring for sure. So a few weeks now go by from this most recent attack. It's now early 1986. Co-worker Agnes would cock once again as in the picture and she's now married to her husband, Tom. Now the pair would often spend nights at Cindy's house to help ease her fears, but also watch her back. You know, we joked about the five big friends. She does have friends come over and stay with her periodically. On April 16th, the couple was awoken by Cindy, who said that she heard a strange noise downstairs. Now Tom corroborates this sound because he too woke up when he heard what he described as a thump. So all three of them go downstairs to investigate and they discover that the basement was in flames. Again, I don't know how big the fire was. I'm calling the fire department, I'm calling the police. The phone lines dead. So as a workaround, Tom wisely says I'm going to the neighbors. He bolts out the front door. He's going to go across the street to tell the neighbor to call the police. But the moment he leaves the house, he sees a man standing outside the home. Tom then tries to approach this man. The man then turns and runs away on foot. Now, I don't know if Tom went and chased this man down, but I don't know if my sprinting days are behind me to be honest, but I'm bolting 110%. I'm breaking my heels going forward. Yeah, I don't know if I'm as efficient anymore, but yeah, definitely like bolting. That point is just so much raw frustration and adrenaline, like I'm going to throw everything at this. Yeah, so yeah, they stayed the night periodically on and off. But after this incident, the woodcocks decide to stay with Cindy for several days. And this is when they notice that she's kind of not acting herself. So Cindy meets with her psychiatrist because again, she's acting differently. Her psychiatrist is afraid that Cindy might be having some suicidal ideations. She was then admitted to the psychiatric ward of St. Paul's Hospital for two weeks before having been then transferred to Riverview Hospital. Where a full psychological exam was conducted, now this report is made publicly and you can go read all of these details, all of these excerpts, reading this back, I'm going to keep the things that matter for the sake of the conversation and for the sake of the theories and understanding a little bit more about Cindy as a person. But also it gets a little bit, it crosses a line for me, comfort wise, where I'm like, I don't think we need to know this level of intimacy about her thoughts or how she's being. So if you want to get into a task force, it's out there, but I'm going to give you what you need to know and skip over some of the more deep, cut analysis of her psychology that won't change the picture here. Got it. Okay. I maybe didn't need to give that caveat, but it just, I just wanted to be honest about how this, this excerpt made me feel and it isn't in its entirety, okay? So here is the report after her psych exam, quote, "This 41 year old woman on initial assessment was very resistant. She would only answer in one word responses. She refused to discuss a number of topics and would give no eye contact. On the second date, her mood was considerably elevated. She had completed the other tests herself and was willing to talk. She seemed apprehensive as to how the tests could be used. She maintained good eye contact except when discussing the terrorizing incidents, skipping ahead, patient kept asking if her responses to items indicated that she was crazy. Her IQ is well above average. This type of individual can be characterized as negativistic and conforming, skipping forward a little bit. This type of person tends to be vulnerable to fears." End quote. So again, given you what I think you need to know, the conclusions without getting really intimately deep into her mind. Now ultimately she did stay at the hospital for 10 weeks before she was released. And in the following years, of course, nothing stops. Cindy continues to be terrorized. And by October of 1988, even make peace, Roy, right, the ex-husband, was receiving strange voicemails on his phone, one saying, quote, "Sindy dead meat soon." End quote. That month, Cindy was attacked once again. She was found unconscious in her garage with another nylon stocking tied around her neck. This time, she was found with duct tape covering her mouth and her arms and legs were hogtight with those same nylon stockings. This attack put her in a coma, though she did recover from it. We start to get kind of into a phase of quick escalation here before the final attack and disappearance and subsequent death. It's January 1989. There's a life insurance salesman named Richard Johnston who moves into her basement unit that was available at the time. The pair becomes friendly. She had bought some life insurance from this man and in return, they kind of got to know each other and Cindy felt she'd be safe for having somebody rent the basement out and Johnston was looking for a place so it all kind of worked out serendipitously. Still, terrors continue, even following her to her new job as a nurse at Richmond General Hospital. April 8th of that same year, a security guard found a note on the premises that read, quote, "soon, Cindy." Now, when