CANADA Canada - Cindy James, 44, Vancouver, BC, 25 May 1989

http://www.wevancouver.com/news/vancouver-s-creepiest-unsolved-mysteries-1.1261787

The short of it is, soon after leaving her husband in 1981, James started receiving threatening phone calls. The police started to investigate but over the next several months, the harassment increased. She reported prowlers outside her house at night. Windows were smashed and phone cords cut. According to a friend, James claimed bizarre notes were being left on her doorstep, and had been attacked several times. James tried to hide her identity – changing her last name, moving houses, painting her car, etc. – but the harassment continued, including the violent attacks. But because there were never any witnesses, the police became suspicious that James was lying about the case, or was withholding important information.

Months before her death, James was found hypothermic in a ditch six miles from her home. She was wearing a man’s work boot and glove and had a nylon stocking tied around her neck. She was cut and bruised, yet could not recall how she’d gotten to the ditch. Again, police were suspicious about her story. Shortly after, a fire was started in her basement – an arson, according to police, that only could only have been started by someone in the house, since there was no evidence of a break-in. James was suspected and she was checked into a psychiatric facility. She checked out 10 weeks later.

On May 25, 1989, she disappeared. Her car was discovered not far from her house, with groceries and a wrapped gift in the backseat. There was blood in the car. Her body was discovered two weeks later in an abandoned house.

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At first glance, it seems to me someone wanted to torture this woman for a long time. My money would be on the ex she left (notoriously have their noses out of joint) as opposed to a current bf. Jmo.

When she was found hypo-thermal in the ditch, drugs were my first thought - then she is found drugged to death. And LE comes up with suicide when she is hog-tied and drugged because there were no witnesses to previous acts? Shameful, and repetitive with Canadian LE - WM.

Why did nothing ever come of this case? Surely there is some evidence from the multiple break ins. She was found on multiple occasions hog tied outside, how did the attacker/s restrain her, and continue to do this. Surely she'd have picked up on a pattern of behaviour. And what about her kids? Did they ever see any prowler?

I'm obsessed with this case. Getting info is pretty hard when you live all the way in Australia

Let's see what we can do about furthering this case.

First and foremost is correct info - as much as can be obtained. In my experience, no trial means little info. LE does not play nice where opposition to their views exist - especially in Canada. Jmo.

The best comparison that comes to mind is Canadian Russel Williams - former Colonel. One of his victims was found tied to a chair and LE left her that way for hours 'assuming' she had done this to herself. The LEO was of course a male. Never mind that another one of William's victims, a neighbor to this victim, had been found the same way weeks or months earlier - this male officer could not fathom that someone else had tied this victim up.

So if this is a case where people want to believe LE can't have made any errors, what's the point in pursuing? If people want to explore the facts, then the facts should be explored to every extent possible.

Imo CJ was a victim.

This was on Unsolved Mysteries. I'm from BC so it definitely spooked me. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to endure years of torture and abuse, then be treated like you are doing this to yourself! This poor lady.

I read somewhere that she witnessed some misdoings of her husband and his wealthy associates on Galiano Island. Then she left him and the madness ensued. Apparently they were trying to make sure she stayed quiet -or- if she did speak, she would not be credible due to LE insisting she was doing this all to herself. So creepy.

True Crime All The Time Unsolved - Ep96 - Cindy James | Listen via ...
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/true-crime-all-the-time-unsolved/e/58167202
Ep96 - Cindy James from True Crime All The Time Unsolved

Strongly recommend this episode, and this podcast.

https://player.fm › series › series-2409410 › cindy-james-and-john-lang
19 hours ago - Listen to Cindy James And John Lang and thirty-two more episodes by Criminology, free! No signup or install needed.

This John Lang case out of Fresno CA is crazy also. Anybody have any info on it? Saw some youtube stuff, and the podcast is also disturbing.

I've read somewhere Canadian police (first of all Sureté du Quebec, but they're not alone in Canada) often throw away all the evidence in its possession.
I fear they did the same in this case...

Murder or suicide?


Cindy James

Real Name: Cynthia Elizabeth Hack James
Nicknames: Cindy
Location: Richmond, British Columbia
Date: June 8, 1989

