The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 6

A6 BRITISH COLUMBIA The Vancouver Sun, Monday, December 31, 1990 Police launched an extensive investigation in the days following Cindy James's disappearance, but even after her body was found near an abandoned house in Richmond the mystery grew BY9 W- Wk A ''I'wffl: rrw Iff' 'F7 cm By NEAL HALL Sun Crime Reporter Cindy James mysteriously disappeared May 25, 1989. Her body, with hands and legs tied behind the back, was found two weeks later. and letters cut from magazines, dead cats left in her yard, and five sadistic attacks by an unknown assailant who turned her life Into a living nightmare. At the end of a 40-day Inquest, a jury failed to find conclusive evidence that would explain her death. Jurors determined Cindy died of an "unknown event" from an overdose of morphine and the sedative flurazepam.

The Deaths of Cindy James, published this month by McClelland Stewart, unravels the mystery of one of the most bizarre cases In B.C. history. This is the second excerpt from the book, written by Vancouver Sun reporter Neat Hall. MmwM' Jife I A WmmMMmm mmwm life of scars: police photo v-tf-: James' knife Srrl wounds from the iptiliilit first attack at her home at East IyV vWjS. house where her vvCs D0dy was ound, I THE DAY after Cindy James went missing, Rich mond police began knock ing on doors of residents near the Blundell Centre mall, widening their search to a one-and-a-half-block radius of the shopping centre.

RCMP subsequently began a wide-scale search of Richmond, using a helicopter that took aerial photos of the shopping centre where Cindy's car was found. Police also searched Richmond's shoreline with the aid of a Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft. Officers were assigned to check the dikes surrounding Richmond. Police checked Vancouver International Airport, to make sure Cindy had not caught a flight out of town without telling anyone. They could find no evidence that she had.

Cab companies were contacted, but there were no fares the previous night from the vicinity of Blundell Centre. Bus drivers whose routes traversed the area were contacted, but no one could recall picking up a passenger matching Cindy's description. Throughout the day, police talked to every store owner and clerk who had been working at Blundell Centre the day Cindy went missing. Many of them recognized her from a photo but none recalled seeing her May 25, 1989. Like the residents police interviewed in the surrounding neighborhood, no one at the mall saw or heard anything suspicious that day.

Cindy, it seemed, had vanished. Const. Jerry Anderson arrived at the police compound at 5:30 p.m. on May 26. RCMP Cpl.

Henzie was already there with a member from Ident, who photographed the contents of Cindy's car which had been found at the mall the night before. Before disturbing anything, the interior and exterior were closely checked for any hairs and fibres. The car's heater had been on, it was noted, set to the "defrost" position. The transmission lever was in "park," and Cindy's hospital parking pass was on the dashboard. The car ashtray was closed and contained six Cameo butts, Cindy's brand.

The fuel tank was almost half full. The AMFM cassette deck contained a Herb Alpert tape. Cindy liked "easy listening" music. It helped calm her nerves. Found between the front seats of the car were a number of Bank of Montreal "quick deposit" slips and envelopes.

In the glove compartment, among maps and papers, was a pad of paper with the words "KDV 784 Small, silver (grey)" scrawled on it. Presumably it was a note Cindy made of the licence plate of a suspicious vehicle. The pad did not appear to have been used recently, since it was buried at the bottom of the glove compartment. The licence number would be checked anyway; no B.C. car would be found matching the plate and description.

Also in the glove box was a Sofrex hand-held emergency alarm. A NDERSON WAS familiar with Cindy's "panic button." Ozzie Kaban, a private investigator Cindy had hired to protect her after she was first attacked in 1983, had given it to her to use in emergencies. The silent alarm would notify Kaban's security firm that Cindy was in trouble; a Kaban employee would then call police. Cindy carried it in her purse wherever she went and she usually held it in her hand while getting out of her car at night. She had last used it in October 1988 when police found her unconscious in her car, her naked legs dangling from the open driver's door.

Her hands had been tied behind her back and duct tape was plastered over her face to prevent her from breathing. As in previous attacks, she was found with a black nylon stocking tied around her neck. Cindy had gone into a coma that time, but survived. Her black purse was on the front passenger seat between two brown paper Safeway bags, with another two bags of groceries on the floor. The purse contained $2.77.

