Wndyri Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad-free. Join WNDYRI Plus in the WNDYRI app or on Apple podcasts. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. From WNDYRI comes a news series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it. I'm your host, Brandon James-Jinkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the WNDYRI app or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, weirdos. I'm Elaina.

I'm Ash. This is Morbin. This is motherfucking Morbin, bitch. No, just kidding. And that's Mickey's big burp.

I like how that was just like, weh. We're feeling some type of way.

Things are Lucy Goosy today. We're at my house.

The Lucius and the Goosiest.

I couldn't come up with a response quick enough.

You just staring at me blankly and I was like, oh, she gone.

It's early. My coffee hasn't hit yet. I tried to go to yoga this morning. I couldn't. It was a whole thing. She forgot her map. Halfway there, and I fucking realized it. I was like, Are you joking me? Are you joking me? I said, Are you joking me, mate? True. Yeah. What's up, dog?

What's up, dog?

You're almost riding a book high.

I am almost riding a book high. It's so close. By the time this comes out, I think it'll be two days ago that it came out. You'll be on the high. In the future, this is awesome.

I'm so excited for you now and in the future.

I'm so excited. I'm excited for you guys to read the Butcher Game. People have been grabbing The Butcher and the Ren recently a lot to start the series, which is so fucking awesome.

Well, you have to, guys. You have to. If you didn't read The Butcher and the Ren, I would read that before you read The Butcher Game.

Yeah, for sure.

Because it's all chronological.

Yeah, a lot of backstory, a lot of shockers. But The Butcher Game is longer. She's thicker. I think she's more brutal, personally.

She 100 % is. There's no doubt in my mind.

I don't think there's any doubt there. But yeah, you can still go get her.

Somebody go get her. She's selling like a best seller.

You won't be disappointed, I think. I hope, I pray.

You won't. I loved it. I liked it better than Butcher and the Ren, and I loved Butcher and the Ren. I love that. I loved to hear it. I also have seen people who got the ARC, advanced reader copies. I'm reviewing it, and I've seen so many great reviews.

Everybody who's reviewed it has been so sweet and so kind and lovely.

One girl, she posted a picture. We should shout her out.

Oh, BookTockers and Bookstagrammers.

I like Bookstagrammers. That's fun.

Always make the prettiest displays of a book.

Yes.

They have a way of making me want to read any book. It's like they always make it look gorgeous.

This one creator on Instagram, Michelle Reads Thrillers.

Yes, I just saw that.

The way that she set the book up to take the picture of it, I was like, okay.

Oh, it's beautiful. They're amazing that way.

Yeah, it was gorge. I was impressed. I loved it. I can barely take a good male picture in my fucking car.

I can't take any good photos of things. Sorry, I said a cat hair in my eye.

I have so many cats. All the cats. And I love them.

I also love those cats. Franklin and I have become best friends. We've always been best friends, but I feel like we really solidified our relationship. The other day, yeah. He crawled on my lap and he snuggled into me. And I almost passed away. Because I like cats. I like cats just fine.

You're an animal person.

I just love animals. But cats were never my favorite. It just wasn't my thing for a long time.

But then I met your cats and I was like, oh, bitch, these cats are cool. That's the thing. I feel like cats morph to their owner. I like to personally think that I'm wicked cool. So my cats are wicked cool. Or is it still in there? Well, I'm glad you got that cat high... Hello? I'm glad you got that cat hair out of your eye. I was going to say cat and then eye, so it just went Ky.

Ky. It's still in there, but by the end of this, I'm sure it'll make its way out.

I don't see anything in there. I wonder if you got glitter in there because your face is a little bit glittery. Did you get highlighter in your eye?

I don't think I got highlighter.

All right, let's get into this. Let's go. We got part two of the strange, very mysterious death of Cindy James.

Very strange case so far.

Super strange. It's only going to get stranger, to be Oh, boy. Yeah. So at the end of part one, Detective Bowier-Smith got involved in Cindy's case, which was really starting to ramp up. He, in the past, had worked closely with Pat McBride, who, remember, he was the responding officer. Cindy started seeing him. Yeah. Detective Bauher-Smith worked closely with him, like I said, and trusted him, so he wanted to trust what Cindy was saying. Of course. But something in his gut was telling him that there was just... Something was off about her story. Something was missing. His gut just didn't feel right about it. So on a hunch, he ended up asking her to take a polygraph exam. And unfortunately, the results did literally nothing to alleviate his suspicions whatsoever. Her test showed signs of deception. But instead of confronting her with the results right off the bat, he asked her if she'd be willing to submit to another exam. And again, the results indicated that she was being dishonest, being deceptive. So now he's convinced that he caught her in a lie.

Because that's like, we I mean, we always say it. Hot dog in a trench coat. But it is interesting when somebody... I don't know. It's like it really goes both ways. I feel like polygraphs are so difficult to have any stance on.

Yeah, because I know that if you're nervous, that can show a deception. You hook me up to a polygraph right now.

I'm fucking nervous. My anxiety level is going to be at a billion. Just because of the nature of being hooked up to something that can determine your physiological responses to questions.

I feel like my brain would be like, You're lying. You're lying. Even if I was telling the truth.

It's like when you go through TSA at the airport and you know you don't have a weapon on you or contraband of any kind. But every time I go through, I'm like, What if I have a gun? And I don't. I know I don't. What if I accidentally put a gun that I don't have in my case?

Carry on.

Oh my God, what if I put a machete that I don't have in my- My God. Suitcase? And it's like that. It's crazy. So your brain will just make you go like, Oh, fuck.

I like that makes sense that you do that. I think, Oh, did I pack a full-size product that they're going to throw out. I literally...

I'm worried I brought a full bomb with me.

I'm just like, Did I bring that new hairspray that I got? And they're going to get rid of it and I'm going to be sad.

Yeah, see, and it It happens all day. Like, your brain can trick you in insane ways. So I feel like in a polygraph exam, you hook me up to that shit. I'm going to be like, have I lied about everything that I've ever done in my life?

I feel like, is anything real? Is my name even Ash?

They'd be like, is your name Elaina? I'd be like, I honestly don't know.

My mom says.

I can't be sure.

But who's she to say? I don't know.

I was there, but I don't remember. That's the thing.

Well, Cindy... So Biersmith, Detective Biersmith, confronts Cindy with the results.

Because, of course, it means something. Yeah, I mean, of course. We laugh about how of that. But it is interesting when you have other suspicions.

Especially having two deceptive, is that a word? Deceptive? Yeah. Tests in a row. That makes sense. So he confronts her with the results and she immediately burst into tears, which honestly, I probably would have done the same. But also it doesn't make you look great.

Very suspicious, but also, yeah, me too.

But also, I burst in tears at the grocery store if the wind blows the wrong way.

And just being confronted with that would That would be horrifying. Oh, yeah.

No, I can't handle that. She couldn't either. No. According to her, the reason why the results showed deception was because, contrary to what she actually said in her statement about the attack that happened in the garage, how she was attacked by multiple men, and it got really violent. She said she actually did know the identity of one of these men who had attacked her, but she was terrified that if she named him, he would return to harm her family.

Okay, and this is where I say, Well, now that's suspish because you have now compounded what could be interpreted as a lie on top of deceptive results of a polygraph exam to cover the deceptive results.

Yeah. It's just strange.

Because, again, I can understand that if she's scared that this person will hurt her family or hurt her, if she names them, that is a reality. Of course. That many people go through these situations. It happens. But it's also like, this has been a big part of your life. If you know the name of one of the people, we might be able to end this.

This could stop.

Why wouldn't you just say it? Also, the police would be much more likely to be able to protect you if they know who they're protecting you from. Exactly. My initial feeling about that, if I was that investigator, would be it seems like you're trying to fix deception with more deception.

You're yank in my chain, is what he thought.

But you can see it both ways.

I see both sides of this because I see her not wanting to say anything because she's so scared. I see being on the detective side of things being like, What the fuck then?

What do you want us to do? We can't protect you from someone we don't know. If you know who it is, we can protect you from that person. We can't protect you from an unknown human.

