The Sudden Disappearance Of Cynthia Anderson

[Music] this week on buzzfeed unsolved we discussed the sudden disappearance of cynthia anderson who vanished from her job in toledo ohio almost 40 years ago i don't like the sound of that vanishing from your job i would rather vanish from my home that's true vanishing on the job you're still working and then you just want to go home for the day too bad you you got vanished all right let's just just get into it in august of 1981 cynthia jane anderson was preparing for a new chapter in her life the 20 year old had been raised in a very religious household of christian fundamentalists following a schedule packed with church prayer meetings church swimming events church camping trips seasonal church parties and church worship on sundays cynthia's father michael anderson described cynthia as a quiet obedient type of girl who never made waves yet had lots of friends it's too much church can't be going to church that much right too much church i i mean look i don't know if we need to turn this into a commentary on the church it's not a commentary i'm just saying it's too much church she was a woman of faith who wasn't making any trouble that's all that's that's communicating there i mean she could have made trouble if i were going to church that much i'd kill someone cynthia was described by a neighbor as an attractive young woman one who quote maybe caught the attention of a passerby end quote and while her parents insisted on strict rules and curfews while at home cynthia nevertheless had a boyfriend also a part of the church that summer her father said cynthia had been spending a lot of time on her face and becoming a bit of a debutant we've all got phases in our lives where we're spending a lot of time on our faces uh acting a bit like a debutant we all do that i do that every day spend a lot of time on my face clearly you think this took seven and a half hours today i i don't believe it but i do believe it at the same time if that makes sense yeah so you know can't judge someone for that cynthia worked as a legal secretary in toledo ohio but was preparing to quit in order to attend bible college the same one in which her boyfriend was currently enrolled and by the way things were going at the office her last day at work couldn't come soon enough sounds like like a bad work environment sounds like some foreshadowing here can't be fun to be a secretary at a a law firm also in this time especially probably not so i'm trying to think of a good lawyer joke because lawyers nobody likes them right no you're doing great this is good stuff you got a lawyer joke no i was actually just kind of just watching look we haven't toured the borscht belt okay we're not we're not comedians we're just a couple of [ __ ] unnerving events had begun to happen at work the previous year on a wall across from her office window someone painted the words i love you cindy in large letters along with a smaller by gw according to one of her friends cynthia was the only cindy who worked on that side of the strip mall where the law office was located the sign seemed intentionally placed in order for cynthia to see it cynthia apparently had no idea who gw could have been the message remained up for six months before finally being covered up six months don't do this to people don't be painting i love you on buildings it's not fun for anybody no no maybe if you're asking someone to homecoming yeah like a homecoming or prom fun you can paint that all you want paint it paint it in big-ass letters put it inside of a barn hc question mark h secret yeah you don't want to write all the letters no i mean i read cw me question mark from question mark question mark and then you're like the riddler you send like a little blair witch thing with a bunch of twigs and some blood or something a few weeks later the same message reappeared this time in even larger letters the sign however would soon become the least of cynthia's worries what do you think of the strategy of like all right first sign didn't work let's make it bigger yeah i don't think there's a lot of you know when people are obsessed i'm gonna guess they're not really thinking logically this person is not like huh well i guess that didn't work and i should hang it up yeah clearly they're like well i guess the issue was it wasn't scary enough obviously she couldn't see it she couldn't read it okay i'll make it bigger and i'll make the font brighter not the move not the move if you're taking notes out there don't do that in that summer of 81 cynthia began to be harassed by anonymous phone calls with disturbing ominous messages one of the law firm's clients larry mullins recalled a time when cynthia received a call while he was in the office mullen said cynthia picked up the phone and quickly hung up only for the phone to ring again soon afterwards according to mullins cynthia's face betrayed the fact that quote she was scared honestly sincerely scared end quote cynthia began experiencing recurring nightmares in which she would be kidnapped and murdered by a stranger due to the phone calls and cynthia's growing and understandable paranoia her employers instructed her to keep the office's doors locked at all times even during business hours they also installed an emergency buzzer at her desk which would alert a nearby business if she were to use it unfortunately these precautions would turn out to be inadequate jesus sounds like a waking nightmare that sounds awful yeah also kind of crazy that they did take these precautions and that they weren't enough yeah it's odd that they're like well you're in peril it seems like you're in perilous danger here's a button i mean they installed the it's unfortunately dangerous to be a woman button and they gave her that and that still wasn't enough which by the way they should have a security detail there not just a light that shows nearby businesses in the strip mall that she's in trouble i don't know what anybody who's like working in aunt anne's pretzels is going to do if they see that red light go off it's not like it's auntie anne's oh is it auntie anne's have some [ __ ] respect on tuesday august 4th 1981 cynthia skipped