On the back seat were two blue Sears bags containing a croquet set and some wrapping paper, obviously the gift for Adrian, an eight-year-old son of her friend. The receipts showed the croquet set was bought at 12:33 p.m. and the wrapping paper at 12:43 p.m. the day before. There was no receipt for the groceries.

In the days to come, Mounties would go to the Safeway at Blundell Centre and run the groceries through the till, but they would not find a sales total in the computer for May 25 that matched the cost of the groceries in Cindy's car. It was puzzling. The car's back scat was removed illffy graffiti, above. Her death was Investigated as a homicide but RCMP eventually ruled out foul play, believing her death was either a suicide or an accident. Over the upar rinrtu complained of a HALL "reign of terror" involving more than 100 incidents threatening and obscene phone calls, ominous cut-and-paste notes using pictures to gain access to the trunk.

It was empty. As with previous investigations of Cindy's complaints, there did not seem to be a single fingerprint or shred of solid evidence that would lead police to a suspect. One of the few clues was Cindy's deposit slip. It showed she deposited her paycheque at 7:58 p.m. Maybe another bank customer used the automatic-teller machine around the same time and saw her, Anderson PoLICE CONTACTED the Bank of Montreal and examined the computerized records, interviewing everyone who used the machine within 15 minutes before and after Cindy.

One woman, Tracey McLean, had used the machine shortly before 8 p.m. As she left the parking lot, she recalled a blonde woman had almost driven into the side of her car. "I saw her jump and turn away." The blonde parked in the middle of the lot, away from other cars. She was wearing a pink top and her hair was about shoulder length, McLean thought. Police showed her a photo of Cindy, but she was not positive it was the same woman.

Barry Leroy used the bank machine at 8:01 p.m. A Bank of Mon treal manager, he had just arrived home from Calgary and needed some cash to run a tew errands, ne recalled seeing a blonde walking diagonally across the lot. He watched her walk maybe five or 10 paces, but aid not see her leave the lot. She was wearing dark slacks and what appeared to be a blue jacket. He recognized the photo of James but was not sure it was the same person.

"I only saw her for 10 or 15 seconds," he explained. Anderson later arranged a hypnosis session for Leroy, hoping to enhance his memory. The only detail gained during hypnosis was a more specific description of the woman's clothing she was wearing a boot-style shoe. He could not recall seeing anyone in the six or eight other cars parked in the lot. A few days after Cindy went missing, Richard Johnston, a life insurance agent who sold her a policy prior to renting her basement suite, contacted Anderson and said a man had phoned his office to elicit details about Cindy's policy.

Since the man claimed to be Cindy's father, the secretary who took the call began providing information, then stopped when she remembered staff1 were not permitted to give out policy information over the phone. She told the caller to visit the office to discuss the matter. Cindy's father later denied making the call. It was another detail that would baffle the police. Another strange event happened about the same time.

On the fuel tank beside the abandoned house where Cindy had been found, someone spray-painted a cruel message: "Some bitch died here." An orange line was painted from the tank to the spot where her body had been found, and a body was outlined on the ground in orange spray-paint. After Cindy's disappearance, her father, Otto Hack, a neatly trimmed man in his sixties, served as the '() look at that picture and see the face of a woman wnosG spirit dieo oeiore sne aia vvnai nappenea 10 Kt 0 Cindy James? Not only in death, but in life? privately officers were saying they believed Cindy was the author of her own misfortune. That hunch made headlines the next day. Cindy's friends and family were incensed. Cindy had told them some of the officers who investigated her case over the years didn't believe her.

And now this. "My daughter was murdered," Otto Hack insistently told reporters. The bizarre twist to an already baffling case stirred the emotions of two female columnists at Vancouver's two daily newspapers. "It is that sad, sad photograph of nurse Cindy James that unsettles me," Nicole Parton wrote June 15 in The Vancouver Sun. "The downcast mouth, the dark shadow under one eye.