Exactly. The results of the polygraph exam were certainly unusual, and her response was certainly unusual. Bauer Smith wasn't ready yet to rule out the possibility that she was lying. But he also had to admit that it was hard to believe somebody would keep up such an aggressive and pretty extreme charade for attention. For sure. He felt like she was lying, but also he was like, Why would she lie about this just for attention?

And keep it going for so long.

And ramp it up. Cindy hadn't been alone in her claims, and that was the other thing. Pat McBride was convinced that she was telling the truth. Actually, he himself even answered some of the phone calls that were coming in, like the weird obscene ones. But in the cases where Pat picked up the phone, the collar would like, heavy breathe and then hang up. Pat never heard the voice unless it was on the answering machine. Now, despite the chaos and stress of the ongoing harassment, the other aspects of Cindy's life actually seem to be going pretty well, relatively well. She was well liked. She was successful at work. She actually got several promotions between '75 and '83. The years, not that many promotions.

I was like, wow.

You're like, That's a lot of fucking promotions. But after the attack in the garage, she did file a worker's comp claim so that she could take time off to recover. Yeah. And when she was ready to return, her employer was really happy to have her back. But they requested that she attend a counseling session with a psychiatrist. That way they could clear her to return to a high pressure environment because she's a nurse, remember.

Yeah, she's in health care.

She's in health care.

That makes perfect sense. Yeah.

So the request to consult with a psychiatrist was immediately rejected by Cindy. Unfortunately, at that point, she had nothing but negative experiences with mental health professionals.

I mean, that is true.

And also remember the time period. Mental health is still to this day stigmatized. It's a lot better. But back then. But back then, seeking help for your mental health was seen as a weakness. That's how it was. She was worried that she would be, quote, stigmatized as unbalanced if she went to see a psychiatrist.

That could have something to do with the case, too. It could make her seem like she's admitting Yeah.

That maybe some of this is in her head. That maybe something. Yeah. That's the thing. You led me perfectly to my next point, because also multiple officers with Vancouver police already thought she was making everything up. She said, Well, if I go see a psychiatrist, I'm probably only validating that belief.

They're going to be like, C.

It's exactly what you said.

I get that.

Eventually, she did reach a compromise with her boss, and she agreed to see Dr. Alex Conley, who was one of the psychiatrists associated with the clinic that she worked for.

Yeah.

Isn't that a conflict of interest? You think it's a conflict of interest now? You just sit back and wait.

You can't have her see someone who works at the clinic she works for.

Yeah, you sure can't.

She's got to go to an outside place. You would think.

That's bonkers. It only gets bonkers. Dr. Conley saw Cindy a total of six times before clearing her to return to work, which six times, I think, is pretty valid. But years later, his consultation would be seen by pretty much everybody as sauce. Yeah, I mean, right from the beginning. Just straight up sauce. Like Pat McBride, Alex Conley seemed pretty taken with Cindy, and he didn't have any reservations when it came to believing even the most suspicious aspects of her story.

Oh, my goodness. These mans.

He just thinks she's really pretty, which if you look up a picture of her, she is. She's beautiful.

But also, you're a professional. You're supposed to be unbiased here.

Exactly. Now, the other thing was he only saw Cindy outside of his normal working hours. What? He hardly ever billed for his services. Oh. And this is my favorite part. He kept literally, virtually zero written record or notes of their meetings. Nothing. No record of their sessions. No, I don't know how many of you all are in therapy, but they do be scratching down some notes while you're talking.

I would imagine.

Not Alex Conley.

This is gnarly.

Yeah. This was highly unusual, given that the entire reason she was seeing him in the first place was so that she could be evaluated for that worker's comp claim, which is like, you need some- You need records. You need receipts, baby. So all signs pretty much pointed to an inappropriate level of familiarity between doctor and patient. Now, that was that. The threatening notes continued to arrive for Cindy at home and at work throughout the fall and into the summer. But by the fall, things took another alarming turn. And I'm just going to give a trigger warning here up front for the rest of the story, just because otherwise I'd have to be pausing every five seconds. Give a blanket one. So right here, blanket for the rest of the story. There is mention of animal cruelty, and there is a lot of mention, especially toward the end of suicide and suicidal ideations. So if that's something that you're not down to here, we'll see you next time. It's going to be sprinkled then. Exactly. So on October 15th, one year to the date after the harassment began, Cindy found a dead cat in her garden with a rope tied around its neck.

Oh. A note next to the cat read, You're next.

That's terrifying.

. By that point, she also had already moved two times. Anne had changed her phone number, but her stalker seemed to have no trouble finding her each time.

Which is shocking, especially back then. It would take a lot to keep finding someone.

We'll find out later how if there was a stalker, and I'm not saying there wasn't, I'm just saying I'm very much in the middle on this case. I don't know if she was mentally ill. I don't know if anybody knows. I don't know if there was a stalker. I don't know. But we'll find out that if there was a stalker, it might not have been that difficult for them to get information. She was a little free with information.

Oh, she was given stuff out.

Yeah, exactly. But a few weeks after the discovery of the cat, she returned home to find her garden completely destroyed. Plants were ripped from the ground, tossed around the yard. It was a wreck.

Oh, that's just cruel.

Yeah, it is mean. It's mean. The increased frequency and aggression led McBride to encourage Cindy to actually hire a professional bodyguard.

Probably a good idea.

Yeah, not a bad idea at all. She took the advice and started working with Aussie Cabin. He was a private detective, and he was actually a friend of Detective Bow Smiths, who had extensive experience providing security services to just private clients. Now, hiring Cabin obviously made her feel a little bit safer in her home, but it really didn't do anything to stop the harassment. That's wild. It is. And remember, obviously, he's not 24/7.

He's probably on call, right?

But yes, he is on call. So in late November, just a few weeks after hiring this new security guard, Cindy found another dead cat in her yard.

God, who is killing cats?

I can't even talk about it. It ruins me. In the weeks that followed, the calls and letters started increasing in frequency, and somebody started vandalizing the house, smashing basement windows, cutting her phone line. What? Serious fucking scary shit. Fuck. Each time she reported the harassment and each time a detective was sent out to the house to investigate. But neither Vancouver PD or Ozie Kaven ever found any evidence that anyone other than Cindy had been at the house. Oh. Just None whatsoever. Wow. Which is weird. Yeah. If there is somebody, they're really fucking good at covering their tracks. Yeah. So a few months later, on January 30th, 1984, Cindy was actually attacked in her home for a second time. Around 6:00 PM, she called Caven to tell him that she'd been hearing things outside of the house, and she actually thought somebody was trying to break in. Oh, that's terrifying. So he rushed over to the house, and when he looked through the front window, he saw her lying on the kitchen floor, and it appeared that there was a knife sticking out of her head. Her head? Her head. H-e-a-d head. Holy shit. Yeah. So he kicked in the door with such force that it actually ripped the entire frame away from the from the wall.

Aussie. He's like, That's a man's that you want by your side.

He's kicking a whole door frame out.

Hopefully, he knows how to replace it. So he rushed into the kitchen where Cindy is just laying on the floor unconscious. Oh my God. And he expected to find the attacker probably still in the house because he rushed over there.

Yeah, he's on call.

But there was nobody inside the house other than Cindy, and the house was completely silent, completely still. Just nobody. But she was stabbed in the head? Well, it turned out that Cindy had actually not been stabbed in the head. She was stabbed in the hand. The angle with which she was looking made it look like it was her hand.

Yeah, like her hand was up or something. Yeah, exactly.

