June 8, 1989. Vancouver, British Columbia. Fourty-four-year-old nurse Cindy James is found dead. She had been drugged and strangled, hands and feet bound behind her back. A nylon stocking was tightly wrapped around her neck.

Seven years prior to her death, Cindy James had reported over one hundred incidents of harassment. She had begged authorities to take her silent cry for help seriously. They didn’t. Only when it was already too late, suspicions arose whether Cindy had told the truth or not.

Cindy James

A Pattern of Harassment

In 1982, Cindy was already experiencing a time of hardship. She was divorcing her husband, psychiatrist Dr. Roy Makepeace. As the reason she stated marital violence. When confronted with the accusation, Makepeace had claimed to “only have hit her twice”. Just four months after she had separated from her husband, the true harassment began. Most instances involved stalking, harassment, physical attacks, phone calls, blackmail letters and bizarre notes.

She received the first offensive phone call October 7, 1982. A streak of calls continuously followed, ranging from silence or breathing noises to insults, threats of violence and sexual innuendos by an unknown male voice. These instances quickly worsened. Windows and porch lights were destroyed, her phone line often cut off and Cindy claimed to have seen people hiding in front of her home at night. She also reported that even her dog Heidi had been injured and scared after an attack. Her assertions ranged from slashed pillows to break-ins to finding strangled kittens in her garden.

One time, her married friends Agnes and Tom stayed the night because Cindy had asked them to. They were woken up by her because she had heard a noise in the basement. In said basement, they discovered someone had laid a fire. Tom claimed to have seen a suspicious man run down the street but police doubted Cindy’s story. No fingerprints were found on the window sill that would have been needed to be opened for entry.

In January 1983, Cindy was found unconscious in her home with nylon stockings around her neck. She claimed to have been attacked by two unknown men who threatened to hurt her sister if she spoke to anyone about it, but doubts about her credibility quickly arose. Whenever an instance of a physical attack supposedly took place, no fingerprints of a perpetrator could be found. Additionally, the attacks only happened during the time frame when her house wasn’t being monitored by police officers. As a result, Cindy was accused of orchestrating the events herself due to mental illness. There was a rumor she was suffering from the Manchhausen Syndrome: a syndrome responsible for faking illness and injury in order to receive sympathy.

As a countermeasure, Cindy moved away many times, painted her car and changed her phone numbers as well as her last name to James. She even hired a private investigator Ozzy Kaban who seriously believed her to be in danger. All her efforts would prove to be in vain when Cindy vanished in May 1989. Her car was left behind in a car parking lot. Inside, officers found blood stains on the driver side door, a wrapped gift and her wallet lying beneath the car but no trace of Cindy. Cindy’s tenant, Johnston, later contacted police to report a call he had received. A man claiming to be her father had called to inquire about her life insurance policy after she was reported missing. Cindy’s father never made such a call.

Cindy’s car in the parking lot

The Bizarre and Tragic End

On June 8, 1989 Cindy’s case reached a tragic end. She was found by construction worker Gordon Starchuck in the backyard of an abandoned house at 8111 Blundell Road in Richmond. Discovered in the fetal position, her hands and feet had been tied behind her back. A black nylon stocking was tightly wrapped around her neck. On her arm, a needle mark, supposedly from a hypodermic needle, was visible and a fatal dose ten times the normal amount of morphine was found in her system. On the home’s external gasoline tank, orange graffitti said, “Some bitch died here”.

An autopsy later on revealed she died from the overdose of morphine and several other drugs. Toxicologists assume she had consumed a fatal amount of tablets orally. Another pharmacologist suggested that the morphine itself could have been injected by her. Adding up to that, her sister Melanie had found a glass cutter, a medical syringe kit, a urinarycatheter, and a saline solution in Cindy’s purse. Moreover, knot expert Robert Chisnall showed that Cindy could have tied up herself within three minutes before the effects of the drugs in her system would take over.

Several psychologists and psychiatrists gave their opinion in court and Dr. Wesley Friesen, who had been Cindy’s psychiatrist during all those years, reckoned that Cindy possibly suffered from a borderline personality and post traumatic stress disorder, caused by an alleged sexual assault in childhood by her own father. However, Cindy never mentioned such an instance taking place.

Due to the jury being unable to decide whether her case should be ruled an accident, a homicide or a suicide, it was determined that Cindy James had died from an “unknown occurrence”. With this decision, her case was officially closed. No perpetrator has ever been identified and most likely, Cindy James’ death will remain a case with vague answers.

Sources:

https://unsolved.com/gallery/cindy-james/
https://vocal.media/criminal/the-fearful-incident-of-cindy-james-suicide-or-cold-murder
https://morbidkuriosity.com/cindy-james/