Last episode, we began discussing the case of Cindy James and the Invisible Man. Today, we're going to be continuing on with part two. To be sure to listen to part one first, because trust me, it's worth it and it's a case where you're gonna need to listen to all of it.
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingram, a true crime podcast.
The following podcast material intended more mature audience. Listener discretion is advised. It's part two day question. Did you guys wait to binge it do all? Or did you actually listen to the day like Tuesday when it came out and you're waiting for today to come out now too? Like are you a separate it kind of person?
I didn't.
Wait, you didn't well, I mean you don't have a choice.
But I actually sat down here completely forgetting that we were on a part two, which is kind of funny because usually I do not.
It's kind of a good feeling then, because it's like, oh right, I get to like catch up on.
This, yeah, and it kind of like came back to me the you know, part one, and I'm like, oh yeah, I got a little excited there.
Which that's good and I think we should dive right into this. So let's cud all the bullshit. I'm going to give you the little rundown recap. So last episode, we began talking about Cindy James and the stocking that she was enduring. Now there was some suspicion that it could have been her ex husband, ROI make peace, but Cindy kind of disagreed with that. She didn't think it was him. She kind of was like, no, we're on good terms and everything, despite her earlier claims that they
weren't because he was abusive in their relationship. But now the stalking. It led to some traumatic phone calls, disturbing letters being delivered to her place, potentially even someone entering her home as she claimed, and most recently, even an encounter where her friend found her right after an attack had occurred in her home where she was drug into her garage and assaulted by two individuals and she was left found with nylons tied around her neck and absolutely terrified.
Now police were beginning to have their doubts about these encounters and the information that Cindy was actually giving them, so they asked her to have a poly or to take a polygraph test, and this showed that the police were right. Cindy was indeed not sharing everything that she knew. There was some shady things going on, to say the least. And that's where we left off.
Okay, so, yeah, we knew that she was hiding something from the police, but we don't really necessarily know what extent or what awake exactly.
The police discovered with this polygraph test that she's hiding something, but we haven't discussed what just yet. So let's talk about that now. After these polygraph tests with the RCMP, Cindy was confronted with the results, it was clear she knew more than she was letting on. When officers pressed her for answers, she finally broke down through tears. She admitted that she did recognize both of her attackers during the recent assault when she was found in her garage,
but when asked to name the men, she refused. Okay, now, this was beyond frustrating for police. For months, For months, they had poured time and resources into investigating her case. You know, they're chasing leads, trying to protect her, and now after all that Cindy was sitting here on crucial information and refusing to share it. So she was truly terrified that like, you know, identifying her attacker could like take away that danger right totally. So why wouldn't she
do that? Why did she continue to report all these incidents and like when she has the information that could stop it. So it's hard to say why. But if she believe naming them would get someone hurt, maybe you know, maybe her family.
Or something, okay, or they were threatening her in some way, oh right, yeah, it could be.
It could be a reason why. But it felt like a game to police that she's playing now. At the same time, Cindy couldn't bear to stay in her house any longer. The memory of what had happened there was just too much for her. So she made a drastic decision. She moved back in with her ex husband Roy make Peace. She believed that despite everything, Roy could protect her if anything had happened now. Roy welcomed her back and was just as frustrated as Cindy about the lack of protection
from police. He had stayed updated on what had been going on, and in his mind, it was clear that the police weren't doing enough to help Cindy, but officers still have their suspicions about him. Many of them believed that Roy was behind the harassment all along, trying to manipulate Cindy into coming back into a relationship with him.
Okay, I just literally had that thought like a second ago.
Yeah.
Now.
This theory, however, started to crack when less than a week after moving in with Roy, Cindy received another threatening letter, and the note read quote, run rabbit, run, I'll show you how good I am soon soon bang bang, You're dead creepy.
Okay, I just need a slight clarification. Is she still with She's not with that other man, the like investigator.
The private investigator. I believe she still is. Yes, Oh okay, they're not living together. I mean, of course she's now living with Roy. Yeah, but I believe that they're still together.