But according to this is still brutal. According to the police report, there was a paring knife stuck into her hand, almost to the palm. So I'm assuming it went Like the knife went through the front of her hand. Holy shit. And it was pinning a note. Like the knife was stuck to a note, then stuck into her hand. And the note said, Now you must die, cunt.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it It was written in cut and paste magazine letters. Like the classic. Like a ransom note. Ransom note, yeah. Being a part of a royal family might seem enticing, but more often than not, it comes at the expense of everything, like your freedom, your privacy, and sometimes even your head. Even the Royals is a podcast from WNDYRI that pulls back the curtain on royal families past and present from all over the world, to show you the darker side of what it means to be royalty. Like the true stories behind the six wives of Henry VIII, whose lives were so much more than just, Divorced beheaded, died. Divorced beheaded, survived. Or Esther of Burundi, a princess who fled her home country to become France's first Black supermodel. There's also Queen Christina of Sweden, an icon who traded in dresses for pants, had an affair with her lady in waiting, and eventually gave up her crown because she refused to get married. Throw in her involvement in a murder and an attempt to become Queen of Poland. And you have one of the most unforgettable legacies in royal history. Follow even the Royals on the WNDRI app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge even the Royals ad free right now on WNDRI Plus. Imagine you're walking through the park one day and you see a suspicious backpack sitting underneath a bench. You report it to the police, and upon investigating, they discover two live pipe bombs inside. You rush to clear the area before they explode, saving countless lives and preventing injury. Everyone declares you a hero for a fleeting moment until everything changes and you are declared the prime suspect. This was the story of security guard Richard Juhl. After the Centennial Park bombing killed one person and wounded more than 100, public pressure and a media witch hunt pushed a desperate FBI to find a suspect. Despite obvious holes in the case and unethical tactics used by the FBI, Security Guard, Richard Juhl, was under pressure to confess. I'm Aaron Hable. And I'm Justin Evans. Join us as we explore the aftermath of the 1996 centennial Olympic Park bombing in the newest season of our podcast, GenerationY, the Olympic Park Bombing. Follow GenerationY on the WNDY app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to GenerationY ad-free right now by joining WNDRI Plus. When the paramedics arrived, it was determined that actually her injury was not very serious, which I'm like, They must have gone like, There's so many fucking tendons in your hand.

But also she's in health care, and I just want to point that out. Just saying. But it wasn't very serious, and the head injury that she suffered from a supposed blow to the head was also not serious. And the nylon stocking that was tied around her neck also did no lasting damage. But this is the second time that there's a rope tied around her neck.

Yeah, like a nylon stocking.

And remember, unfortunately, the cat, there was a rope around the cat's neck, too. Oh, yeah. So that's a... That keeps happening. But later at the hospital, doctors would find a needle mark on her arm, which led them to believe that she had been injected with an unknown substance. They couldn't determine what it was, but she had no recollection of being injected.

Well, here's my question. Yeah. There's a note that says, Now you must die, cunt. Why didn't they kill her? Because it sounds like they didn't really make an effort to. Yeah. Because the head injury is not...

They didn't even Not serious. They didn't even know if there really was a head injury. She said that she had been struck over the head. She just said she passed out. And that she passed out. So they're like, okay, she must have been hit. But it was almost like it was a case we talked about a few weeks ago where somebody said they've been hit over the head and they were only unconscious for a certain amount of time. The doctors were like, you would have been unconscious for much longer. Yeah.

It sounds like there was really no damn... It wasn't even a serious injury to the hand. No. But if they were in her house And she's alone and they had a knife and a stalking with them. Yeah. Why didn't they just do it?

I mean, I guess you could say that maybe they heard, and I'm just playing devil's advocate here, maybe they heard Caven coming and ran out the back. But it sounds like- Exactly. It sounds like he didn't see anybody leave. Everything was silent. Everything was quiet. I mean, I don't know. It's hard to explain.

It's just so... And I'm not saying this isn't somebody doing this, trying to torment her. But it's just like, wow, you're really... You had the chance to do it. Right.

Do it. And this person is playing with fire. Yeah. She's reporting this to the police over and over and over again.

Yeah, they're really rolling the dice here.

If there's stalking her. They know that. They know she's seeing police presence at the house.

I mean, this is shocking.

Yeah, it is. Really. Now, like the other reports of assault and harassment, the scene at Cindy's house appeared to be absent of Any evidence of an intruder whatsoever.

That's the part that I'm like, What is going on here? Yeah.

On the kitchen floor where she'd been laying, there were circular smears of blood that investigators found highly unusual, like somebody tried to clean the floor. Constable Keo E. Roma, I hope I say that right, said it appeared somebody had wiped it. He said in his 10 years as an investigator, he had, quote, never come across a crime scene where an assailant attempted to clean up the blood.

I mean, I've seen that in plenty of cases where somebody tried to clean up the blood.

Thank you. Because we've covered cases where that's happened before.

Maybe not in his 10 years, but in our six years doing this, I've seen countless cases where people have tried to wipe up blood at a crime scene.

But I will say, usually that's when the person that they have attacked is dead.

Or when they think that they're dead. Yes, exactly. At least. To me, it doesn't seem like there was anything done to Cindy here that- Where they would think she died. Would have made them think she was dead.

Agreed.

Yeah. But again, who knows? But I'm like, no, people clean up blood all the time. Yeah, agreed. Or do it badly.

That's literally why luminal testing makes sense. Yeah, exactly. But according to Cindy, she had been in her kitchen when she saw who she thought was her neighbor come through the back gate and up her back stairs, carrying something in his hand. But by the time she realized it wasn't her neighbor. The man hit her over the head. She said she lost consciousness.

Which would be a severe head injury. Very severe. You don't lose consciousness from a head injury unless it's a serious one.

Right, exactly. I mean, they also said that she may have been injected with something, so I don't know if that made her lose consciousness, but they also couldn't determine what it was that she'd been injected with. So it's hard to say. Interesting. But given the suspicion with which her other reports had been met, investigators asked her actually to take another polygraph exam, which if if she is going through this and she does have this stalker who's attacking her again and again, she's going to sit through all these polygraph tests. Then this is so fucking awful. Yeah, that's shitty.

That's the thing. That's the part of this that is Just awful. And sad. As if this is really what's happening.

Holy shit. But then you can see on the other side of things why they want her to because they're like, We're trying to help you here, but there's no fucking evidence.

And there's a lot of evidence pointing to... To you, No one else doing this. To you, unfortunately. So it's like, you can't ignore that. You can't just be like, Okay, yeah, totally. Someone did it, and we don't know who it is.

Well, this one is weird because... So she consented to the polygraph test. And at first, her result showed that she was telling the truth. Okay. But then the... I don't know if it's polygrapher, polygrapher, polygraph giver. I don't know.

Polygraph man, woman.

I like polygrapher, but- Polygrapher sounds fun because it's like calligrapher. Exactly. You know? Yeah. Well, this this polygrapher, Sergeant Cal hood, he reviewed the results a second time several months later for some reason, and he, quote, decided they were inconclusive.

Maybe they were looking at it later as the case progressed.

Probably. But it's like, you can't You can't retroactively decide she was lying. Right. And that's what makes people- You got to tell that at the moment, my friend. Yeah. And that's what makes people not believe in polygraphs, I feel like.

Because you can just form them to fit your narrative. Yeah. That's literally you just fitting the narrative that might have started spinning later.

Because it was like, No, she's good. She passed this one. And then I don't know if it was after she passed away that they were like, She actually didn't pass that one. She was probably lying. I'm like, I don't know about that.

I don't know.

Yeah. But in addition to the polygraph exam, hood interviewed Cindy for about 45 minutes. During that interview, she told him that there had been periods of violence during her marriage to Roy Makepeace, and that her ex-husband, This is wild, often talked about killing people with a crossbow.

Oh.

Which I was like, I thought you weren't afraid of Roy.

What?

Because she told people all the time that... Investigators were like, Could this possibly be your ex-husband? And she kept saying no. And also the stalking and everything started within a week of her leaving him. Yeah. Which is strange.

So that is strange.

And I don't think he did anything. I'll say that right at the top. But you're saying you don't think it's him. And then you're telling them also that there's periods of violence and that he talked about killing people with a crossbow. Yeah.

It's like, come on.

And then we got even further later, which your jaw is going to be on the floor. But damn. It's like, hello? But again, so she tells the detective this, or the polygrapher. But then she continues to insist that Roy couldn't be the attacker. So it's like, okay, then why are you even saying this?

The math ain't math. No.

But the attack in the kitchen was followed by several more reported incidents of harassment and violence, of course. In July 1984, Cindy claimed that while she was out walking her dog, she was, quote, abducted and injected with drugs by two people in a van asking for directions.

What?

After the report, Ozie came and arranged for a hypnosis session. And during that session, and this is where your jaw is just going to hit the fucking floor Cindy claimed she, quote, saw her ex-husband chopping up the bodies of a man and woman with an ax at a log cabin somewhere in the Gulf Islands while they were on vacation. Other than that, she couldn't provide any details.

What?