going out to her car one morning, the phrase sleep well was found written in the dew on her windshield, which you know morning dew doesn't stick around for a whole long time. If you write it early enough, more dew will form and your handwriting will go away. You write it late enough, all the dew will disappear, and so this indicates that the person is consistently around Cindy in at least a few hour window. I mean, at this point, we just kind of knew that there were somewhere at all times always watching. Yep, and the threats are getting louder, the threats are getting clearer, the threats are going to other people around her, the security guard, the ex-husband saying, "soon." And soon after this, her house is broken into twice, once in April, once in May, and because of this, I don't know if she was home or not during these instances, but, man, scent hounds were brought to the house to figure out if they could figure out who the intruder was, where the intruder went, and on the first occasion, there's no trail. On the second occasion, the trail leads over the back fence, but then kind of runs cold, maybe the person got in a car and darted away. Now, this was the same direction that the ex-husband was sitting in in the early phases, but it's kind of a loose thread to try to pull on. But now, we're kind of at the end of this terrifying road. But not before one last terror. Around 4pm, May 25, 1989, Cindy went to work to pick up her paycheck. A co-worker noted that Cindy seemed to be in high spirits, noting that she had not experienced any activity from her stalker for at least two weeks. If that gives you any indication, two weeks alone from the stalker, that's enough. That's the window time that she finally feels in high spirits after almost seven years, that's such a narrow window. I'll say it's such a long time for this to happen. Oh my God, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Someone's got time on their hands, a twisted mind, a dedication that like, man, go learn something. Right. You could have done so much more with your life. Oh my God. Put this dedication somewhere good or go read a book or many. I don't know. Several hours later though, she was seen purchasing groceries at the supermarket and depositing her check at the bank. That day, she also scheduled to have an infrared detection system installed into her home. I had never even heard of something like this, but basically a heat detection system to figure out if and when people arrive and move through the house. She then invites her friends again, the wood cocks over to play bridge and spend the night. However, they never heard back from Cindy to confirm the time that they would arrive to play the games and do all the things. And so to play it safe, they decided, well, it's 10 p.m. It's probably safe now. If we're confirmed to save the night, let's come on over, right? They arrive at the house at 10 p.m. The house was locked. Her car is gone. They briefly spoke with her housemate, Johnston, right? The guy living in the basement who said that, oh, right, she mentioned earlier that she was going to go shopping. So Agnes and her husband, knowing her quite well, drove past the shopping center that they knew that she liked to go to. They found her car abandoned in the parking lot. In fact, there is a black and white image of Cindy's car in the parking lot. You want to take a look at that. Not much to glean, but you can, there's like a physicality to that. So they see her car. It's not booted like it is in the picture here, but they see her car abandoned at her frequent shopping center. They immediately go to the police station. They file a missing person's report. They're not messing around because of her history and the investigation starts immediately. The cops are aware. Okay, this is a priority. She's been having this rig and roll for six and a half years. And when police come to investigate the vehicle, they find blood on the driver's side door. Inside the car, her groceries still remained. There was in fact a wrapped birthday gift for her friend's son indicating future plans, just kind of putting that out there. And underneath the car, interestingly, were contents from her wallet. Almost like somebody had this in a huff, just kind of tossed it under the car and then were off. Police then searched her home. However, when they got there, as far as they could tell, as far as her roommate could tell, everything was clean and orderly. Nothing seemed to be touched around a place. And for two weeks, police searched for Cindy James before she was eventually found two weeks as a wild amount of time for where she is found. She's found on June 8, 1989 after, again, nearly seven years of harassment. And she's found by a municipal paving worker named Gordon Starchuck. Her body was found in the backyard of an abandoned house once again, hog tied with nylon stockings around her neck. And the house itself was on a busy street near an intersection and allegedly had frequent foot traffic nearby. So the question is that we're going to explore here in a bit. Did she die here on premises and no one saw like no one noticed her body for two weeks? Or did she die somewhere else and then kind of after two weeks that