Now.
There's not a whole lot of documentation exactly on like when their relationship ended or how long it lasted, but it seems like, you know, they dated for a while. Still.
Okay, Well, that can't be going well if she's like just moved back in with her ex y, I can't see that going overly.
Well, she might not be with him anymore. It's kind of hard to tell, okay. Now, disturbing calls were also starting to come again, all from the same voice. This time, the caller described in graphic detail exactly how he planned to kill her. Now, after two months, Cindy realized that moving back in with Roy hadn't made her any safer at all. If anything, it had proven that whoever was stalking her wasn't just some bitter x it was someone
who would follow her no matter where she went. So by this point she had moved four times in less than a year, and still the stalker found her every single time she moved. Cindy followed the police's advice. She kept her private information locked down, only sharing her whereabouts with close family, and yet it didn't seem to matter. No matter where she went, she wasn't safe, and this stalker would find her. As summer approached, Cindy was a shell of her former self. The stress, the fear, the
constant moving was wearing down on her. In an effort to help, Roy paid for Cindy to go take a trip out of the country and visit her brother in Karta. He hoped that a break from all this might help her fee feel normal once again, and even if it was just for a little while. Right, and for the first time in months, Cindy finally felt safe. There were no calls, no letters, no threats. She could only just begin to start breathing again. That relief, that weight off her shoulders.
That would be an amazing feeling.
Yeah, she wasn't constantly looking back behind her, you know, worrying about her safety. But unfortunately that piece didn't last. When she returned home, she found a note waiting for her that read quote, welcome back, death, blood, hate, et cetera. It was sloppier than the previous threats, almost as if even her stalker was kind of getting tired of the situation. You know. But Cindy wasn't the same woman who had left. She was done waiting like a sitting duck. She decided
she was going to take action on this situation. She painted her car a new color so it wouldn't be recognizable. She changed her hairstyle, She started carrying a portable panic button, oil and pepper spray everywhere she went. Anything that she could do to protect herself or change the situation.
Okay, go, Cindy, YEP.
And most importantly, she now hired the private investigator. Sorry, before it wasn't a private investigator, it was an RCMP member. The private investigator is now being hired Ozzie Kubat. Now Ozzie was looking into the case. Cindy no longer trusted the police to help her, so she took matters again into her own hands. Right but despite her best efforts, the stalker kept finding ways to reach her. These letters
started arriving at her workplace as well. Cindy tried to keep calm and assure her coworkers it was just a prank, she said. She wasn't worried because as long as she's around other people, you know, she's safe. She's fine. But as the threats crept closer to her workplace, she started realizing just how much of her life was at risk. Then these threats, of course, became more physical. That fall, Cindy came home to find a dead cat on her front porch. A note was placed behind it that said
You're next. It was the first of three dead cats that would be left on her property.
What the shit? What are the cats have to do with this?
Yeah? Who knows. Two weeks after finding that dead cat. Her garden, which was like her only source of stress relief at the time, was completely destroyed. When she went to the police, they still had nothing. Once again, the RCMP circled back to the same question, Could Roy be the one behind all of this? Could he be the one who's actually, you know, stalking his ex and causing these issues. Cindy was as firm as always, No, she said, Roy wasn't capable of this. It has to be someone else.
But her private journals, within them, in Cindy's own words, they seemed to tell a different story. In one journal. In one entry, she wrote about how during their marriage, Roy had deliberately destroyed the garden that she she kept at their home, a garden that of course meant the
world to her. And now with her current stalker ripping apart her garden in the new place, it's kind of hard not to see the parallel for sure, right it almost felt like a signature that Roy was leaving behind, taunting her if you may.
And don't mess with people's gardens, that is that is brutal, no kidding, I would be freaking pissed.