Chopping up the bodies of a man and a woman in a log cabin in the Gulf Islands whilst on vacation.

My, my, this is escalating.

Which it's like, What? What?

Where the fuck did that come from?

Nobody knows. There's no evidence that this ever happened. But it is a story that she- That under hypnosis came out.

Yeah. So it's like, how did your brain come out with that?

I mean, it seems like she believes it. I mean, also, I think there are ways that you can seem like you're under hypnosis. Override hypnosis.

Yeah. That's the thing that I was wondering. But holy shit.

And that comes up again later and you're just like, what? It doesn't come up in a way where you can really verify it.

That's a terrifying tale to spin. Yeah. And also the abduction, where'd you go? They just abducted you? Yeah. And then that was it?

Yeah. Somehow she was able to get away, I guess. I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't think people are just injecting people with drugs I don't think.

Well, maybe if they're being held captive, I think we've seen that happen.

Yeah, but I mean, just in an attack scenario?

Yeah, and then just leaving them.

I feel like that's a rare occurrence someone like... Because it reminds me of Dexter. People use it as a submission thing in the middle of an attack. That is rare, I think, if we looked really hard into the research of that.

I'm sure.

And this is already It happened possibly three different times.

Yeah, maybe even more.

But in three different occasions. And also it's like, Okay, so what happened?

And it's like unknown substances, too. That's the thing. We're getting to the point where things are more advanced in this time period. They would have been able to identify what substance. Most things, I would think. This is bananas. It only gets more bananas. Wow. I don't know why I said bananas like that. It gets more bananas, dear. It gets bananas, dear.

That was a good one.

So a year later, in July 1985, Cindy made more claims of abuse and violence against Roy. And this time, investigators actually convinced her to agree to a wire tap in order to try to get him to confess to something because they're like, Is he a murderer? Like, hello?

Yeah, at this point, you'd be like, What the fuck is going on here?

But rather than capture any confession, the recorded conversation actually depicted Roy Makepease as a very concerned and at the same time, very frustrated frustrated ex-partner. On the tape, he can be heard saying, I'm certainly prepared to listen to anything because I'm very, very, very curious about what the hell has been going on, but it's affected me badly and it damn near cost me my job.

Yeah, I can imagine.

So I think he's saying like, Yeah, I want to hear what's going on because I care about you, but also what the fuck is going on because you're putting me in precarious situations here.

You're making me seem like a chop-up bodies.

Now, seriously. Now, eventually, Cindy tried to elicit some incriminating information. She told him she, couldn't understand what he had been doing to her. And his response was just straight up a Wilderman. He said incredulously, What I've been doing to you for the last couple of years? Being like, what? Yeah, like what? And then he laid out all the ways where Cindy's ongoing harassment claims negatively affected his life. And he's like, I'm not doing anything to you. What the fuck are you doing to me?

Which it's like, why would he be lying? Obviously, we've seen deception like this before, but it's harder to understand how someone would lie in a private setting to the person they are lying about.

And to feign that much. Yeah, bewilderman. Frustration and bewilderman. Exactly. So ultimately, the call produced zero confession or really any indication of Roy Makepease's involvement. Just one month later, Cindy called police to report that somebody had actually broken into her basement this time and set her bathroom on fire.

What the fuck?

However, when Detective Gary Foster searched outside of the house, he determined that, James was responsible because the cobwebs and dust were undisturbed on the windowsills outside.

Oh, shit.

So nobody had gotten into the basement. Oh, damn. In April 1986, she again reported that somebody broke into the basement and set yet another fire. But as in all the other reports, investigators found no evidence of a break-in and concluded that she had to have set the fire herself.

Why is she doing this?

Now, you could say that, I mean, this one, these two incidents with the fire, I believe that she may have done these herself.

Yeah, it seems like the evidence points to that.

I'm not saying that means that none of the other things happened in the beginning.

Yeah.

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. These two sets of things, I think she did. I don't know if it was maybe because she felt like things were ramping down and she, for some reason, wanted to ramp them back up again.

Or maybe just capture the attention of the investigators to make something happen in the case. To make them feel like it was more urgent. Yeah.

Maybe. Maybe. Or maybe this whole thing was something she thought was happening. Maybe she was disassociating during some of these things. That's the other thing.

It's like, this is tragic no matter what way it goes, and it's so sad no matter what way it goes.

Well, that's the moral of the story.

Because it's like, if this is in her head and this is something she's doing, then she is very mentally ill and very sick. Absolutely. She's still living in a place where She thinks this is happening. Because they're saying her fear seemed real and her panic seemed real. It's like she's living in a horrible panic-induced state of her own making without her even realizing it. Or she's being tormented by a person or unknown people, and no one's believing her.

Right. Either way, it's a fucking nightmare.

This is awful, no matter what. Or it's a combination of both, which is somehow even worse.

Yeah, honestly.

There's no better outcome here. This is all awful, and this is no life to live.

No, it's really not. No matter what. It's really not. Well, and honestly, it seems like the police agreed that this was awful, and they felt bad for her. According to the press, Police wanted to charge James, but didn't because they felt she was suicidal. And that feeling was correct. A few days later, Cindy was actually admitted to the psychiatric ward of Saint Paul's Hospital, where she was evaluated and eventually to Riverview Hospital, which was another mental hospital, for inpatient treatment. And that was after her brother Doug signed a petition to have her committed. So even family was starting to wonder, Is something going on here? They felt she needed help either way. She does. So throughout her hospitalization, the doctors at Riverview consulted regularly with Cindy's therapist, Dr. Alex Conley.

Yeah, that guy.

Who said that he had been treating her since the first attack in her home, and he believed that she was, and this comes out of nowhere, anorexic and suicidal. Oh. Which I was like, okay, helpful. Yeah. But he attributed Cindy's anxiety and depression to investigator's failure to catch her stalker. But as author Anne Mulgrew points out, he did not tell them that the police were of the firm opinion she was staging these events.

Which what the fuck are you doing not giving them the full picture?

And they need... Even if you disagree with it, you can say, I don't personally agree, but the police don't think this is actually Yeah, you have to give the full picture because that's going to inform how they approach those. Yeah, and how they treat her. That's pertinent information. So while she was at Riverview, she was assessed by the hospital staff at various points, including her initial assessment, which was performed by Dr. Wesley Friesen. Among other things, he described her as, quote, histrionic, suicidal, and requiring close observation because of her impulsive behavior. Wow. Now, and this is from research.

Yeah.

Somebody who's diagnosed as histrionic does sometimes repeat behaviors for attention. He was of the mind. In this moment, it seems that he was of the mind that this may have been her doing these things. At the time of her admission, she was diagnosed with a paranoid disorder and major affective disorder with psychotic symptoms that caused her to become increasingly hypervigilant and knows herself that she has misinterpreted events because of this agitated state.

See, That makes sense to me. Yeah.

Now, regardless of Conley's bias reporting, Dr. Friesen quickly became suspicious of Cindy's frequent reports of harassment and attacks, but he also acknowledged at the same time that it was difficult to get an accurate history from Cindy because of her agitation and her resistance to being treated.

Yeah, it's a total double-edged sword on every front.

It is. Before she was discharged from Riverside, she would be evaluated again, this time by Dr. Soon-mou Che, who described her as, Negativistic and conforming with unpredictable moods, pessimism, solenness vacillating with social agreement and friendliness. In other words, basically Cindy responded to a given individual depending on Whether she saw them to be a friend or an adversary who didn't believe her. Now, Dr. Troy was more direct than Dr. Friesen, noting that Cindy appeared to be caught in a psychological cycle of engaging in this extreme behavior in order to escape feelings of being upset and feelings of instability. But these events never provided any lasting relief, and that's why they continued. She ramps them up.

It was a cycle. It's like when you take medication too much and you need more and more to get the feeling that you need to...

Yeah, it is like an addiction. Exactly. Dr. Chai wrote, It is a picture of a paranoid, schizophrenia patient with high levels of anxiety and depression. The psychotic features are evident.

That's really sad.

It is sad. Now, although the harassing phone calls and letters did continue in the years that followed her hospitalization at Riverside, there was only one more report of an assault, and that was in October of 1988. And during this assault, after it happened, she was found unconscious outside of her home. According to her report, she claimed that she'd been assaulted, strangled, injected yet again with a drug. But once again, there was no physical evidence of this attack. Yeah. It was just sad.

