← Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
123. The Mysterious Death of Cindy James Part 1
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Kaylin
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That does not happen with Cash App because you can send the exact amount right away down to the penny. And speaking of money, how cool is that? With Cash App, you can get discounts at places you already shop at. Plus, with a Cash App card, you can unlock exclusive access to tour presales for artists like Kendrick Lamar and sza. That's what I call perks. For a limited time only, new Cash App users can use our exclusive code to get free money for real. There's no catch. Just download Cash App, use our code heartstartspounding. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days and you'll get $10 right in your account. Terms apply. That's money. That's Cash App. See this episode's description for important product disclaimers. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Cash App's bank partners. Prepaid debit card issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. In 1989, the body of a woman was found hogtied off the side of a road in Richmond, British Columbia. What followed was one of the longest coroner's inquests in Canadian history. The an inquest that would ultimately say that the woman had died by, quote, an unknown event. See Although she was found with her hands and feet tied with nylon behind her back, although she had told police that for seven years she was being harassed by an unknown person, a jury of her peers wasn't convinced that any crime had taken place. But how could that be? Well, today we are going to get into the Very, very complicated death of Cindy James. Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings and mysteries. It's me, Kaylin, and it's very nice of you all to join me here in the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters today. I kind of want to get right into today's story. It's a really big one. It's one that I still think about a lot, and it's one that I really hope to hear from you all about by the end of this episode. I really want you guys to comment wherever you're listening just to tell me your thoughts. I truly need to talk to someone about this one. But first, I get so many little creepy stories from you all and I truly cherish each one. So this week I wanted to shout out our listener, Addie, who told me that when she was five, a woman she didn't recognize walked into her home and told her to get her brother and get out. She ended up grabbing him, and when she went downstairs, she saw that her entire downstairs was on fire. If she had waited even a moment longer, she and her brother might have died in the fire. Turns out no one else saw the woman and to this day, she doesn't know who she was. I know we share a lot of spooky ghost stories here on this show, but I swear, sometimes I feel like they're really out here protecting us. Isn't that right, Jinx? Just a heads up. Because of the sensitive nature of this episode and the amount of research that went into it to tell it right, this is going to be a two parter and the second part will be out this Friday. Also, some of the names have been changed in this script to protect the identities of those involved. All right, keep sending me your stories and let's jump back in. In October of 1982, a 38 year old woman named Cindy James walked into a Vancouver police station. Typically, Cindy had a smile on her face. She was a compassionate and energetic woman, a psychiatric nurse who ran a children's clinic and always managed to remain upbeat. But today, she looked worse for wear. She had these dark circles under her eyes. Her blonde hair, which was usually neatly done, was a chaotic halo around her head. See, it had started earlier that year when she began receiving dead flowers and threatening notes at her job. Cindy never saw who was sending her these things and neither did her co workers. It was weird at first, but as time went on, the letters became more threatening. They were always pieced together from magazines and the text would say things like, I see you and soon. And the images on These letters were of knives, rope, and women being choked. Soon, everyone, including Cindy, became more concerned. Was there someone out there who wanted to hurt her? Then came the phone calls. They were creepy and constant. At home, Cindy's phone would ring multiple times a day, but whenever she answered, there would just be heavy breathing on the other end. Cindy told all of this to the police that day, including how recently these threats had escalated. The person on the other end of the line was no longer just breathing. He would actually speak to her. The mysterious caller always addressed her by her name, so she knew that this wasn't just a random dial. The person would also describe sexual acts that they wanted to perform on her and how they wanted to mutilate her body. The police looked at Cindy as she described these calls to them, and her voice was quivering and her gaze was on the floor. She was obviously terrified. This was clearly very hard for her to talk about. So they took down Cindy's statement, and they suggested that she get an unlisted number. And in the meantime, she should let them know if she got any more calls. But instead of deterring the harassment, Cindy going to the police made it escalate. There were two more calls the next day. The voice on the other line told her, you think calling the police will keep you safe? You wait. Then that night, someone tried to open Cindy's back door, rattling the locked doorknob so forcefully it woke her dog up. Terrified, she called 911. A patrol car responded and they searched the surrounding area, but there was no sign of the would be intruder. Still, Cindy