breakfast and left her parents home around 8 30 a.m she drove to the law office on east manhattan boulevard and was seen as late as 9 45 am around noon her employer attorney james rabbit arrived at the office the lights and radio were on but there was no sign of cynthia the scent of nail polish or nail polish remover reportedly hung in the air cynthia was known to leave a note and place the phones on hold if she was stepping out of the office but she hadn't done either there was no sign of a struggle and according to some reports the office door was still locked from the inside though her car a 1980 chevy citation was still in the parking lot her keys and purse were missing perhaps most eerily a romance novel that cynthia had been reading was left open on her desk turned to a page that described the protagonist being abducted at knifepoint that's weird huh she was reading it but for it to be open at that page suggests we're dealing with an abductor here who is a real a-hole who has a flare for the dramatic then what is the abductor reading through the book well like if he's this is broad daylight in the middle of an office at any moment someone could come in the door he's not taking the time to thumb through a book for a funny little clue unless he had been watching her so much that he had the book himself knew which page to turn to and then did that maybe it seems weirdly coincidental especially when you consider all uh the other things oh yeah i guess it could just be a coincidence yeah with a woman missing and precious few clues to help us it's time to dive into theories about what happened to cynthia anderson these 39 years ago our first theory is that an obsessed stalker kidnapped cynthia between the phone calls and the i love you cindy sign it seems someone definitely wanted to get the young woman's attention detective william adams of the toledo police department said investigators worked with cynthia's friends to try to figure out who gw could be they were able to turn up only one suspect a maintenance man with those initials who worked in the building and had keys to all the office doors no evidence was ever found indicating the man was somehow responsible however and no charges were ever brought it's odd to put your own initials if you're trying to be a creep that's true but this is also the same person who thought it was maybe oh the letters weren't big enough let's try it and give that another go yeah so who knows but i would also assume they're security cameras and it can't be good for job security to start an art display on the on the opposite building within view of all your employers as much as this may be compelling it seems a little too easy eventually the man who spray-painted the i love cindy sign reportedly did come forward he said the message was intended for a different cynthia and once again he was never charged huh the guy who wrote the the thing yeah he came forward and uh it was intended for a different person what are we doing here i'm putting us into the mind of the investigators here a different cynthia yeah did she see it i actually don't know that i would have asked sounds like bad investigators i've been like tell me your story how'd you meet she's my wife are you in love if we're married we haven't she loved the sign she she loved it and they'd be like did she see it and he would say you tell me shows the ring yeah she's like i thought he had a finger missing you tell me she bit my finger yeah strange that they wouldn't look into this guy huh well i guess they did we actually reached out to see what came of that but he wasn't charged and i guess it wasn't for that cynthia which they must have verified somehow which means to me he must have married said cynthia or been together with that cynthia yeah they would be like well oh of course it was that other syndrome cynthia where is jesus christ here's my wallet there's four kids see you can see that's cynthia that's me and her please a month after cynthia disappeared police received an anonymous phone call from a nervous whispering female voice the caller claimed cynthia anderson was being held in the basement of a white house there were apparently two houses next to one another owned by the same out-of-town family the woman on the phone claimed to know the son of the family was the one holding cynthia police begged for more details but the caller hung up searches for houses like the one described yielded nothing well that's terrifying ryan that's no fun i don't like to hear that i've said this before but teens when they get crank calling they're out of control and i can see them being like did you hear about this lady who went missing in our town oh i dare you to call the cops tom's you seen her okay jonesy if i had a kid who did that you'd lock him in the shed he'd get a talking too that's all i'd have yeah talking to is probably more reasonable which in the bergara family means locking them in oh yeah our next theory is that cynthia anderson was murdered perhaps for overhearing information about a drug deal one of the attorneys working in the same office as cynthia in 1981 was richard neller in turn one of neller's clients was jose rodriguez jr in 1996 neller and rodriguez were both convicted for involvement in a long-time drug conspiracy authorities theorized that cynthia could have perhaps overheard neller and rodriguez discussing some drug deals she would then have been kidnapped and murdered to secure her silence in rodriguez's 1995 trial one informant testified that rodriguez had admitted to having murdered the young woman while threatening neller whom he accused of representing him poorly the judge ruled the admittance unreliable concluding there was insufficient evidence to say either neller or rodriguez were involved in her disappearance or that she had been kidnapped or murdered at all that's a strange thing to lie about though you know but i know that i know we always go over this like well sometimes people lie about it because it's a trophy for them uh who would do that it's weird to me how often this occurs though that somebody will willingly confess to something and then people will be like don't believe you didn't