night, she was then dropped off there. These are important and unknown questions. And also she was hog tied, probably didn't do it herself. Yeah, I'll get to that element here too because it is interesting. Okay, I saw my mind. Yeah, well, I'll go ahead and jump to it because at the scene there was a pathologist that noted that she had been bound so tightly that one of her fingers scratched another one deeply, like down to the bone, which would be a hard thing to do if you're hog tying yourself. Yeah, I don't know, you could do that. Same. Like I've accidentally scratched myself on occasion, down to the bone is, uh, Yeah, pushing through into the flesh is a whole other thing. That paints a picture, something violent went down here. Now on the house itself, there was some orange graffiti spray painted on the wall. In fact, it said, quote, some B word died here. And then it drew a line from that phrase down to her body and circled it. We also found the word devil had been spray painted inside the house. We don't know anything more about this house, why it was here, who owned the house because it was abandoned. We looked into it and I couldn't exactly find the distance to her house, but I believe it was about a mile and a half from the shopping center. So not far and not close, you know what I mean, mile and a half, you know, but again, my instincts say that there's a third location that we're unaware of. So the pathologists that explored the tying and the wounds also noticed that there was a pin prick wound consistent with a needle injection site on the inner right elbow. Again, not the first time that we've seen something like this on her person. And also based on the level of decomposition, it was concluded that she had been placed at this site as early as June 2nd, a full six days earlier. Again, it's interesting, no one saw her for six days, but also there's a missing week there, right? Because she disappeared two weeks ago. So the timeline is a little, hmm. Yeah, it's a little questionable. Yeah, there's a lot of room for things to happen, I guess. Now despite her wounds, her autopsy confirmed that she had died, okay, not from strangulation, not from blunt force trauma, but from multiple drug intoxication, a combination in fact that consisted of morphine diyazepam and fluorazepam. Her toxicology report showed that she had ten times, ten times, the lethal dose of morphine in her system. The other two drugs didn't even need to be there. We'll talk about those in a second, but while it's unclear if the drugs were her own, her family did find a large amount of prescription medication in her home. I believe that those were things like sedatives and anti-psychotics. We don't know the specifics or the brands or whatever. She also had in her home a medical syringe, a glass cutter, a urinary catheter and saline solution. I think these are important elements to be aware of, but yeah, ten times the lethal dose of morphine is a lot. It's like a hacking syringe or two, but also based on her stomach contents, it's believed that she orally ingested or was forced to ingest 20 tablets of 30 milligrams of fluorazepam, which combined with diyazepam, medical experts buff scientists for Joyce. I couldn't tell you this myself. This alone would have been a lethal combination, and so whoever did this. Again, whoever, it's multiple instances of lethal doses from two different types of medicines or medical interactions. Yeah, I don't think this is self-inflicted. It's hard to believe that it would be. It's where I'm at. But it also, it kind of screams a lot of emotion, you know. Absolutely. When you see. Screams rage, frustration. Sometimes you see murder victims. They were, well, in no sense, taking care of, right? At the killer took. Sure. In place of body, a certain way, or do these things. This just seemed like it was just frustration. Take this, take that, and just get to the end result. Yeah, I see what you're saying. There's types that are ritualistic. The amount of excess in every regard I'm with you. There's rage, pent-up, something. And what is the motive here, for so long? That's the question. And I think honestly, you almost need the suspect to figure that out first. or to guesstimate at it, man. Couple who sends here, when it comes to the morphine, I know there's an injection site on the right-erner elbow, but I believe that they authorities debated whether it was taken orally or injected. Because of this particular unknown, authorities could not determine an estimate for how long she would have been functional before, between receiving these doses and passing away. So coming to them. So that is another interesting unknown about this, right? Because if it was injected, it could have happened fast enough that she might not have had the time to tie herself up. If it was orally taken, she would have had a little bit more time before this digested and metabolized to then take her down. We just won't know. I don't know. But I mean, the injection site, but she's also had an injection site before when there's no drugs in her system. So it's like, is someone throwing like, let me just stick a needle in here, just to throw investigators off. Who's thinking like that? You know, yeah, there's