and her dog went to stay at a friend's house for the night. Over the next week and a half, the harassment escalated. Someone threw a rock through her kitchen window. They smashed out the bulb in her porch light. Cindy found another note made from letters cut out of a magazine. Us you love want rotten love. Silence. Hot sex is what it read. While she was at work one day, her house was broken into. The intruder didn't take anything of value, though. All they did was slash a pillow in Cindy's bed, leaving it tucked under the blanket for her to find when she went to sleep that night. This threatening behavior was personal, and it was also very strange. When police asked Cindy if she had seen who was doing this, she replied that she hadn't. She never saw a figure running away or eyes peering into her window at night. She worked in children's psychiatry, so sometimes she would advocate for children in court, even if it meant arguing that they needed to be separated from their parents as a result there were some fathers in the community that definitely did not like Cindy, but the harassment felt too, I guess, intimate to be a stranger. And then a few weeks after the pillow slashing incident, the police discovered a car in an alleyway behind Cindy's house. The headlights were off, but as police approached the vehicle, they could see the outline of a rifle sitting in the passenger seat. Sitting inside was an older man, tall and lean with white hair. Police asked who he was and he calmly explained that his name was Raymond and he was Cindy's ex husband. Cindy had previously mentioned to officers that she had been married to a man 18 years her senior. Their marriage, which lasted 16 years, had recently ended and now he was sitting outside of her home with a gun. This episode is brought to you by Kachava Imagine you're on a hike deep in the forests of Appalachia, when all of a sudden you hear a whistle in the trees. In moments like this, you want to stay sharp so you can stay out of danger. And no one knows that. Like Cachava, Kachava's Whole Body Meal Shakes will keep your body and mind nourished all day and ready for anything. But seriously, whether I'm spending the day hiking or I'm in the Rogue Detecting Society finishing up some research, I really do love Cachava's shakes. They have 25 grams of plant protein, 26 vitamins and minerals, 6 grams of fiber, and over 85 superfoods. And most importantly, they taste really, really good. I've tried so many different protein powders and meal replacement shakes and you know when you get one that's just super gritty or grainy or the taste is like raw pancake mix, that is definitely not the case with Cachava. Their shakes are creamy and smooth and I've loved the chocolate flavor. But they also have vanilla matcha chai and even coconut acai, which I am so excited to try and blend with some frozen fruits this summer. Stay sharp and fuel yourself with Cachava. Go to kachava.com and use code HSP for 15 off your next order. That's Kachava K A C H A V A.com code HSP for 15% off Cindy and Raymond had first met in the summer of 1965 while working at Vancouver General Hospital. Cindy, who was 21 at the time, was in her final year of nursing school while Raymond was working on a postdoctorate in psychiatry. Raymond was whip smart and he had a strong South African accent, which Cindy thought was cute. He was also 39 and already married with two kids. Regardless, the two quickly started an affair. His wife, who also worked at the hospital, eventually discovered the affair, and she filed for divorce. And then Raymond and Cindy were married the following December. It has been suggested that for Cindy, Raymond was kind of like a stand in father figure for her. Her own father was a retired Air Force colonel, and he had been kind of this controlling force in her life. Both Cindy and her siblings described his outrageous temper and strict discipline. Now she was tasting adult independence and living on her own, away from his influence. It is possible that she romanticized Raymond as a warmer, more loving father like stand in. He was almost as old as her father, after all, and he had a similar background also. This reinforced the police's notion that Raymond was maybe somewhat of a predator, that he had preyed on Cindy's youth and naivete. But then, 16 years after their relationship began, Cindy's family started noticing that things were changing. Sometime around the summer of 1981, there was this distinct coldness between them. Cindy didn't confide any specifics about the state of her marriage, but it wasn't really a surprise to her parents when about a month later, she told them that she was planning on separating from Raymond, and she formally moved out. In the spring of 1982, and a few months later, the harassment started. To the officers working Cindy's case, Raymond was the obvious and natural suspect for the harassment. He was clearly still emotionally attached to her. But as he was sitting in his car in the alley behind Cindy's house with his headlights off and his rifle in the front passenger seat, they couldn't help but notice how concerned he looked. When they asked what he was doing there, Raymond nonchalantly explained that he was waiting for what he called the prowler. He said he was going to catch them by surprise and take care of them for Cindy. Turns out she had called him recently and told him that she feared for her life, and even though they weren't together anymore, he wanted to help her. To the officers, his demeanors went beyond a concerned husband. He seemed possessive. They ended up sending Raymond on his way and urged him to leave the matter to the professionals. Instead, a few nights later, Cindy woke up to someone tapping on her bedroom window. She had already picked up the phone to call the