happen let's keep investigating especially if they were like sorry we got you on these drug charges how do you plead i killed a lady two other possible murderers are brothers anthony and nathaniel cook over the course of 16 months in the 1980s the two brothers murdered at least nine people across ohio mostly young women in 2000 as part of a plea deal with the prosecutor in lucas county the same county whence cynthia disappeared the cook brothers confessed on tape to many homicides though they denied killing cynthia anderson it's embarrassing to murder with your brother can you imagine what to murder with your brother that's what you took from that that's embarrassing how is that i mean it's embarrassing to murder yeah if i went to my brother and said oh i'm fired up i'm gonna murder ryan bergara okay can you help me i hope that he would say maybe sleep on it this is being taped right i feel like this is like a recounted conversation our third theory is that cynthia ran away the anderson household had been described as a strict one as cynthia's sister described quote my parents wanted us involved with church and we were end quote perhaps cynthia staring down the barrel of attending bible college with a boyfriend who was also a part of the church wanted to see the world apart from her sheltered vantage point and walking away was the easiest way to do so as we already mentioned cynthia's father had noted her further taking interest in her looks and dieting in the weeks leading up to her disappearance he suggested these changes may have quote contributed to his daughter going missing end quote this is a this is a thin line to walk a lot of church and i didn't want to front load the episode with this but it seems like it's unavoidable now a lot of church you can't just keep saying a lot of church a lot of church church church church what are you doing sunday church tuesday church wednesday church how about some church want to do more church what's your boyfriend like well he likes church what do you guys do for fun church it's true it's a lot of church we're gonna study in school more church we study bible unfortunately moderation well you're gonna be doing for the rest of your life just church church church moderation out of there moderation is key i'm bleaching my hair i'm plucking all my eyelashes out that's crazy i'm getting out of there man the runaway theory is bolstered by the absence of any signs of struggle and the fact that the doors to the law office were locked however there was apparently a substantial amount of money left in her bank account which would have helped her start a new life if that were her intention you know she could have met someone else right also some heathen here's the thing a hot heathen who was like come on hit the road with me i got cash leave it all here i was just about to get to that because i was gonna say that like i know a lot of people online point out that okay starting over is expensive obviously however if you want to successfully make it seem like you've disappeared you don't then pull out all the money from your bank account right that doesn't scan also it's 1981. you'll work at baskin-robbins for a summer you can buy a house is it possible there we go she was the one who made the phone call about you know leaving them on a wild goose chase to look for a white house to throw them off her scent whispering harder to identify her voice because or whisper you can't totally tell who that is that would explain the lack of detail in the tip yeah look i'll say this i know a lot of the time when we talk about these disappearance cases there's always inevitably a theory about the person just vanishing themselves yeah and it seems like we lean into that theory because frankly it's the most happy theory to get behind sure but in this case this one actually has a lot of weight to it and i actually do genuinely think it makes the most sense out of all the theories i do too because if you just plug in all the circumstantial evidence which is what we use to say like i think that's that guy's the murderer if you do that formula this theory is the one that makes the most sense the lack of struggle the door being locked from the inside her not doing the things she usually does when she steps away from the office it makes sense for what it's worth and i didn't even think about the phone tip maybe you have somewhat of a detective brain cynthia thanks for watching i believe it i've stamped it that's my my my number one theory cool it's my worth it winner next august will mark 40 years since a young legal secretary in toledo ohio disappeared without a trace when michael anderson died in 2008 his obituary said he was preceded in death by his daughter cynthia the case however is still open in ohio's longest active missing persons case the toledo police department asks that anyone with information contact them as for whether cynthia is out there somewhere a 59 year old detached from her past or whether she met a grimmer fate years ago remains unsolved well look i hope that last theory is true and if that is true and you're watching this cynthia i don't think you are i hope you're having a great life yeah i'm rooting for old gal out there hope she's living the dream you know she would also join a community of other people that we've covered and hoped that were just out there living their best life too i mean it's possible it's possible people have done it people have gone off the grid changed their lives it's easier than you think well if you vanished i would look for you if you wanted me to look for you thank you but i guess i wouldn't know unless we had some kind of like code or like a signal like if i go to your house and they're like yeah nothing we have no trace of shane midday everything is as it was when he left there's still food on the table but if in the food there's a a single avocado slice i'll know that's the signal that you just wanted to get away forever what i'll do is i'll put a grain of rice in my mailbox that's i feel like it needs to be a little more substantial than that that's my signal i don't think that's looking for rice in the mailbox the stupid [Music] signal [Music] you