Really sad.

Now, the next notable incident occurred on April eighth, 1989, when a security guard at Richmond General Hospital, where Cindy was working, he discovered a note consisting of, again, those cut and paste magazine letters. That's so spooky. I fucking hate it. He found this letter and it said, Soon, Cindy, in those cut and paste letters. Now, when she left work that afternoon, she reported to the same security guard that somebody had written, Sleep well, on the due in her windshield, which is just chilling. She appeared obviously disturbed by the discoveries, but she didn't reply with the same level of alarm that she demonstrated in the past.

I think- Which she could just be at this point used to it. She's been living it.

She's like, Oh, great. Another one.

Yeah.

On May 25th, 1989, she went for some cosmetic makeover in Vancouver, and then she went to Richmond General to pick up her paycheck. Friends and coworkers who saw her that day recalled her being upbeat and happier than she'd been in years. Mm-hmm. That was the last anybody saw of Cindy. The very last time anybody saw her that day was when she deposited her paycheck at the bank. After that, she got into her car, drove off, and disappeared. Wow. Are you in trouble with the law? Need a lawyer who will fight like hell to keep you out of jail?

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Whether you're facing a drug charge, caught up on a murder rap, accused of committing war crimes, look no further than Paul Bergrin. All the big guys go to Bergrin because he gets everybody off. You name it, Paul can do it. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? From WNDYRI, the makers of Dr. Death and Over My Dead Body, comes a news series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Isn't it funny how witnesses disappear or how evidence doesn't show up or somebody doesn't testify correctly? In order to win at all costs. If Paul asked you to do something, it wasn't a request. It was an order. I'm your host, Brandon James-Jinkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the WNDYRI app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and add free right now by joining WNDRI Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcast. On the evening In the evening of May 25th, 1989, she actually had plans with her neighbors to play Bridge. Her neighbors were Tom and Agnes Woodcock, and around 10:00 PM, they still hadn't heard from her.

So they knocked on her door, but nobody answered. This was strange because they saw her earlier that day and also because her car was in the driveway. They finally became really alarmed when they peered into her car and they saw several bags of groceries on the passenger seat and on the floor. And on the floor in the back, there was a Sears bag from her shopping trip that afternoon. They became even more concerned when they looked down at the driver's side door and saw a rust-colored smear on the handle that they thought looked a lot like dried blood. Oh, boy. So this is fucking spooky. Not good. Now, after discovering the groceries in the car, they drove to the nearest Department of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who I'm going to call the RCMP from this point forward because damn, that's a fucking mouthful. Yeah, it is. But they reported to the RCMP what they found. Being pretty familiar with Cindy's frequent reports, the RCMP dispatched officers to her house, and within a half hour, the entire scene had been cordoned off with police tape, and crime scene technicians immediately got to work processing this entire scene.

They took swaps of the rust-colored substance on the door, which did ultimately turn out to be blood. And underneath the car, they discovered an ATM receipt showing that a deposit had been made into Cindy's bank account in the amount of $1,173. And that was at 7:58 PM. Inside the car, they found those four bags of groceries from the local Safeway. They found Cindy's purse, which was just sitting on the front seat. And inside her purse, they found two sets of keys to the house and to the car. So the car keys were literally right there. They found $277 in cash and her checkbook with every single check accounted for.

Wow.

Once the car was completely processed, it was towed to the police in Pound Yard. But it just looked like she pulled up to go inside. And then just disappeared. But just completely vanished. Now, given that her purse and her keys were completely undisturbed, investigators were pretty much able to rule out robbery as the motive. They also contacted all the local cab companies to see if maybe she had hopped in a cab and gone somewhere. Just don't take anything with her. But none had been called. So that was strange. So they were like, okay, if she did leave, she had to have left with a friend or a possible abductor. Maybe we're wrong here.

Maybe the only choice here.

This is really ramped up now. Now, believing they were searching for a missing person, the RCMP contacted the Canadian Coast Guard to conduct a search of the river while they handled the ground search. Inside her house, nothing looked unusual. Nothing seemed out of place. It literally just looked like she pulled into the driveway and, like we just said, disappeared in the thin air. The next day, she still hadn't been found. So the RCMP officer started making the notifications to friends and family and really started started their formal investigation. And of course, they started with the most likely suspect, her ex, Roy Makepeace. Yes. Throughout the years of this repeated harassment and assault claims made by Cindy, his name was the only constant factor. They didn't have any other suspect whatsoever, and he wasn't even really a suspect. Yeah. Even if he wasn't always accused of anything specific, they still wanted to talk to him. And by that point, he was so used. He was accustomed to being interviewed, so he was pretty unbothered by the intrusion. He said since his divorce from Cindy, he had become increasingly drawn into her life of just constant drama.

But he maintained he wasn't responsible for any of it. And in the cases where he was present, he was only there to make sure she was safe. Like when Pat McBride found him in the car with a gun, it was just to scare off an attacker if he saw one.

Which again, and I don't believe he had anything to do with this after hearing everything. But it's sus. But you can understand them checking in on it because you're like, well, that is what an attacker I would say. Yeah, exactly. That I was just there with guns because I wanted to protect her.

And this is literally the only place I have to go right now. So you might as well start there. But he explained also to officers that he actually hadn't spoken to Cindy since that wired, tapped phone call, nearly four years earlier. Oh, damn.

Yeah.

And more importantly, he was also able to account for his whereabouts for the entire previous day. It would have been impossible for him to object Cindy. Now, during their interviews with Roy, investigators noted he didn't seem suspicious at all, and they genuinely believed that he didn't have anything to do with this. Yeah. In fact, despite everything that he'd been through with Cindy, like all of the- Her saying that he chopped up bodies on vacation and talk about killing people with crossbows. Exactly. Through all of that, he still believed that somebody had been harassing her and genuinely thought she was in real danger. Wow. He even told police that as recently as that fall, he had gotten strange messages on his own answering machine, alludinging to a previous a range hit on Cindy, and he believed the Mafia could have been involved.

Okay.

That comes out of nowhere.

I was going to say, does that pan out?

It doesn't go anywhere. I don't think.

Yeah, I don't know about that.

This isn't saying Mafia to me. I don't know about that. I'm also like, it doesn't ever sound like she borrowed a ton of money or got caught up in that. No.

It would be a very... I'm like, why?

Yeah. He seemed like a real heady guy. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

That's a good way of putting it.

Yeah. But ultimately, he was ruled out as a suspect. Now, within a few days, the news about Cindy's disappearance broke in all the local papers, and journalists focused on what they described as, quote, dozens of complaints of harassment and threats. In fact, at that point, there was nearly 100 in total.

I believe it. Yeah.

In an interview with a reporter, Cindy's father, Otto, said on the day of his daughter's disappearance that, quote, Cindy called her friend and indicated, Some people may think I'm paranoid, but I have a feeling I have been being followed all week. Which is strange. He told reporters it was possible that Cindy maybe lost her memory and just couldn't find her way home. But he admitted it was, quote, more likely she has been abducted and held against her will or possibly even dead. He said, We have to hope she's still alive, but I fear she will be in very poor shape when she is found.

It's strange that he was like, maybe she lost her memory and just couldn't find her way home. It's like, what? Is that a normal occurrence? Yeah. Like, that wouldn't be my first thought. That wouldn't be my first thought either. If you were missing, I wouldn't be like, well, maybe she just completely lost her memory and can't find her way home. I thought that was odd, too. That wouldn't be a thought.

I don't know if it was just because weird shit was happening all the time in Cindy's life.

Well, and also I'm like, do you have an idea that maybe there's some mental illness happening that you're not really opening up about? Right. But that's a pretty good indicator of it.

That's what I thought. Yeah. And or maybe, I mean, she's claiming in the past that she's been injected with things. Maybe they had phone conversations with her where she sounded Loopy.

Loopy, yeah, exactly. Or she just was telling them, I've been injected. I've been hit over the head. So they were like, she's got drama.

I mean, they knew about the ordeals that she was going through. So there's that. Yeah, it's strange. But on June eighth, just a few days after Otto gave his interview, his fears were completely realized when a municipal works crew who was patching pavement discovered Cindy's body in this yard of an abandoned house.