police when she realized it was Raymond. Armed with a rifle and a hunting knife, he whispered through the window that she could sleep soundly that night because he was going to stand guard for her. Police asked Cindy if any of this seemed like a red flag to her, but she swore up and down that Raymond wasn't involved, and it had to be someone else doing this to her. In fact, he was actually the one who insisted she report the harassment to the police. And besides, the more pressing issue was that Cindy was still being harassed. More phone calls, more threatening notes that included cutout photos of hands holding a knife, women being choked, and dead bodies covered by a sheet. For months, it continued, and Cindy was starting to become terrified about how this might escalate. And to officers credit, they did respond to every incident. But once again, they never saw even a glimpse of who this person was. There was no trace of them. It was like chasing a ghost, and there just wasn't much for them to do about it without some kind of clue or lead. And on top of that, their investigation was, well, somewhat flawed. So Constable Pat McBride was the responding officer on the night that Cindy's pillows were slashed. He immediately took a personal interest in her case. And some would call it a little bit too personal. He had also recently separated from his wife, so he understood the emotions that Cindy might be experiencing. He stayed in contact with her, and he frequently dropped by her house to check on her during his shifts. And then two weeks after they met, he moved in with her, which is definitely not protocol. Some people thought this was because 247 surveillance made Cindy feel safer, but others knew that it was because the two had begun a romantic relationship. Regardless, it meant McBride's objectivity was completely out the window. And that made it easy for him to overlook some of the stranger details of Cindy's case. For instance, after McBride moved in, the stalker seemed to respond to the investigation, making adjustments as necessary, like they were really paying attention. For example, when the phone company installed a tap on Cindy's phone to try and trace the source of the vulgar calls. Miraculously, the second the tap was in place, the phone calls stopped, and instead, the threatening notes increased. One even said, get rid of cops. Another night, Cindy reported a prowler in her backyard. And again, the police came out to search, but they didn't find anything. Literally nothing. There was no sign of an attempted break in. Nothing was disturbed in the yard. Not even a single shoe print could be seen. And McBride pressed Cindy. Was she sure she saw someone? And then about a week later, she reported seeing the prowler again. And this time, the phone line had been cut in five places. Proof that someone was there. But that was the only physical evidence they found. If McBride picked up a pattern, like perhaps that the stalker was almost conveniently savvy. He didn't seem to confront Cindy about it. Instead, in December, he asked her to marry him. Cindy declined the proposal very politely and instead asked him to move out of her house. But similar to her arrangement with Raymond, Cindy and McBride did continue to date, all while he continued to investigate her stalker. That is, until the escalation that Cindy feared finally arrived. On January 27, 1983, one of Cindy's friends, Agnes Woodcock, stopped by for a visit. They worked together at the children's home, and Agnes was one of the few people that Cindy had confided in about the harassment. Agnes knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. That was odd. She told Cindy to expect her, and there were lights on inside of the house. Agnes went around to the side and looked through one of the kitchen windows, and that's when she saw Cindy sprawled out on the driveway outside of the garage, bleeding and unconscious. At the hospital, Cindy's injuries were assessed by a doctor and documented by the police. Her hand had a large slash wound from a knife. A black nylon stocking had been tied tightly around her neck, cutting off her circulation. Thankfully, there was no evidence of a sexual assault. Disturbed by the acceleration in the violence, the Vancouver Police Department transferred Cindy's case to someone more experienced, a detective named David Bowier Smith. As he took Cindy's statement from her hospital bedside, he could see the fear that was deep, deep inside of her eyes. He heard the tremors of panic in her voice. She had clearly been through an ordeal and hesitated to relive it for him, but he reassured her he was going to do everything he could to catch the person that was responsible. Cindy took a shaky breath. She swallowed really hard, and she nodded and tried to give as many details to the detective as possible. She said she'd gotten home from work the same time that she always did. She hadn't really been home long before someone knocked on her back door. She thought it was McBride. Sometimes he would stop by after his shift and he would leave his patrol car parked in the alley instead of right in front of the but when Cindy opened the door, there was a man there, one that she didn't recognize. He grabbed her and he dragged her to the garage, where there was another man waiting. That one was holding a knife. She tried to fight back, stop them from tying a stocking around her neck, and that's how her hand had been cut. She could feel herself starting to pass out, and her vision went hazy. But then she heard one of the men threaten to slice her open if she talked to police. He also Threatened to kill her baby sister, Melanie. And that was the last thing she remembered. She had gone in and out of consciousness until Agnes found her. By the time she was done recounting