a whole nother bubble, extra layers. Right, whoever this person is, but because of her complicated relationship with police and some of her back and forth kind of saying one thing then saying another to different people, this wasn't a one time thing. This was something that happened consistently. It seems like, but because of that, it created a complicated relationship with police and we'll talk a lot more about that in one of the theories. But also because there's no concrete suspects or evidence otherwise in her harassment and in her death. The jury ultimately in this case was unable to determine if the cause of death was suicide, homicide, an accident, and because of all of that, ultimately that's why they ruled that Cindy had died of an unknown event. And the case was then closed. That's why this case remains to be so confusingly unsolved. Yeah, man, we're really not getting anything, they, like this is a whole scot free situation here. Really does feel that way. The number of times it made phone calls, letters, been on the property over the course of about seven years. And as of right now, it seems like we're walking away with nothing is, is wild. Right, it doesn't connect. It's the hindsight thing of, if only this, that and the other was done. But when all of those things are done and you walk away and your hands are washed and you got nothing, it's a little bit knock the wind out of your sales. It's a little bit of take your feed out from under you when a case like this is so terrifying and yet impossible. Yeah, how are they so freely would do this? That's the biggest thing for me. So we're going to start off with one of the more confusing theories we have our takes on it. But I'm going to give it as the, you know, neutral arbiter of the discussion here because up into this point, from the outside, it feels like there's a strong suspect, right to me, right? Her ex-husband, you also have a plethora of other sickos out there that could maybe do this. Aside from the mysterious second man and woman, right, we have kind of one suspect we're going to talk about. But the first theory leans on some very interesting elements. So let's just dive in. Throughout her years of torment, the authenticity of her claims were repeatedly called into question. The first doubts came after her first physical attack like we talked about when the police found no evidence that would align with the attack that she claimed to have experienced. As more time went on, it became baffling to police that despite the 24 hour surveillance that they gave on and off throughout the years, and all the tangible threats that were delivered, no breakthroughs came through. They're almost equally baffled to where you and I are sitting. There was never any sightings by the police of anyone stalking around her home, except for when McBride saw Roy in the back. I mean, we have that. But otherwise, it's her friend's husband, her neighbor, and they're just seeing someone in the shadows, really. There's no fingerprints that were ever found on any deliveries to her home or any of the letters after the fires, after the break-ins. So they're kind of confused. In particular, there was a reporter named Neil Hall who found it incredibly strange that the police wouldn't have any leads after such a long time of torment. He stated this at the time, quote, "There was never a fingerprint from a suspect. There was no independent corroboration. Cindy saw this person, or sometimes she said there were two, sometimes three people. One and a half million dollars it's been estimated the police have spent investigating Cindy James' complaints. More than 100 incidents, and they could never find a suspect. They had 24 hour surveillance on her home for days on end, with up to 14 officers. But never when surveillance was on her house, never any event would happen. As soon as surveillance was taken off, of course, then she'd get another incident that happened," end quote. - But is that the person being smart, though? - That's what I'm saying. If the person knows where she moves within the week, I guess that's, would the police not have seen a person idling by, sitting in a car? How are they watching? - I mean, the thing is, wouldn't he see them before the police see him or them? - Maybe. - Right, they're probably sitting in a police car just outside. - What if it's a neighbor looking through the window? You know, like, I understand the logic that Mr. Neal Hall's coming through with because, yeah. - Yeah. - Sure, why is it only when they're not watching? But also, I can understand that because this person seems to move, only when not watched. And they would know things only somebody, but also who's the man that called the hospital talking about security measures? Was that coincidence? - Right. Who's cutting her phone line? Is she doing that? - And then-- - Who's ringing the doorbell? - Was it the officer or Constable? I mean, he was seeing the phone call. - He received a phone call? - Wasn't the Constable? - I'm the man. Oh, yeah, was he in on it? - Cause you know, he would have intimate information. But she's moved and she's done different things. And so, like, I don't know if he's at the time to do all that. Plus, also be a