What a sad ending to this. It is.

She was found about a mile from where she'd last been seen at the ATM. According to a neighbor who lived across the street from the house, an old man lived in a van behind that house, but otherwise it had been unoccupied for months. The neighbor said, God knows what else is in there. Indicating that it was a popular spot with kids and vagrants, that thing. Nair dwells. Nare dwells. Partying kids, you know? Yeah. Now, her body was discovered in the bushes along the edge of the property. She was fully clothed with her hands and feet tied behind her back with a black nylon stocking.

Like, hard-tied. Keep using the stocking.

Yes, stocking again. There were signs of advanced decomp indicating that she'd been in the location for at least a few days. Her blouse was torn in certain places, but they said there was no other evidence of a struggle at the scene. I disagree. They also said her clothes didn't seem to have been disturbed, but I'm like, her blouse is torn. I would call that disturbed, personally.

But maybe they're thinking about maybe the way it looks is like it doesn't really look like it was disturbed. It's just like, ripped.

Yeah. It's like a weird way of putting it. And there was no foreign material on her body, so that's a good thing. But despite the lack of evidence of a struggle, the pathologist noted that one of her fingers had scratched another, and this is a quote, down to the bone.

Fuck.

I'm like, How is that even possible?

Like, one of her fingers had scratched the other one?

Down to the bone. Which I'm like, Is it possible that she scratched like a lot. And then because of decomp, it- Yeah, maybe. It just sped up the decomp to the bone.

Maybe she was scratching to get out of the...

The bindings? Binding. But I don't know because we'll get there. But it led her to theorize that Cindy had been alive when she was left in the yard. Otherwise, there was no signs of violence, and at that point, no obvious cause of death. The fuck? The autopsy was performed later that day by Dr. Sheila Carlyle at the Royal Columbian Hospital. And the first thing Dr. Carlyle noticed was when she removed the binding, she said, The ligature around one wrist was loose enough to be easily slipped off over the hand. Oh, shut up. And none of the binds on the wrist and ankles were tight enough to indent the skin. What? Yeah, that's very loose. Because immediately I was thinking, like what you said, was she scratching to get the bindings loose? But they were loose. And they had to have been loose for quite some time because there was no indentation anywhere. That's bizarre, right? Bizarre. In fact, there was no bruising or injury on any part of her skin, except for a small pin prick on the inner right arm just below the elbow. And that was determined to be consistent with an injection from a hypodermic needle.

What the fuck? Based on the insect activity, the pathologist believe that Cindy's body had been in the lot since probably at least June second, but it was possible she'd been there ever since she disappeared, so earlier than June. But initially, the cause death was listed as asphyxiation. But when the toxicology report came back, Dr. Carlyle changed the cause of death to an overdose of morphine, florazapam, and diazapam. Based on the examination of the stomach contents, Dr. Carlyle concluded Cindy had ingested the florazapam and the diazapam, which are both sedatives, in pill form. She was able to determine that. But Cindy didn't have a prescription for either of those things. So that was strange. That is weird. And then the morphine was also believed to have been ingested orally in liquid form. And although it was impossible to know for sure, Dr. Carlyle did theorize that the most likely cause of death was the florazapam in Cindy's system. And she suspected that Cindy had ingested anywhere from 20 to 80 tablets of that.

Holy shit.

Under those circumstances, she would have had about 30 minutes before losing consciousness, and that would have been quickly followed by coma and then death. It's unclear just how it happened, but within a day of the body being identified as Cindy James, the press started reporting that RCMP officers were investigating the death as a, quote unquote, elaborate suicide. Whoa. Which given how she had been found was very hard to swallow for the public because- Of course. Nobody believed that she could have possibly hog tired herself.

But when you... With the bindings being so loose. Yeah. I mean, the medical examiner said she could slip a hand out, and they were so loose that they didn't leave indentations. She's also a health care worker, and those were sedatives. Which I'm sure she had access to. I mean, it's an awful thing to think about that she took an enormous amount of sedatives to basically pass out, fall asleep, and then die there, overdose, where she couldn't move, basically. It's hard to believe. It is hard to believe. It really is. Even when you lay it out logically and say, Sure, absolutely. It could have been because the evidence leads you up to it. It's hard to believe. It really is. I mean...

Well, there's no other case that I've heard of quite like this.

Because then you think of the other side of it where you like, if someone forced medication down her throat. Yeah. To make her pass out an overdose and left her bound.

And made it, did it loose on purpose because they knew she was going to die anyway.

But it's like, where did that finger thing come in where she was scratching her finger down to a bone?

That part is... That's the part that's hard to- I don't know.

I can't make heads or tails of any of it.

I can't either. But either way, the reports of the suicide theory seemed completely preposterous to anybody who knew anything about Cindy's ordeal over the previous decade. Even the work crew who found her flatly rejected that idea. One of the workers told a reporter, This definitely wasn't a suicide. You couldn't possibly put yourself in that position. Which I can see why he would think that. I mean, I can't imagine finding somebody like that and then somebody being like, Oh, yeah, they did that to themselves. I'd be like, No, they didn't. No way. But when you think about the loose bindings, she very much could have. Now, in the absence of an official story from the RCMP, the press took complete control of the narrative, and they shifted their attention to what they perceived as a complete failure on the part of law enforcement to protect Cindy despite the years and years of complaints that she was filing. One friend told a reporter, The cops just never believed her. And in an op-ed for the province, Vancouver reporter Patricia Graham wrote, I feel disgust and anger, sadness and regret that we let Cindy down so badly. Cindy James tried everything possible to protect herself.

She went to Vancouver and Richmond RCMP repeatedly. She did her best, but she still lived in terror for eight years. Worse, she had to live through her personal hell knowing that she was doubted, that she was suspected of inflecting this on herself, that her terror was not recognized or validated.

I mean, yeah. You bounce back and forth between how fucking terrible both sides of this coin are, no matter what the outcome is or what the process and journey of this whole thing was. Yeah. It's fucking awful. It is. Because no matter what, she was living in a state of terror of either her own mind's making or reality. And no matter what, she was being doubted the entire time.

It's like we said, it's just no way to live. Horrible. No way to live. Horrible. But while the press continued their outpouring of sympathy for Cindy and the considerable criticism of the RCMP, investigators were learning a little bit more about Cindy's life in the weeks leading up to her death. The medical examiner's report strongly indicated that she could have staged the entire scene herself. Loose bindings, those drugs could have been voluntarily ingested, and the pin prick on her arm was believed to have been the result of Cindy actually withdrawing blood from herself to wipe it on the driver's side door. Whoa. Which is wild to think of anybody doing, but it is possible.

Especially when they're saying that the drugs in her system weren't ingested, not injected.

Especially orally. That's the thing. Yeah, exactly. Moreover, in their interview with Dr. Friesen, they learned that Cindy had spoken frequently of suicide in recent sessions, and she had been hoarding, quote, unquote, huge amounts of medication that he had been prescribing her in the months before her death. Oh, jeez. Yes. And two months before her death, she had actually stopped taking her medication. And this is so sad. According to Friesen, she stopped taking it because the mortgage rate was going to go up and she couldn't afford the prescription cost.

How fucked up is that?

It's fucked up that that's... I mean, this was like 20 something years ago or 40, actually. And it's still happening. And it's still happening.

You choose to keep a roof over your head or to take the medication that you need. That you need. You have to choose.

Right. Like, that should not be a choice. That's insane. You should be able to have both. Yeah. But the hacks, when they got to Cindy's house, actually flushed all the pills that they discovered there. Why? I'm not sure.

That's weird.

It's It's weird.

I don't know. It's strange behavior.

I don't know. I don't want to speculate.

I just don't know. Yeah. I mean, people do strange things when they're grieving. People do things to make sure that somebody does not look a certain way in a certain way. A certain light.

Be perceived. Yeah.

So like, yes, but no. You can't do that. Especially when you think she was possibly being like, I don't know, you just don't get rid of anything.

I know.

But I don't know. Again, people do odd things when they're grieving. That's the thing.

But the medication was not the only discouraging discovery that they made when they searched her home. While going through Cindy's belongings, a family member found a glass cutter, a kit containing a syringe, IV equipment, a urinary catheter, and saline solution. And then in one of her sewing kits, they found an unopened needle and syringe.