the story, Cindy had gone completely pale white. Detective Bowyer Smith was a veteran officer on the verge of retirement. He had worked dozens of cases. He had interviewed hundreds of witnesses, and he knew when someone was feeding him a load of crap. And he totally believed Cindy was terrified by whatever had happened to her. She was completely consumed by it. But there were some things about the story that just didn't make sense to him. To him, everything about Cindy's case indicated that this was a personal vendetta, Someone who knew her intimately and. And had an axe to grind. But she hadn't recognized either of the men that attacked her. So was this a random assault? Maybe one that was unrelated to the stalker? But that didn't really make sense either. What was the motive? They didn't rob her. There was no evidence of sexual assault. If they had wanted to kill Cindy, they definitely had the opportunity to do it instead. It seemed to just be about further terrorizing Cindy. But random people didn't really do that to strangers. At least he had never seen that happen before in his career. That brought him back to his first issue, though. Why hadn't she recognized her attackers? Detective Bowier Smith was convinced that there was something else going on here. Cindy was maybe withholding something from him. A missing puzzle piece. He asked her to sit for a polygraph just to try to get to the bottom of it. But when he asked her basic questions about the assault, she failed the test. She took it a second time, but it was inconclusive. A detective Bowyer Smith seemed to have no qualms confronting Cindy with some of his suspicions. He straight up asked her, was she lying to him? And if so, how much had she lied about? And this made Cindy immediately break down and confess something to him. She told him she had recognized one of the men, the one who had been waiting in the garage. But she had been too scared to admit it because of what they had said to her about her younger sister, Melanie. He'd known her name. What if he really tried to hurt her? Besides, she didn't know who the man was. She just recognized his face. She said that she had seen him before, but she didn't know his name. And she also didn't realize, really know where she had seen him before. Even after this confession, she refused to sit for another polygraph test or answer any more questions out of fear of retaliation. Against her family, and Constable McBride came to her defense over this. He had been at her house when some of the threatening calls had come in. He watched Cindy take these phone calls. He had even been the one to pick up the phone a few times. He also personally discovered some of the threatening notes. He assured the detective that the threat was real. After what she had been through over the last few months, it made sense that Cindy had tried to Shield her family. McBride's endorsement was enough to pull the detective onto Cindy's side, though that didn't really help them get any closer to catching her tormentor, who continued to run rampant throughout all of 1983. This episode is brought to you by Herobred. Every week I welcome you all into the study of the Rogue Detecting Society, headquarters for tales of horrors, hauntings and mysteries. But as we head into summer, I like to imagine everyone gathering in our backyard for a barbecue. There will be ghostly games, music, and of course, Herobred, the only bread allowed in the RDS pantry. Think hamburger buns with 11 grams of protein and Hawaiian rolls with 11 grams of fiber. All of the goodness of a backyard barbecue, but with less carbs, more fiber and more protein. So no carb crashing before the midnight campfire stories. But seriously, you guys already know I love Hero bread. I just reordered their tortillas because they are a great snack. You can eat one just on its own. And I also just signed up for a recurring shipment of bagels because personally I love a bagel sandwich for breakfast. And get this, their bagels have 4 grams of net carbs, 0 grams of sugar and 19 grams of protein. That is 19 grams of protein in a bagel. If you are ready to upgrade your summer sandwiches, wraps and burgers, Herobred is offering 10% off for heart size pounding listeners. Go to Hero Co and use my code HSP at checkout. That's HSP at H E R O Co. Summer's here and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever. From beach days and weddings to weekend getaways in your everyday wardrobe. Discover stylish options under $100 from tons of your favorite brands like Mango Skims, Princess Polly and Madewell. It's easy too, with free shipping and free returns in store order pickup and more. Shop today in store stores, online@nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app. After Cindy was released from the hospital, she refused to go back to her house. She packed up and moved across town and in less than a week, more threatening notes were delivered. One said Run, rabbit, run. I'll show you how good I am. Soon after, the phone calls resumed. One night while McBride was visiting, there were three calls in a row, and he overheard a man shout through the receiver, are you scared yet? After only two months at the new address, Cindy moved again. And this time it actually brought a little bit of a reprieve. She enjoyed a quiet, harassment free summer until on August 22nd, another note arrived. This time, it was delivered to the children's home where she worked. Five more arrived in as many weeks, and Cindy ripped all of them up without opening them. But she couldn't ignore the next delivery. The stalker had escalated their crimes to animal cruelty. On October 15th, Cindy came home from work and found a dead cat on her porch. There was a rope still tied around its neck, and next to it was a note that said, you're next. Her