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

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Keywords: BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed Unsolved, BuzzFeed Unsolved Network, Cold case, Creepy, Mini doc, Mystery, PL-Unsolved, PL-UnsolvedTrueCrime, PL-UnsolvedTrueCrime-S7, Ryan bergara, Shane madej, The Sudden Disappearance Of Cynthia Anderson, Unsolved, bizarre, buzzfeed unsolved network, cold case, investigation, mystery, ryan and shane, shane madej, theories, true crime, unexplained mysteries, unsolved, unsolved mysteries, unsolved mystery, unsolved network, unsolved true crime

Id: jLIUkk6Esr0

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Swords_and_Sims4]

While I do like the the theory that she ran away , based on what I've experienced with some more extreme fundamental christians I wouldn't be surprised If her family or even church had a hand in her disapeance.

Some fundamentalist groups can be just as bad a cults, and the way her father was describing her just gave me a weird feeling. There are usually very strict rules for women, and they are expected to be "meek and obedient" if Cindy was breaking any rules like wareing make up, getting a job, showing to much indeprndrnce or doing anything to undermind the authority of her father or church it would be considered the ultimate betrayal of God.

Maybe she runaway because she was scared, the threatening phone calls could have come from a church or family member.She could have taken small amounts of cash from her bank account overtime, put it in her purse and took it with her when she left. The book being turned to a page about a kidnapping might have been her attempt at throwing off the cops.

Or on a darker note, there was no sign of a struggle so its possible someone she knew (maybe from church) came in convinced her to leave with them and kidnapped her.If she felt threatened maybe she had the book ready to leave as note in case something did happen?

[u/brookiepooh213]

I definitely don’t think she ran away. It seems more sinister to me. Plus, the fact that the only explanation they gave for her wanting to run away was “a lot of church” doesn’t hold any weight in my mind. The sister said “my parents wanted us at church, so we went to church” and that’s supposed to be why the parents were strict? Doesn’t make sense to me. It’s conceivable that she let someone in, they took her by force, and made her lock the door behind her to give them some time to get away. Definitely a sad story.

[u/UnicornCumGuzler]

As much as I wish I could believe she just ran away, something about this seems off to me. My gut tells me she didn't hate church as much as people are letting on. If it's all she knew then it shouldn't have made her so miserable. Also what young woman is disappearing on purpose without telling a single soul where she went? It's just too unlikely. While the book does throw a wrench in my theory, I really think she was watched, taunted, and eventually taken by her mystery threat. I think she knew something bad was going to happen and there wasn't much she could do to stop it. As an addition to this theory, I don't think she lived another day and her body was hidden, which is why no trace of her has ever been seen again.

[u/cocoasmokez]

I kinda think she ran

[u/[deleted]]

Original 1990 UM profile of this case (which these two dopes lazily ripped off word for word, plus some low grade comedy)

https://youtu.be/X11R90OOiEc?t=108

The update says they believe she was murdered after overhearing incriminating information about a drug ring

[u/dignifiedhowl]

My gut feeling is that she was experiencing the onset of paranoid schizophrenia, and the coincidence of someone scrawling “I LOVE YOU CINDY” right by her place of work probably didn’t help.

There are some indications of prodromal paranoia on her part in the weeks leading up to the murder, and earlier symptoms would have been easy to mask given her family’s sheltered lifestyle.

I think she was reading the novel at work, got to the abduction scene, and snapped. I think that’s why it was open to that page—that’s when she stopped reading and fled.