The Province from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 9

The Province Sunday, March 11, 1990 25 James is shown in happier times when she was married, before her life turned into a nightmare. If I I i At about age six she suffered from severe nightmares which resurfaced after she separated from her husband in 1982. Co-workers at Blenheim House for emotionally disturbed children, where she was a team co-ordinator, describe her as a competent, respected supervisor. Her relationship with her husband, whom she married in 1966, was excellent. Makepeace testified.

"She was a very quiet, private kind of individual she would hold her feelings in." But the recreational interests of the couple diverged; Cindy liked to garden while he loved to sail. After a frightening voyage to Thormanby Island near Sechelt in July 1981 when the engine broke down, she refused to step on the couple's catamaran again. Three years later, James alleged under apparent hypnosis that it was on that sailing trip that she witnessed her husband kill and dismember two people. The claim was never substantiated, in spite of what Makepeace's lawyer, Alistair Wade, described as a "wild goose chase" by police to locate the cabin where the murder was alleged to have occurred. The couple separated on a year's trial basis in July 1982 on good terms.

At Christmas 1983, Cindy sent Makepeace a Christmas card which read in part: "Our friendship will always be very special to me those memories will always be there for us to share." Still, he suggested the separation was not without pain. "To me it was sad to her it was an overwhelming tragedy." BOB Just two months after the separation, James complained of numerous obscene and no-talk phone calls. Within four months, she had turned to investigating police officer, Vancouver Const. Pat McBride, for personal protection and romance. The two maintained a relationship for about a year, evidence indicates.

McBride arranged for extra police attention for James, installed locks and arranged a security system from private investigator Ozzie Kaban. Kaban later became her confidante and friend. McBride witnessed one no-talk call when he picked up the phone in James's East 40th Avenue home. The call was traced to a Richmond exchange. One other no-talk call was traced to James, although police admit she might have dialed her own number in stress.

James said she didn't believe her estranged husband could be the culprit yet told co-workers that he had a violent temper, had pushed her down stairs, caused bruises and black eyes. After a second alleged attack, on Jan. 30, 1984, in which a paring knife from her own home was plunged into her hand, police interrogated Makepeace for five hours. No evidence was found to substantiate charges. The inquest has heard puzzling inconsistencies in James's accounts of her problems.

Harassing calls continued even when her number was unlisted. One intruder entered her home with a key; another came in through a tiny bathroom window, but left no footprints and didn't venture into any area covered by motion-detectors. Incidents in the backyard, such as '4 A log of more than 90 threats and attacks against Cindy James has been compiled by the coroner's office. Among the alleged incidents are: October 1982: The start of a series of threatening, obscene and no-talk phone calls and threatening notes. A pillow is slashed in a break-in.

Jan. 27, 1983: Cindy is slashed in her garage and a stocking is tied around her neck. She says one man was involved, then says a second man attacked her in the house. Fails two lie-detector tests. October-November 1983: Three dead cats are found, one with a rope around its neck in the garden, one between the doors of her house, one near the garage.

Jan. 30, 1984: Cindy is attacked on her back steps and is found in her locked house by Ozzie Kaban, unconscious with a stocking tightly wound around her neck. A paring knife with a note attached has been plunged through her left hand. She is judged truthful on a lie-detector test, but the tester alters that finding to "inconclusive" prior to the inquest. June 18, 1984: Cindy's dog Heidi is found cringing in its own feces in the basement.

A rope the same kind as found on the cats is wrapped around its neck. A threatening note and cigarette butts of a kind not smoked by Cindy are found. July 9, 1984: Cindy and her visiting mother, who is sleeping in the basement, are awakened by a loud thump against the house. They find a window near the front porch cracked in concentric rings. Jury 23, 1984: She is attacked during an evening walk, apparently injected with drugs and has a stocking wrapped around her neck.

She crawls to a house for help. June 21, 1985: Committed involuntarily to Lions Gate Hospital psychiatric unit where she remains for several days. She is depressed and suicidal. Aug. 21, 1985: One of two fires at her 14th and Blenheim home.

Cindy is suspected, but denies it. Dec. 11, 1985: She is found staggering along West 16th Avenue, bruised and cut, with a stocking wrapped around her neck. April 16, 1986: Arson fire at her home at 5400 Blundell Rd. in Richmond while friends visiting.

Police suspect Cindy. May 1986: Admitted to Riverview Hospital for two weeks. Oct. 11, 1988: Her former husband, Roy Makepeace, gets a message on his answering machine: "Cindy dead meat soon." Oct. 26, 1988: Cindy found unconscious in her car, naked from the waist down.

A stocking was tied around her neck and she had been hog-tied. June 8, 1989: Cindy's partly bound body is found in an empty lot in Richmond. She had been injected with a lethal dose of morphine. lights being unscrewed, ceased when a television monitor was installed. A stabbing and near strangulation in James's garage occurred in the 20 minutes between the time an elderly friend called to say she would drop by, and her arrival.

Police investigators, Kaban, and Makepeace say they were dismayed by James's reluctance to talk about the incidents and her inability to give details about them. She said she had been warned by her attackers not to tell. "Throughout the length of the investigation it was difficult to get anything out of her," testified Det. David Bowyer-Smyth. "That seemed to me to be inconsistent with someone who had a genuine complaint." Nevertheless, Kaban, McBride and Bowyer-Smyth who withdrew from the case in April 1983 firmly believed James was the target of a sadistic predator.

The testimony has often presented more questions than answers but one theme is evident: James's terror during her seven-year ordeal was real to her, and convincing to anyone close to her. It's also evident that the source of her fear whether real or imagined was never identified, or dealt with. fl A chilling and threatening note was pasted together with I bits of newspa-1 per headlines. Staff photo E.J by David Clark.