sanctuary was broken. The stalker once again learned where she lived, and it all started up again in earnest. More phone calls, both to her home and to her work. More notes. Someone vandalized her backyard again, ripping up the flowers in her garden that she planted and trampling the seedlings in her vegetable patch. Her phone lines were cut repeatedly. After a second strangled cat was left at her back door, Cindy decided to hire a private investigator, Ozzy Caban, both for her own protection and to increase the chances of catching this perpetrator. Ozzy had 15 years of experience and had provided security services to high profile clients. He consulted with both Constable McBride and Detective Bowyer Smith. Anytime that there was a fresh incident. But the the story was always the same. There was never any physical evidence of a perpetrator, no leads to follow. So instead, Ozzie focused on keeping Cindy safe. He armed her with a can of pepper spray, instructing her to carry it with her at all times. And he gave her a panic button. It would alert him directly even if the phone lines were cut. Around 6pm on January 30, 1984, Ozzy got an alert. Cindy had activated her panic button. Even speeding through traffic, it still took him nearly 15 minutes to arrive at her house, which felt like an eternity. Adrenaline pumping, Ozzy charged towards the back door, his gun drawn. And what he saw through the window made his heart drop. Cindy was there, motionless on the kitchen floor, a pool of blood surrounding her head. If she wasn't dead already, she was definitely balancing on its doorstep. Refusing to waste another second, Ozzie kicked in the back door, which splintered the wooden frame. He quickly cleared the house for any sign of the intruder. And then he tended to Cindy. Her skin was ashen, and he couldn't find a pulse. God, was he too late? Was she already gone? But when the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, EMTs realized there was another nylon stocking tied around her neck. It was barely visible between the folds of her skin. And once they cut it off and administered oxygen, Cindy regained consciousness. As for the rest of her injuries, she'd been struck on the head by something hard enough that it left a visible lump on her skull. Her left hand had been stabbed with a paring knife. The blade had gone all the way through until the handle was flush with her skin and pinned. Beneath the handle, soaked in blood, there was another note that read, now you must die. Finally, there was a needle puncture mark in the crook of her right arm, like she had been injected with something. Cindy had zero recollection of her attacker or even what happened to her. She didn't even know what happened in the moments leading up to it. She couldn't remember what had prompted her to activate the panic button. And on top of that, police were never able to lift any fingerprints off of anything. Once again, it was like they were chasing a ghost. Unlike the first attack, though, no one doubted the credibility of this attack. The puncture mark was in her right arm, which, if she had done this to herself, means she would have needed to hold the needle with her left hand. Except she had been stabbed with that hand, so that means she would have had to inject it herself first and then stabbed herself. But stranger still, the police didn't find any needles at the scene, so. So it would have actually had been injection. Then she would have needed to dispose of the needle and then stop herself. And that's assuming that the injection wasn't some kind of sedative that made her pass out. Did she give herself the head injury before all of this, too? There weren't any heavy blunt objects just lying around. There was no part of Ozzie that thought she could have done this to herself. This second attack really, really ramped up the pressure on the Vancouver police to solve this case. Cindy's gruesome injuries made McBride and Detective Bower Smith feel guilty that they had ever doubted her reports. So they clung to the only tangible lead they could identify, the man Cindy recognized in the first attack. Even without a name, they could create a composite and follow that trail. They had to plead with Cindy, though, to give them the details that they needed. They told her that the best way to protect her family was to catch this guy. In a strange twist of events, she eventually Admitted that she knew who attacked her, who had been behind all of the attacks, actually. And the police were a little bit skeptical of this at first. You mean you've known this entire time who was doing this and you never once told us? Who is it? Well, she explained, it was actually her ex husband, Raymond. She had been too scared to tell them the truth because she was afraid of what he might do to her. He had been abusive throughout their marriage, and it had taken her years to muster the courage to leave because he repeatedly threatened to kill her if she did. That's why she was still on friendly terms with him, to keep him from hurting her. The police had suspected Raymond from the start, but they never had any good evidence that it was him behind the attacks. Regardless, they still picked him up for questioning the next day. They ended up interrogating him for six hours, trying to draw out a confession. But Raymond resolutely maintained his innocence. He was actually shocked by these accusations. Six weeks ago, they had spent Christmas with Cindy's parents. It was pleasant. They actually had a great time. This accusation was a complete 180 and he refused to give an inch. He was not Cindy's attacker, and they could interrogate him for a month or a year, but they were still not going to find any evidence to the contrary. Because it was simply not true. The police were eventually forced