Oh, no. Yeah. I mean, that's concerning all of that.

It's strange. A glass cutter? That's the thing. I was just going to say. The syringe? She works in health care, so I guess you could have some of these things. I don't know why they're on your person. I don't know why you would have them. I don't know why they're on your person, but I don't know why they're in your house. But a glass cutter? What?

I mean, what's more important is she has access to these things. Exactly.

But despite all the newly discovered evidence, actually, and this was surprising to me, Dr. Friezen still had a hard time believing that Cindy had actually taken her own life. He told investigators, I saw her the week before she disappeared, and she was the best I've ever seen her, the most positive, the most optimistic I've ever seen her. I mean, that happens.

That happens a lot. It happens. It's horrible to think about, and it's chilling to think about, but there's sometimes this moment of clarity and peace that comes before something really tragic like this. Yeah.

He said that she had renewed her interest and commitment to reporting the incidents of harassment that she was going through. He said she felt confident that everything was actually going to be resolved soon, which that's chilling, thinking that that was a discussion that was had right before that. And given her her mood and her future orientation, he just couldn't accept the theory that the RCMP was putting forth. He said Cindy would not kill herself unless it was accidental. If it was an accidental suicide, I could understand that.

I don't know. You can't really say that with definitive. No. You're not in someone's head, you can't say they absolutely would not have done that. You can say, I'm finding it hard to believe that.

Yes.

She would have, but I'm not in her brain.

I think he cared about her on a deep level. I'm not saying on an inappropriate level.

Yeah, you mean just cared about her well-being?

I think he really cared about her, and it was a shock that this had happened. I mean, her doctor who's treating her, that hurts. Of course. I'm sure he felt like he didn't see the signs properly.

Yeah, like he wanted to help and he felt like he didn't...

Or that he would have seen the sign, so there's That way he could have missed it. Yeah. But on July 12th, after more than a month of investigation, the RCMP reported that they were officially ruling out foul play and that Cindy's death was going to be labeled a suicide. According to Dr. Tony Marcus, who actually evaluated Cindy several times and consulted with the investigators. Cindy James was, and this is a quote, a borderline personality who weaved a tremendous plot to be the center of attention. That's a quote. Quote, quote, quote. I'm not saying that.

He said that. From a doctor, a quote.

Yes. He also allows He was proud for the possibility that she was telling the truth, but he said, based on his experiences with her, he's a doctor who's treating her, and the abject lack of evidence, he felt it was just highly unlikely that she was telling the truth. Although the RCMP ordered a coroner's inquest to determine the circumstances of Cindy's death, the investigator's official conclusion was a disappointment to the Hack family. Of course it was. Otto Hack told the reporters, The RCMP's explanation didn't satisfy me at all. There's a murderer out there somewhere.

And I can totally understand that, too.

I mean, that's her father.

No one is... Who's even sure of this? I'm not.

Initially, the inquest was scheduled for October 12th, 1989, but of course, it got pushed back several times, and it didn't begin until late February, 1990. In his opening Rewing remarks, coroner Jerold Tilly told the jury that the inquest would cover the 90 reported incidents of harassment between '82 and '89. So this is literally, what's that, six years, 7 years of this. And they said there would be special attention paid to the circumstances, obviously, of Cindy's death in May of 1989. And this inquest was only scheduled to last for 15 days. Keep that in mind. The first witness to testify was Cindy's one-time boyfriend, Pat McBride. And he told the jury that she, hinted to him that her her former husband may have been responsible for a series of strange incidents involving harassing phone calls, letters, various incidents of vandalism. He said, She led me to believe that a certain person may be involved, her husband, Dr. Roy Makepeace. He also explained that he had caught Roy Makepeace lurking in the area around her house on more than one occasion, but he could also, at the same time, never establish any evidence that Roy was responsible for this harassment.

It's like, and she's telling everyone else that he It shouldn't be the person. She's telling Pat McBride, I suspect it is him. What's going on?

Now, Pat McBride's testimony established the onset of the incidents and who Cindy suspected may have been to blame. But it also highlighted the extent that law enforcement questioned these claims, pretty much from the beginning. He was one of several witnesses who acknowledged that Cindy seemed thoroughly resistant to taking any steps to protect or remove herself from the situation, especially after, like I said, she started giving her unlisted phone number out to multiple people within weeks of having it changed. Mcbride said, The advice was coming from someone with a vested interest in making sure she was secure. I didn't like the idea she was turning my ideas to not. So he He was saying, I was telling her, Don't do that.

Don't be giving out this information. You don't know who this person is.

And she still was. His partner, Andy Richards, also testified telling the jury that he believed Cindy had used a set of Pat McBride's wirecutters to cut the phone line while he was living in the house. Holy shit. Yeah. So she, again, she had access to things that could have done that.

And that's his partner, like another cop.

Yeah. Now, although the RCMP and other agencies were obviously prohibited from speaking publicly while this inquest was going on, it didn't take a formal statement to figure out that there were several very valid reasons for believing that Cindy could have been responsible for staging all of this. A lot of the investigators who testified noted that there was an almost near her absolute lack of evidence to support these claims. And despite the countless hours of formal and informal surveillance, I can never say surveillance. Surveillance? I always say surveillance. But none of the investigators ever saw anybody suspicious on or near her property. That's wild. In part one, I said- Years of constant surveillance. Years.

This person's just a ghost. Yeah.

If you remember in part one, I said that I think it was like neighbors had seen- A strange unknown men. Yeah, like unidentified men in the neighborhood. How many times have you seen somebody you don't recognize in your neighborhood and been like, who the fuck is that? But it's just like a guy. But it's just like some dude walking his dog.

So it's like it absolutely could be something or it could be nothing.

Could be nothing. Exactly. But there was also the matter of the failed polygraph. Oh, my God. I can't say polygraph and I can't say surveillance. See? Couldn't be authorited. I always say Yance. I don't know what that's about. But there was the matter of the failed polygraph examinations when, here we go again, polygrapher. Polygrapher. Vik Farmer testified. He told the jury that the results indicated that Cindy was lying or lying in part about the attack in January 1983. And he said when she was confronted with these results, she responded by grabbing his arm and saying, Vik, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. ' And he said when she finally- That's interesting. Yeah. He said when she finally collected herself, she changed various of her story, but then refused to take a third polygraph exam. Sergeant Cal hood, who administered a polygraph exam after the incident in 1984, reported a similar outcome where he suspected Cindy of being deceitful. Also included on the witness list were a number of doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists who had treated Cindy over the years, including Dr. Che, excuse me, Dr. Marcus, Dr. Friesen, and Dr. Termensen. He was a psychiatrist from Riverview.

And in his testimony, Dr. Termensen told the jury that Cindy was, quote, capable of intense attraction and intense rage at rejection. And that could have caused her to lash out in strange and irrational ways to try to garner sympathy and attention while also getting back at whoever she felt like had wronged her, no matter how irrational that belief might be. Wow. She might see it that somebody wronged her. And this is just an example. Like, Roy wronged her. I mean, he did. He hit her. So she may have done something like this to get back at him and/or garner sympathy. That makes sense. Was this doctor's belief. Okay. Now, the RCMP and medical examiner's case for suicide was a strong one, but the authorities were hardly unanimous in their opinion. Among those who were not in favor of the suicide theory was Dr. Joseph Noon, a forensic psychiatrist who was hired to review Cindy's medical record. He heavily criticized several of the medical providers, including Dr. Conley. Me too. Which I'm sure you can imagine why. But he called them armchair psychiatrists, and he said their meddling in Cindy's treatment had potentially compromised the case to the point that they might never find the truth.

I mean, some of them were treating her, though. What's that? Some of them were treating her like in Riverview.

Yeah.

But then- So it's like, I don't know if they were meddling, they were treating her.

I don't think he was... He wasn't criticizing all of them. He was criticizing a small- Some of them. Yeah, a small.

Because I was like, Dr. Connolly, sure.

Critic. Yeah, exactly.

But I'm like, I don't know. When she was being treated in a place, it's like, they're just treating her.