Constable. And she's moving. - And so under this theory, it's not Roy. It's her, right? That's the theory. - That's the theory. - So how is Roy getting a phone call from a guy? Who is that guy? I mean, sure, maybe she hired someone to try and create it. I mean, but still, that's pretty, I mean, could happen. Pretty elaborate, but. - Sure. - Again, there's, there's three things that stand out. There's the phone call to the Constable. There's the phone call to the hospital. Then there's also the hog tying at the end. - Mm-hmm. - And it's just, yeah, it's possible that you did it all yourself. - Sure, right. There is a sliver gap that you can shoot. But the neighbor's seeing a silhouette of a man out there. Her friend's husband's seeing a man. - But again, I mean, like, are you hiring someone? But then, like, that just seems far fetched. Hey, I need you to pretend to be. - Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, this is all so. - Oh my God. - Like, it's just so elaborate. It's so elaborate. Not to say that it can't happen. But it's just very elaborate. And then at that point, she went to such great lengths. - Yeah, for a long time. Now, I mean, there's a sliver gap here where what if it's her and her husband believes that something is happening and so he is watching. So he is the guy in the yard. But then how is he getting a call? I mean, there's just a few confusing elements. - I know, there's just these little things, these little things. - Yeah, unless you got copycats, you know, you can kind of get a hand wavy with it. But let's come back to this is where I want to be respectful because I don't want to vicariously have this person, this victim gaslit into being the person through psychologists at the time. But this is the conversation that was happening in the aftermath, right? They were looking at her analyses by various psychologists. And some of those psychologists believe that she might have been suffering from multiple mental health crises. Very, very possible. One psychologist believed that she might have been suffering from disassociative identity disorder stemming from traumatic childhood incidents possible. But again, we still got those wrinkles we talked about. Other times, police believed it was possible that she was inflicting these terrors on herself, such as starting fires in her basement. That's possible, right? She goes out on a walk, puts a fire in her own bathroom, through her own window. There's no evidence, right? There's a thump downstairs that Tom heard, that she says she heard, she could have been the one that did it, sure, sure. I can see how some of these are possible. It just doesn't answer everything. Now, by the end of her nearly seven years of terror, several police officers believed themselves firmly, that she was maybe fabricating claims, and that suicide was seriously considered as the cause of death. At the trial, several doctors actually took the stand to testify to the different disorders that they each believed she had. These ranged the gambit, right? From hysterical personality disorder, as they called it, to borderline personality disorder, to post-traumatic stress disorder, all of these things. They also had a not expert come in to take the stand to see how she could have bound herself, right? This is an important element, within the three minute timeframe necessary, to where she's got her wherewithal before the drugs take over, to then tie herself up. The not expert is trying to sit there and figure out could she have done it, before then passing out or dying. Now this theory was met with outrage, of course, as UNI are maybe feeling, from her family, her friends, and the private investigator, Kaban. There was also several unanswered questions with this theory, especially surrounding her death, and how she would have ended up at the abandoned house. Seemingly, eight days after her disappearance, six days before her death, the timeline there gets very weird for somebody doing it to themselves. How did she also spray paint from the wall out to where she was going to be? Did she do it in the yard? But then how did she get rid of the syringe all the evidence of her doing it to herself in the yard. How did she do it in the the house, again lose the evidence, get out into the yard, then tie yourself, then pass away. It's all very confusing. I understand where people's feelings are at the time, because that's all we really – those are the only lens we have to look through, but that's the confusing part. Those are all the really confusing reasons. It's a lot for someone to accomplish by themselves. Right. And so many things that have to go completely correct and so many things that seem near impossible. But again, if they hire someone and they have someone helping them, but man, there's just like no trace of that whatsoever. So Kaban, a private investigator, believed that she was killed elsewhere and placed at the abandoned house, given her superficial bruises and abrasions and kind of the evidence of the body. For me, in addition to those questions that I just explored, there's a few other thoughts that come to mind. Whoever was doing this clearly knew all the moves she made, even when she moved. What her new address was. If