Was she punched? And then a second, faltering thought did she punch herself? I look at that picture and see the face of a woman whose spirit died before she did What happened to Cindy James? Not only in death, but in life? Patricia Graham, in The Province, wrote the next day: "I have spent hours thinking of Cindy James and still I feel disgust and anger, sadness and regret that we let her down so badly can it be that Cindy James died because she was a difficult person, too difficult to cither protect or believe?" Twenty days after Cindy was found, Cpl. Henzie phoned Otto Hack to inform him that preliminary-drug tests showed the presence of the sedative flurazepam in Cindy's body. In fact, theofliccrexplained.it appeared to be an overdose level. Nicole Parton meantime, he would continue his own investigation, June 12 would have been Cindy James's 45th birthday, usually a time of cards, cake and candles. Instead, family members gathered at the Richmond Funeral Home, preparing for Cindy's memorial service June 14.

Police used a hidden video camera to record the faces and licence plates of everyone who attended the (uneral. Notably absent was Cindy's ex-husband. I HIS ADDRESS to the more than 200 mourners, Pastor Ralph Mayan said: "No one can imagine the pain and heartache Cindy must have experienced in those years that culminated in her murder." Her death was a grim reminder of the hatred and violence that are often the "order of the day in this society." Longtime friend Wally Christen-sen told mourners that Cindy's life had been "snuffed out" for no apparent reason and the "greatest horror" was that the person responsible was still "loose in the community." He remembered her as warm and car inc. with a brieht smile and infec- tious laugh, who had devotedly worked with special-needs children, often under trying circumstances, Her move back to nursing after 17 years away from the profession, Christensen noted, was a testament to her strength. "To us the was love and beauty personified," Otto Hack sadly told the gathering.

Although police officially said they were investigating a homicide, media spokesman for the family, detailing for reporters how his daughter had first been attacked in 1983 by two men in her garage, where she was stabbed, strangled and left for dead. Police never found her attackers. Over the years, she had been beaten, strangled and left to die five times, but police could never find the perpetrators. She had also been terrorized with dead cats left in her yard on four occasions, sometimes with threatening notes attached. HE RESULTING widespread media coverage brought a flood of public sympathy for the family and Richmond RCMP received hundreds of "tips." Each tip was investigated, but none provided any concrete leads.

On May 29, Anderson met with Cindy's parents to discuss avenues to be investigated. Otto Hack suggested that, as a former military man, he could muster 500 soldiers from the Canadian Armed Forces base in nearby Chilliwack to conduct a foot search, concentrating on abandoned lots and houses. Anderson's superior officer, Sgt. Hugh Campbell, declined, saying police dog masters were asked to search those areas and he felt the army would only duplicate the police effort, The refusal of Hack's offer would later come back to haunt police. The discovery of Cindy's body June 8, 1989 occurred precisely two weeks after she had been reported missing.

The next day, Ozzie Kaban was in Oklahoma when he got a call from his son, who had read in the newspaper that Cindy had been found. Kaban had spent years investigating the case, assisting police, doing his own private surveillance ol her home and installing elaborate electronic security systems to try to catch those he believed had injected fear in her life for so long. Cindy had wanted a gun for protection before she disappeared, but Kaban advised against it, knowing she was not trained to use firearms. After catching the first flight home, Kaban attended the morgue June 10, a day after the autopsy. While examining Cindy's corpse, he noticed blotching on her left side, which he thought was post-mortem lividity, a phenomenon caused by blood settling in the body immediately after death.

If his assumption was correct, the fact that police found Cindy on her right side indicated she had been killed elsewhere and her body dumped. She had been probably kept in a cool place for some time before being moved, he thought. He also felt the "parching" of Cindy's skin odd, since he had noticed the site where she was discovered had been shady and moist. Besides, Kaban wondered, how could the body have been in the bushes, 20 metres from the sidewalk, for two weeks and no one smell it or see it? Wouldn't the corpse have been nibbled at by rats, birds and other animals in the area? It did not add up. Kaban passed along his suspicions to Peter Leask, the lawyer hired by Cindy's family.

In the He added there was also an indica- tion that a similar sedative was ores ent in the body, along with the opiate morphine. Police offered no interpretation of the preliminary drug tests. Wedm'sduy: The threatening notes, break-ins and obscene phone calls started in shortly after Cindy James and her husband Dr. Roy Makepeace had separated They would mark the bcuinntng of a reign of ter ror that would only end seven years later with her death..