Dr. Friesen seemed like he was doing a good job. Dr. Che seemed a little more intense than Dr. Friesen that still seemed like he was- It still seemed like he was in it. Yeah, exactly.

Interesting.

But while Noon clearly disagreed with several of Cindy's supporters, it didn't mean he agreed with authorities. He said that her medical records actually read very clean. But he was in agreement with Dr. Friesen, believing that Cindy was likely being harassed by an unknown party, and that resulted in depression, anxiety, and paranoia, not the other way around. Not that she was paranoid and therefore making this all up in her head.

Believed that she was, yeah.

But he believed actually this was happening, and that's why she was feeling this way. Okay. Among Cindy's most vocal defenders was her private security guard, Osi Kaben, who just really seems like a sweetheart. He's very out there, but he seems like a sweetheart.

Oh, he's out there?

A little bit. We'll see. He told the jury he just couldn't believe that she had staged every incident of stalking and harassment, not only because she seemed super genuine, but also because of what he believed was strong evidence that supported her claims, specifically with regard to the alleged 1984 kidnapping, where she was abducted by those two people in the van and injected with something. Yeah. He told the jury that he investigated the area where she said everything went down, where she got abducted, and he found that, quote, the ground was disturbed and there were dragging marks. Okay. Which is interesting.

Yeah.

You could make that yourself.

He's a private security guard, so I'm like, show me the proof.

It doesn't hold a lot of weight. Exactly. Now, after two weeks, the inquiry shifted its attention to Cindy's relationship, of course, with her ex-husband, Roy Makepeace. Like I think I said at the top of this, the harassment began within weeks of her separation from Roy, and he had been a regular feature in the reports from an early phase of the investigation, in name, if not in presence. While many witnesses steered clear of accusing him of any wrongdoing, there was a strong inference that he was involved. In fact, the jury heard about that hypnosis session where she accused him of chopping- That explosive one. Yeah, where she accused him of chopping up bodies with an ax. Though the hypnotist acknowledged that it was possible she just believed the incident was real in her mind. Which is also scary. Yeah, absolutely. Wait, what the fuck? But also that sucks for him if it was just a scenario that her mind created. Real or not, though, Her sister actually added credibility to that story when she testified that Cindy had also told her about this alleged murder in 1984, where Roy allegedly used a hatchet to, quote, Cut off a limb and spread blood on Cindy's face, warning her, I could easily do this to you, too.

I'm sorry, what, Melanie?

It should be noted that this was the first time any member of law enforcement had heard Melanie Hack's story about this, and it was completely unverified.

Yeah, because where were you? What is going on? You're literally just bringing this up.

It was just something that Cindy may have reiterated to her, and she just said, Now's the time to share that.

Now's the time to share that. Now, after she's... She's been going through all this harassment and stalking and attacks and everything, and it's like, You got to tell the police.

Yeah. Wow. I mean, I think the hypnotist told the police and they investigated it, but there was no evidence that this But it's like, what?

Why aren't you saying anything, Melanie? Wild.

Now, surprisingly, Roy never actually testified during the inquest, but his words did make it into the record in the form of that recorded phone call. Oh, yeah. The wire tap. Yeah. He also had a nearly six-hour interview with police, which was also recorded, and that was after the attack in 1984. In his interview with Detective Valier-Smith, he could be heard expressing his fears that he actually believed Cindy was trying to frame him, and he was disappointed that he was suspected all of this. He told the detective, firstly, I could not believe I was a suspect, let alone the only suspect. Everything I said was twisted. Now, in the end, he actually received, I mean, like no sympathy from the investigators. I mean, on fair counts because, I mean, They thought he was strange, first of all, which it sounds like he was a strange character. But also he had admitted to spousal abuse.

Yeah, exactly. So it's like, I don't know. You've lost it for me.

That's the thing.

But then at the same time... It doesn't make you a murderer, but it makes you a shit person.

Yeah, exactly. But at the At the same time, they did see that he seemed unwaveringly committed to protecting Cindy, at least especially in the early years before they got off contact. But regardless of how they felt about him personally, there was just no evidence connecting him to the crimes. And by the time Cindy recorded their phone call in 1985, it was clear that he just wanted nothing to do with this anymore. Now, like I said, initially, the coroner's request was scheduled for 15 days, but by the time it concluded on May 25th, 1990, it dragged on for more than three months, and at this point became the most expensive inquest in Canadian's history. Damn. Yeah. In the course of hearing testimony from almost 75 witnesses and reviewing countless documents, the jurors were told two versions of events, one that strongly supported the belief that Cindy had taken her own knife, and another where the evidence was a great deal more ambiguous and at least gestured toward the possibility that maybe she was telling the truth about having a stalker and an attacker. Some of the testimony, like I said, Ozie Cabin is a little out there.

He believed that Cindy was murdered in a Satanic ritualistic sacrifice.

Oh, come on, Ozie.

He lost me there.

He lost me, man. Yeah, that testimony- I was already waiver in there. That lost me.

Yeah, that testimony was given very little credence. That's really good. Other witnesses, including the various doctors who testified that she may have taken her life, obviously, that was taken very seriously. But in the end, the jury could not determine what had led to the end of Cindy James's life. And the official circumstances of her death was revised from suicide to undetermined. Wow. Yeah. For the jury, the inquest was particularly stressful. Juror Shirley Gleholt said, I not only cried myself to sleep, but I cried in the courtroom, too.

I can't imagine.

Because they had to see tons of graphic photographs. I mean, they saw the position that she was found in. All these crazy descriptions of violence And they also spent months listening to conflicting opinions and testimony that at times became really, really heated.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

And then this woman died tragically either way. So they felt this task to figure out what you're at what happened, but it was an emotional roller coaster.

She had such a sad life.

Yeah. Another juror said, There were all shades of grays, no black and white. In the end, you felt you knew Cindy. Your heart just ached for the girl. When it came time to deliberate, they spent more than three hours just arguing with one another. There was two jurors in favor of suicide, and then there was three in favor of undetermined. Jury foreman Len Roger said, It boils down to nothing. Nothing firm pointed to suicide. So many things were just speculation.

That's the thing. You can just... It's a double-sided coin here.

Yeah, I don't think I could have ever made a decision. In the end, they were right. There was no evidence to prove that Cindy had taken her life, and there was no evidence that she had been murdered. Just like the 90 reports of harassed been in her past, the truth seemed to just allude everybody. But what we do know is that no matter what, it's like we've been saying this entire time, this was a fucking nightmare life.

Whether it was mental illness or stalking.

She was a victim. She was absolutely a victim of something, whether it be mental illness or a deranged fucking stalker. It's just... I mean, it's possible. I'm not saying it's not. It's just so hard to imagine this level of planning and commitment and- Ability to just never be seen or detected in any physical way. Ever.

There was never one shred of evidence left.

But I mean, that happens. It's very few and far between, but it happens. But I think it's still an important story to tell because who knows? She could have been murdered. And if she was, then this person completely got away with it.

Yeah, because no matter She was a victim of something.

Hopefully, I just want somebody to find a box with all the documents and comb through them and just find one thing that points to the actual answer.

It can point either way. Just give them something because you feel bad. But it's just an awful, tragic tale, no matter what way it spins. But it would be nice to have some answers.

I'm sure everybody who loved her goes back and forth all the time in their own heads. Like, what the fuck happened here?

Neither outcome is a good one. So it's like, no. It's so awful.

It is. It's an awful case, but a very interesting one. It is. Like I said, I think I said it earlier, I've never heard of a case quite like this.

No, it's very, very unique and very bizarre.

If you know of one, let us know because I found this fascinating. Tragic, but fascinating.

Yeah. If you know of another one like this, it would be interesting to look into.

Yeah, definitely.

I also looked up the pronunciation for- Polygrapher?

Polygrapher. Polygrapher.

Polygrapher. I mean, that could just be the robot.

Doesn't that just feel wrong? It does feel wrong. It just feels like when I'm reading and I accidentally read photographer instead of photographer. Do you ever do that? Yep.

Polygrapher. But then this person says polygrapher.

Polygrapher. I guess you can probably say both. I like polygrapher.

I like polygrapher. It's fun.

Yeah. Well, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you...

Keep it weird. But not so weird that we ever find the difference between polygrapher and polygrapher.

Never. Bye. Yeah.

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