someone was watching that closely, they could shift their harassment according to the surveillance schedule. Her ex-husband also notably was a psychiatrist. Now, they would have access to at least the Diasa Pam and Flora as a Pam. I don't know if a psychiatrist tends to have access to morphine. He would also have the psychological knowledge both professionally and personally to torment a woman – this woman – so specifically. However, being a nurse, she also would have access to certain medications. So it's like tit for tat. But let's talk about Roy Makepiece. Since the beginning of the attack, Cindy would reportedly often make comments about knowing who did this to her, but she didn't say who. Eventually, her family was able to coax it out of her, and she stated that she initially believed her ex-husband Roy Makepiece was the culprit. She would go back and forth on this opinion throughout the years, reportedly telling police that she didn't think he was capable, but saying the opposite to her friends and family, as previously mentioned. Interestingly, she also said it was Roy who ruined her garden after the dead cats were found there. So on multiple occasions, she's fingering Roy, but then when push comes to shove, she kind of walks it back. Now I can understand if that's a symptom of the relationship they had, you know, I get a little bit of misplaced protectionism perhaps. I don't think that that means everything she's saying is a lie, but that's what police are kind of going with. In February 1984, police began increasingly questioning Roy. So this isn't the early phases of it, maybe like two years in or so. And you know, Cindy had been telling them, okay fine, I believe that it's Roy that's behind all of this. And so they're like, all right, cool, we're going after Roy. However, when they interviewed him, he was theorizing that the attackers actually were part of the mafia were connected to her existing work or her current work at that time, which would have been at Blenheim House. I don't know what that connection would have been. How's that? Yeah. I don't know, but in March, Otto, Cindy's father met with Roy at a donut shop while wearing a wiretap. In this meeting, he tells Roy to cut out all contact with Cindy. But after the meeting, Roy then sends her father a six-page letter detailing that mafia theory and urging him to pressure police into looking into it because he's like, they're not listening, they're not looking into this seriously. It's not me, then there's the incident at the hospital when Roy was suspected of being the one calling about the security measures. But there's also a wrinkle there too, because when I think about it, I'm like, was he trying to call about the security measures in order to dodge them? Or was this a caring ex-husband, admittedly, who had an abusive experience, abusive history with this woman? So it's hard to believe. But was this a caring ex-husband who was trying to make sure the security was up to snuff? I want to believe that this person's caring, but they don't have the history to show that. No, I gotta go with the patterns though. Later that year, October 1984, Cindy went to see a hypnotherapist. There, in its hypnotherapy, it's not scientifically well-founded or conclusive, but there she reportedly recounted a repressed memory of witnessing a double murder. But did not divulge any further details. Then in January of the following year, Cindy once again went under hypnosis and told police that she had witnessed Roy murder and dismember a man and a woman while they were vacationing on Thorminby Island in July of 1981. However, it was later discovered that Cindy went on vacation with her sister, not with Roy. Her sister never saw anything like this. Nothing ominous happened on vacation. I think police even investigated the island and never found any evidence of something like this happening, but ultimately, Cindy agreed to let the police wiretap a phone conversation she was having with Roy where she then accuses him of being the source of these problems. I mean, it seems like they weren't almost as exhaustive as one might go. She confronts him. She shares this recollected memory with him, and Roy is like, whoa, whoa, vehemently denying this. He then admittedly calls her something you should never call anyone, calls her insane, stating that she had an enormous revenge fantasy against him. And following the call, they did keep Roy under himself, 24 hour surveillance. And so, unless this guy knew it, and he too is just omnisciently dodging, maybe he's got a police radio, be somehow dodging all this 24 hour surveillance. They didn't notice anything unusual on this guy. Police then looking at Cindy's claims, like I said, they go to Thorminby Island. They don't see anything. And ultimately, Roy is never charged with any crimes relating to Cindy's harassment or death, which kind of then leads us to the ultimate question mark. It's the final most obvious theory, was Cindy James truly the victim of an anonymous stalker, one who tormented her all this time. And for whatever reason, we'll never know, but had some sort of misplaced obsession with her. And without knowing that person, we can't even guess as to what that might be. There's not