I wonder whether Cynthia Jane Allen's murder could have been inspired by the October 8, 1871,
Great Peshtigo Fire, America's deadliest ever forest fire and
third deadliest fire. It could be that some killers tend especially to be morbid and fond of desecrating those who die in tragedies. Her body being placed four miles west of Peshtigo put it right in the heart of the firestorm area.
As for June 11, that could be a reference to the June 11, 1880, SS
Stonington/SS
Narragansett collision in Long Island Sound, which killed about 50 on
Narragansett, which caught fire and sank. President Garfield's future assassin was on the SS
Stonington, which was not lost and suffered no casualties, but somehow Guiteau supposedly thought his survival was sufficiently miraculous that he eventually supposedly considered it a sign he was chosen by God to kill Garfield. Garfield was surprised when on the 34th ballot the
Wisconsin delegation to the Republican convention of 1880, 16 of 20 delegates put his name forward to be president, increasing his nationwide total from one. Two ballots later and he had the nomination for President. As for Garfield's assassin, Guiteau, he and his family lived from 1850-55 in Ulao, a ghost town north of Milwaukee part of current-day Grafton,
Wisconsin. Around 1875 or 1876, while Guiteau was living with his sister Frances at her summer place on Beaver Lake in Waukesha County,
Wisconsin, Frances looked up to see him wielding an axe over her head while possessing the countenance of a savage animal, an incident that she claimed almost encouraged her to try to force Guiteau into an insane asylum. But upon reflection, she decided it best not to commit him in Wisconsin, because Chicago would be nearer to most of his family (the Great Chicago Fire happened the same day as the Peshtigo fire), though for whatever reason it never happened.
Garfield got his degree from Williams College in Williamstown, MA, and was traveling to his 25th reunion there (where he was to give a speech) when Guiteau shot and fatally wounded him at a train station in DC. Another Cynthia,
Cynthia "Rocky" Krizack, 17, was taken from Williamstown on October 7, 1976, and murdered, and
Trenny Gibson, 16, vanished the next day, the anniversary of Peshtigo getting incinerated, from the Clingman's Dome area of the Great
Smoky National Park. The Peshtigo fire, though it destroyed Peshtigo on October 8 is apparently believed to have started on October 7. Forest fires I suppose can be "
smoky", and of course
Smokey Bear doesn't approve of them, and murderers don't approve of
smokey bears (cops) arresting them. Jackets were left hanging from tree branches near the bodies of both Cynthia Krizack and also Cynthia Allen (Allen's body was found the day before the anniversary of Guiteau shooting Garfield and the day after the anniversary of Guiteau being hanged, when a rural Peshtigo man noticed the jacket on the tree and then investigated more closely), and Trenny Gibson when she disappeared was wearing a jacket she had borrowed from someone she was hiking with.
Cynthia Jane Allen's name makes me think of the August 7, 1976, murder of
Jane Louise Allan, 13, who was probably taken from Pontiac, Michigan, or thereabouts while she was hitchhiking.