A Vancouver Mystery

[Miranda]

On June 8, 1989, the body of Pediatric nurse Cindy James, 44, was found in the yard of an abandoned home of Richmond, in Vancouver. She had been drugged, strangled and literally hog-tied; hands and feet bound behind her back. There was also a black stocking tied around her throat. The story begins in 1982 when Cindy James began receiving harassment from unknown person(s). For seven years she claimed over one hundred incidents of harassment, five of them being actual physical attacks, all of which were reported to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Cindy graduated from Nursing school in 1966. In 1971 she became an administrator of a school for mentally challenged children. She was married but never had any children of her own. In 1971, she would divorce. In 1982, the harassment would begin. The harassment often came in the form of phone calls. Before long her telephone lines had been severed and she began to receive mail with letters that were unnerving to her. They were cut and paste letters from magazines, forming ominous threats to her.

On January 7, 1984 her friend went to her home for a visit finding Cindy in her backyard on the ground, with a stocking tied around her neck. Cindy claimed that she had gone outside to get a box from the garage and that was all she remembered aside from seeing a pair of white shoes. Cindy would move from her home, change her car color and her name. According to her private investigator Ozzie Kazan, Cindy was questioned several times and did not answer all of the police’s questions, she also acted evasive as if she were hiding something. Authorities would soon begin to question the veracity of her claims.

On January 30, 1984 Ozzie Kazan heard strange sounds coming from a 2-way radio that he had given to Cindy in case she would need help. He immediately went to Cindy’s home and could not find any doors or windows unlocked. He looked inside of a window and could partially see Cindy’s body lying on the floor. He kicked in the door and thought that Cindy was dead, she had a stocking around her neck and a note pinned to her hand with a paring knife. She was taken to a local hospital. Cindy claimed she saw a man coming through her front gate and then remembers being hit on the side of her head with a blunt object, then the feeling of being injected with a needle.

Neal Hall, of the Vancouver Sun reported on Cindy James’ story for over two years. It was estimated that Vancouver police would spend over 1,500,000 on surveillance and man hours in her case only to find nothing. Cindy would claim to see up to three people bothering her but police never saw one. Phone calls would prove to be too short to trace. Authorities began to formulate a theory that Cindy James was staging these incidents herself. There was 24 hr surveillance on her home with up to fourteen officers watching at once. On these occasion’s, not one incident would occur. Her family claimed that if the perpetrator(s) were watching Cindy, they’d surely know Cindy was being watched by police concluding that was why they would not bother her then.

On December 11, 1985 Cindy was found on a lonely stretch of road, six miles from her home, dazed and semi-conscious in a ditch, wearing a man’s work boot and glove. She was suffering from hypothermia and had several cuts and harsh abrasions on her skin, again a stocking was tied around her neck. She claimed not to remember a thing about what had occurred. Police became even more convinced that Cindy was somehow attacking herself. On one occasion Cindy was having a couple of friends spend the night with her in her home.

During the evening, Cindy went to their door as they slept and told them she had heard a loud sound coming from somewhere in the house. Her guests had also heard the noise. As they all walked through the home they came to her basement and opened the door, it was ablaze. They fled the home and called the fire department from a neighbors home. As they were doing so, one of Cindy’s friends claims he saw a man in the darkness at the end of Cindy’s driveway. He went to talk to the person, and they fled. Again police found no signs of any forced entry or any finger prints or foot prints in places where there should have been some, if a person did indeed get in her home. She also told the police she had been out late that evening walking her dog. They found this extremely odd. If she was in fear for her life, why would she walk her dog at late hours of the night?

Finally, Cindy’s doctor had her committed to a local psychiatric hospital where she would spend ten weeks. Cindy felt that no one believed her story of harassment and this was driving her mad. Upon her release she confided in her family and close friends that she knew more than she was admitting to and that eventually she would be able to tell them but she was not able to do so at this juncture. She also told them that she was convinced she knew who the perpetrator was and if the police wouldn’t catch them, she would. On May 25, 1989, six years and seven months after it all began Cindy disappeared. Her car was found abandoned, inside, police found groceries, a wrapped gift and some contents of her purse on the ground outside of her car. Blood was also found on the door handle.

Two weeks later Cindy’s body was found in the yard of an abandoned house. An autopsy would reveal that she died of a Morphine overdose, and there were other drugs in her system as well. No

syringes or anything she could have used to drink from to ingest the drugs where found at the crime scene. Police have ruled Cindy James’ death a suicide. Police claim the Morphine would have taken at least 30 minutes to work. Also, an expert in tying knots managed to duplicate the knots Cindy had been tied in and put himself in that exact position, in three minutes. Many people feel someone got away with murder in Vancouver.

By Miranda