enough in any direction. Right. We need to prove no concrete evidence. It's just, yeah, it's possible, but it's the ultimate horror, which is to say that sometimes crime can be without reason, without logic, which out without purpose or pattern. But some believe that perhaps it might be a combination of all of this, that maybe it started as Roy make peace or another attacker. And then it led to several mental health problems for Cindy, who then maybe herself contributed to her demise. And we talked about a disassociated personality disorder, and again, I'm no expert. Maybe there's elements that happened in this that she didn't even realize she was part of. It's just impossible to say. We may never know, but ultimately no one was ever charged with the death and harassment of Cindy James. And the inquest concluded May 25, 1990, exactly one year after she disappeared, and it has not been reopened ever since. Yeah, what is there to open at that point? It seemed like the authorities were there many steps of the way. I just don't think it was her, but it's just so wild that someone could do so much and leave such a little trace behind. Yeah, dude. I don't even know how to feel about all that. It's just like so confusing. Because again, yeah, you feel like you got so much and like sand in the hands, it just like slips out. Yeah, it's wild that it happened for so long. So long. The authorities are involved. They spent a million and a half dollars investigating, and nothing comes up. You know, I understand why they looked at her. Because you know, who would be able to sneak in to do all these things, if not yourself. But there's certain key things I don't add up. But man, was this just like just the greatest stalker of all time? Like my goodness. Right, you have to believe something lightly impossible or lightly unlikely. You know. I don't know. This is a very interesting case and a very unfortunate one. Yeah. So thank you very much Task Force Member Cat for submitting this one. It was again, a mind-bender, and again, it requires you to believe something unlikely. Despite the impossibility of it, was this someone who could dodge evidence and know almost everything or was this somehow entirely her or is the truth somewhere blurry in the middle. Man, I don't know. No clue. But I will say this, my final gut instinct thoughts, a psychiatrist with access to medications and with a vendetta who might have been set off by God knows what would have the tools to torment somebody and push them into the realms of suicidal ideation and negative mental health crises. I mean, like, maybe this was exactly the ploy. Someone who is, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that they're the greatest criminal of all time, but they might have pushed her into a territory that made her look like the boy who cried wolf, and so that way even authorities would doubt her. And that is sinister. Then they got away with it. And then they were someone's neighbor. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Which is just wild. I shouldn't even said that, dude. I needed to think that and kill it, but, uh, I know a scary, scary thought, but that's, you know, it's the world we live in sometimes both good and bad. Well, Task Force, like we said at the top, sometimes we explored the darker avenues of true crime because it is intriguing, it is fascinating, it is curious and it is terrifying. But we'll be back in the coming weeks. We have some more paranormal things coming around the bend as we enter into the late end of September into October. So if you like the paranormal, we like to talk a few more of them more densely here. And so some of them have really interesting stories. Some of them are very fascinating, very confusing. Some of them are just haunting in different ways. So we like to cleanse the palate after an episode like this. and keep the genres rolling, whether it be a disappearance or a treasure hunt or a paranormal or just something unknown or an internet mystery. Man, to lighten the mood, the forgotten languages blog is still boggling my mind, Fredo. Oh, yeah. Yep. I'd just, I've been thinking about that rent free in my head, you know, ever since we did that one, strong one too. Very strong one. So if you're looking for something here, maybe a palette cleanser here at the very end, go look back just a week or two ago when we did the the internet mystery that forgotten languages blog. It is so fascinating. And some shout outs to our members over at red web pod dot com where you can support us directly. We've got Alexandra Devon as our newest task force member. Thank you very much for joining. We got Andrew F as our buff scientist of the week and our, yeah, look at those guns, Fredo. And then our squunks, we got a Bret Omura, Andy Schrock and holster just to name a few man, you know, I think this year we're breaking records on length here. This might be our longest episode ever. Yeah, yeah, we're really throwing out some episodes, but hey, we're really getting in there or for the task force ear candy for the task force. Some listening nuggets to take you on the road or wherever you're going. But with that said, Fredo, I'll see you right back here next Monday for yet another mystery.