to let Raymond go free. He was right. They had nothing concrete against him for now. But why would Cindy have said it was Raymond if it might not have been? And if it wasn't Raymond behind the attacks, then who was it? By July of 1984, Cindy's entire world had been consumed by the harassment. A constant barrage of threatening phone calls. Except on the days when her phone line had been cut. But then they could always call her at work instead. She still managed to show up to work every day, but she could no longer leave her personal concerns at the door. Colleagues noticed that she was constantly on edge, Sometimes spending the entire day holed up in her office. She was also rapidly losing weight from the stress and lack of sleep. And the stories that Cindy told the police around this time are absolutely harrowing. One afternoon, after spending a few hours working in her garden, Cindy realized that her dog was no longer in the yard and that her back door was wide open. She was positive she had left it closed, and rather than risk it, she summoned Ozzy with the panic button. Inside of the house, he found a threatening note wishing her a happy birthday. There was also a recently stubbed cigarette butt that did not match the brand that she smoked normally. Ozzy also found Cindy's dog cowering under a chair, injured and bloody, but very much alive. He had been tied up with the same rope that had been used on the strangled cats. A rope that was never found inside of Cindy's home. Then on July 23, she was attacked again. Around 8:30pm she drove to a local park to walk her dog. And about an hour later, as she was heading back to her car, she said a green van pulled up beside her. There was a man and a woman inside. The driver called out through the open window, asking her for directions. We don't really know what happened after that. Cindy had no memory of the event, but her neighbor found her at his front door hours later, a little after midnight. When the neighbor came downstairs, Cindy was glassy eyed and incoherent, trying to squeeze through the small gap in his door. When he unhooked the chain, she collapsed. And then he realized her face was blue. There was another stocking tied around her neck so tight he could barely manage to get a knife blank blade underneath it to cut it free. And there were two more needle puncture wounds on her arm. When the police checked the park, they found Cindy's dog wandering near the abduction site, her leash trailing behind her. They found drag marks in the dirt, as well as one of Cindy's shoes and her can of pepper spray. But nothing was left behind by the kidnappers. While Cindy recovered in the hospital, a man called the reception desk to to ask about any security measures that were in place. He refused to give a name and he quickly hung up. Officers played the receptionist a recording of Raymond's voice to see if it was the same man. And they said he sounded familiar. But they weren't 100% certain. There was no doubt that the police were motivated to catch Cindy's attacker, Especially after the third attack was reported on by the local paper. Still thinking that Raymond was maybe involved in some way, they combed through every piece of his life. They interviewed his employer, his ex wife before Cindy, and colleagues from South Africa, but nothing came of it. They profiled the children at Cindy's work, Anyone who had been under her care in the last 10 years, plenty of whom were adults now. They ran background checks on all of the parents, but there were no leads. Ozzy ended up installing security cameras, alarm systems and more panic buttons in every room of her house. He gave Cindy a two way handheld radio so she could be in constant communication with him, but nothing seemed to help. The harassment continued, but there was nothing to Chase again. No fingerprints on any of the notes, no trace on any of the calls. He still hadn't even seen the figure that had been doing this. The police went so far as to assign a surveillance team, parking a van outside of her house 247 for weeks at a time and keeping a direct tap on the phone line. But they never saw or heard anything useful. The harassment stopped completely as long as they were watching. The day after the second stakeout ended, Cindy reported a phone call. It was a silent hang up, but she knew it was her stalker. Except while the van was no longer watching, the phone company tap was still in place. They at least had a way to figure out where the call came from. And when they saw who had made the call, they had to double check because they were so in shock. It was Cindy. She had called herself. But maybe this was some sort of weird fluke, the officers thought. So they got in contact with the utility workers in the area, the ones who would come and repair Cindy's phone line when it was cut. Well, it turned out they all knew Cindy's house pretty well. She had become kind of a running joke in their circle. They thought she was maybe a lonely woman who was desperate for company. Otherwise, why didn't she just pay for the wires to be encased in a protective tubing? There was a simple solution for her problem, but she never took them up on it. Instead, she seemed to enjoy having the workers stop by. And that's when doubts about Cindy's credibility resurfaced. Was she making this up? In the next episode, doubts about Cindy's credibility increase. And the case takes an unexpected turn when a body is found on the side of a highway. Join me here Friday and until then, stay curious. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research and writing by Abigail Cannon Sound design a mix by Peachtree Sound Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME and Ben Jaffe have a heart pounding story or a case request. Check out heartstarts pounding dot com.