Details: In June 1989, the quiet city of Richmond near Vancouver, British Columbia was shocked when a body was found lying in the yard of an abandoned house. It was of forty-four-year-old nurse named Cindy James. She had been drugged and strangled, and her hands and feet had been tied behind her back. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police believed that her death was either an accident or suicide.
Cindy had graduated from nursing school in 1966. She later became the administrator for a preschool for children with behavioral and emotional issues. She was married but did not have any children of her own. In July 1982, she and her husband separated. Four months later, she began receiving mysterious and sometimes threatening phone calls. During the next seven years, she reported nearly a hundred incidents of harassment. Five were violent physical attacks while others were whispering to silent phone calls. This got worse after she involved the police. At night, she heard prowlers. Her porch lights were smashed and her phone lines severed. According to her friend, Agnes Woodcock, she said bizarre notes began to appear on her doorstep. Someone was trying to scare her to death. She became reluctant and frightened to give details. Over time, the police began to doubt her stories.
One night in January 1983, Agnes dropped by Cindy's house for a visit and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she assumed she was taking her bath. As she investigated, she came across her outside, crouched down with a nylon stocking tied tightly around her neck. She'd gone out to the garage to get a box and someone had grabbed her from behind. All she saw were white sneakers. She moved to a new house, painted her car, and changed her last name. She also hired a private investigator, Ozzie Kaban.
The police continued their investigation and questioned Cindy several times. Ozzie later reported that she wouldn't tell them the entire story. She would be evasive, would withhold information, and simply would not act as a normal victim would act. When the police gave her a polygraph test, the examiner claimed that she was withholding information. Her mother, Tillie Hack, thinks the reason for her reluctance was that her attacker had threatened her family. By naming him, they would be killed.


Threatening note left by assailant

On the night of January 30, 1984, Ozzie heard strange sounds coming over a two-way radio he had given Cindy and went straight to her house. He went around it and found it was locked. Looking through a window, he found her lying on the floor with a paring knife through her hand. She was taken to the hospital where she later recalled being attacked and a needle going into her arm. Police never took fingerprints from a suspect, and there was no independent corroboration. Cindy saw this person sometimes accompanied by one or two others, or sometimes she said there were two or three people, but police could never find a suspect. The threatening phone calls continued, but they were too short to trace. There were never ones when the police had 24-hour surveillance on her house for days on end with up to fourteen officers, but when surveillance was off her house, another incident would happen.
As police became skeptical of the harassment, Cindy's parents believed her attacker was staying away to make them suspicious of her. On December 11, 1985, she was found dazed and semiconscious lying in a ditch six miles from her house. She was wearing a man's work boot and glove, and suffering from hypothermia. Cuts and bruises covered her body. A black nylon stocking had been tied tightly around her neck. She had no memory of what happened.
Agnes Woodcock and her husband, Tom, stayed with Cindy, and one night heard noises and awoke to the basement in flames and the phone dead. Tom went to alert the neighbors. He saw a man at the curb and asked him to call the fire department. Instead, he simply ran off down the street. The police suspected that Cindy had staged the incident. They found no dust or fingerprints disturbed on the outside of the windowsill. The fire was set inside the house. In order to set it, it was thought, the perpetrator would've needed to climb through a specific window. It was also considered odd that Cindy still freely walked her dog during the attacks.
Cindy's doctor committed her to a local psychiatric ward, believing she was becoming suicidal. Ten weeks later, she left the hospital. Her father, Otto Hack, said that she finally admitted to her family and friends that she knew more than she was saying and would go after her perpetrator herself.
On May 25, 1989, six years and seven months after the first threatening phone call, Cindy disappeared. On the same day, her car was found in a neighborhood parking lot. Inside were groceries and a wrapped gift. There was blood on the driver’s side door and items from her wallet were under the car. Two weeks later, her body was found at the abandoned house. It looked like she had been brutally murdered. Her hands and feet were bound together behind her back. A black nylon stocking was tied tightly around her neck. Yet, an autopsy revealed that she died from an overdose of morphine and other drugs. Police concluded that she had committed suicide.
Ozzie didn't believe Cindy would have been able to stage the scene, but others believed it was possible. In Vancouver, the coroner ruled that her death was not suicide, an accident, or a murder. They determined that she died of an "unknown event." Her parents never doubted that she was murdered. Otto believed the police did not investigate the possibility of homicide or of somebody murdering her, instead zeroing in on trying to prove that she committed suicide. They believe someone in Vancouver is getting away with murder.
Suspects: During the investigation Cindy's ex-husband, Roy Makepeace, was a suspect along with Pat McBride, a lover of her who was a policeman. The man seen at the curb running away during the fire also is a suspect.
Extra Notes: This case first aired on the February 13, 1991 episode. It was also profiled on A Current Affair and various other media publications.
Results: Unsolved





Cynthia Elizabeth “Cindy” Hack James (1944-1989)...

The Bizarre Murder that Officials Claim was Suicide — True Crime

Who Killed Nurse Cindy James?

Cindy James

This is one of the oddest crimes I've ever read/heard about.

It seems evident that CJ was indeed being stalked/harassed by someone that both meant her harm & was trying to drive her crazy (which seemed to be successful). If this is what happened, it sadly culminated in her murder. But, if so - who, and why?! A jilted ex-lover; or someone she didn't know who had a sick fixation on her for some reason?! Very strange.

If this was the case, I wonder why CJ didn't leave the area she lived in & try to start life somewhere else? That being said, this is obviously easier said than done, especially if she had her job & family in the area.

I definitely hope this case is solved one day, given that it's one of the most sad & frustrating cases in this series.

I hate to say this, but something about the multiple reports of harrassment with no evidence found makes me think about delusional disorder, specifically "persecutory delusional disorder". It's pretty rare (less than 1 in 300,000 Canadians are suspected to have it, and most are diagnosed until they're in their 50's, if ever) and she would be at the right age where it would start to interfere with her life, but not yet to the point where she would have a proper diagnosis. Still today, the only medical treatment is similar to treatment for schizophrenia, but since patients aren't dealing with bizarre delusions (like believing they're pregnant with a goat, or just had a personal conversation with the devil) that kind of medical treatment isn't usually very successful. I wonder if it would be possible to get ahold of those medical records from her 10 week stay in the psych hospital. If she was given meds and then came off them later it may lead to some other clues.

I have a close family member with this condition and it's grim. 24/7 torture. I wouldn't wish it on an enemy, that's for sure. What I do know is that would have been possible for this family member to recreate the strange scenarios described in this case while at the same time 100% believing that it had been done to them. I know it's hard to imagine... I probably wouldn't believe it either, if I hadn't witnessed what I have.

Of course, this isn't to say that I trust that the police did their jobs. I have no doubt more could have been done. I'm just throwing this out there in case someone would be interested in following this line of thought a little more... Or, have those psych reports already been reviewed in the cold case files?

I was SO HOPING someone started a thread on this. This case is SO fascinating. Reminds me of Rebecca Zahau Nalepa. Too bad LE won't reopen this case like they were forced to for Rebecca. The "expert" who was able to hog tie themselves isn't persuasive to me. There's no evidence Cindy was an "expert" in knot tying, or that she researched how to do it, etc. And if she was really making those calls to herself, couldn't LE trace that? And what about the voices the private investigator heard on the 2 way radio? Too many things make no sense here.

Gray Hughes reviews this case tonight. You’ll need to fast-forward a half hour or so to get to the start of the segment.

IIRC LE said that she committed suicide, and somehow hog tied herself before or shortly after injecting herself with (I forget what it was but it caused her death). I still don't see how this is humanly possible, since they were only able to have an expert hog tie himself, and I doubt most normal people could do that.

I believe that she was murdered. I doubt that she do it by herself. Likely her ex did it.

I'm listening to the Audible podcast on Cindy right now. I highly recommend it if you have an Audible sub, or want to try one out (there are usually free trial codes floating around). Got to say, the ex-husband sounds mighty dodgy to me, even though Cindy herself refused to say or believe her stalker was him (even though he had assaulted her a couple of times that he admitted to). The cop 'boyfriend', I have to agree with the PI's opinion of him that he was a bit of a womaniser but not violent at all. As for her doing it to herself, I don't think it's impossible that someone could do it all to themselves if they had some kind of psychosis, although Cindy didn't really seem to have any signs of anything like that.

I Would think you'd be less able to self hogtie WITH psychosis. I suspect the answer maybe somewhere in the middle, but absent Cynthia coming back from the grave and admitting she did it to herself I'll never believe she hogtied and killed herself

bykerladi said:

I Would think you'd be less able to self hogtie WITH psychosis. I suspect the answer maybe somewhere in the middle, but absent Cynthia coming back from the grave and admitting she did it to herself I'll never believe she hogtied and killed herself

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Yes I think it's a 'somewhere in the middle' case too. But you'd be surprised the things people with psychosis can do, in my personal experience they can climb roofs, they can rip oven doors off the oven and throw them (and this was a little old lady), they can pretty much accomplish anything they want based on whatever delusion they're having in that moment.
(Just based on a few years working as a support worker for people with schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis, not a qualified health professional)

bykerladi said:

I was SO HOPING someone started a thread on this. This case is SO fascinating. Reminds me of Rebecca Zahau Nalepa. Too bad LE won't reopen this case like they were forced to for Rebecca. The "expert" who was able to hog tie themselves isn't persuasive to me. There's no evidence Cindy was an "expert" in knot tying, or that she researched how to do it, etc. And if she was really making those calls to herself, couldn't LE trace that? And what about the voices the private investigator heard on the 2 way radio? Too many things make no sense here.

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FYI, there's a thread already on her from 2014. Link here
Just because there isn't evidence of something, doesn't mean it isn't true.
Phone calls, at least back then, weren't as easily traced as today. I wondered though if there weren't actual phone records from the telephone company available.
When I first heard the message on Roy's machine though, I instantly thought it sounded like a woman.
There wasn't voices on the 2 way, it was just crumpling type sounds.
And I'd like you direct you to Ruth Finley, Inside the true story of 'The Poet' stalker and his victim

Eloise said:

I'm listening to the Audible podcast on Cindy right now. I highly recommend it if you have an Audible sub, or want to try one out (there are usually free trial codes floating around). Got to say, the ex-husband sounds mighty dodgy to me, even though Cindy herself refused to say or believe her stalker was him (even though he had assaulted her a couple of times that he admitted to). The cop 'boyfriend', I have to agree with the PI's opinion of him that he was a bit of a womaniser but not violent at all. As for her doing it to herself, I don't think it's impossible that someone could do it all to themselves if they had some kind of psychosis, although Cindy didn't really seem to have any signs of anything like that.

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Prior medical professionals indicated she had several mental health issues. Let's stick with the original thread.