In November of nineteen eighty three, Patrick McBride who was the RCMP officer that she was seeing, stopped by Cindy's house and discovered yet another threatening note left in her porch. That same week, two more dead cats were found in the yard, each one accompanying by another sinister message. The harassment was relentless, and it escalated almost weekly, though never quite reaching the same level as a physical attack Cindy
had endured earlier that year. When police asked Cindy why she thought the stalker hadn't made another direct attempt at her life and was now resorting to these note threats in the phone calls and these sort of things again instead of, you know, actually at her, right, she told them she believed that this person didn't actually want to kill her outright. Instead, she believed that they wanted to scare her to death.
Okay, well, I mean, how would she even sleep, you know, at night?
I don't think I could, Yeah, with all that sort of harassment, and like how it's escalating and how serious it's getting, I don't know if I could.
No.
Now, that explanation left investigators scratching their heads. You know, why would someone want to scare her to death or whatever? Right? And even some of Cindy's closest friends were starting to question her story. At first, her loved ones had been overwhelmingly supportive, but after a year of these bizarre incidents, many of which seemed almost too perfectly timed, doubted or
doubts started to creep in. Even Ousie Kabban, the private investigator Cindy had hired, couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't just adding up in this situation. Every threatening call came when Cindy was alone, whether police tapped her foot or not, like the calls were too short to trace when that happened right. Every time the porch lights were smashed or her windows were broken, there was no evidence left behind, no fingerprints or footprints, and no one like
no one suspicious was spotted in the area either. Most in settling of all, every time Cindy moved, her stalker somehow got her new address almost immediately, even even though she kept that information strictly within her immediate family. Cindy knew people were losing faith in her story. She could feel it the way condolences were being replaced with, you know, side eye and polite but skeptical smiles like oh yeah, oh that sucks.
Stuff, right, that's not a good feeling.
The worst part was knowing some people believed she was making the whole thing up. Now Kaban the private investigator, He tried to stay supportive, but even he told Cindy that if she wanted this help, he needed actual proof, something hard, something undeniable, something tangible, you know, and that he gave her a two way radio to carry, you know, at all times while she's home alone. When something happens, you know, that way she could immediately call for help.
So at first the radio seemed like it was just mostly a formality, but command didn't expect much to come of it, sort of thing. But on January thirtieth, nineteen eighty four, everything changed. Late that night, he was jolted awake by a strange noise. It was crackling through the radio. Without hesitation, he jumped into his car and drove straight
to Cindy's house. When he got inside, he found her collapsed face down in the hallway with a pairing knife stabbed straight through her hand, pinning a note.
Oh whoa okay.
The note was made just like before from cutout magazine letters and read quote, now you must die.
Oh that's really, really, really alarming.
As he knelt down beside her, Cindy slowly started to come too. Groggy and terrified. She told him the same chilling story she would later repeat to police. She said she heard someone outside. When she went to check, a man forced his way in and attacked her. He struck her in the head with something heavy, leaving her dazed and barely conscious. While she drifted in and out, she remembered feeling a needle jabbing into her arm. WHOA, Now she was sure that she was injected with something that
knocked her out completely. Uh huh, But just like last time, the evidence didn't back up her story.
Well yeah, because it's kind of odd that they wouldn't have just done it then and there.
Agreed right now. To me, it almost seems like that note isn't to her, it's like to someone else, right, Because why would someone come into the house and attack an individual and then leave a note for you that says, now you must die. Why wouldn't they just tell you because they're right there. Why wouldn't they just kill you because they're right there? That note is almost like forced someone else to show, like, hey, someone's trying to kill me.
You know, almost like a freight fake breadcrumb trail. Now, toxicology tests came back, and they came back completely clear. There were no drugs in cindy system. In fact, there weren't even any puncture marks in her arms where she claimed needle went in. And once again, there were no signs of forced entry anywhere in the house. The whole thing just, I mean, as I was kind of talking, felt staged.
Okay, well, yeah, that seems really weird. Did she have a big bump on her head?
Uh, I'm not too sure. Actually, I'm not sure if she had a big bump or anything, but just things didn't quite add up.
Yeah, no kidding.
Now, this time, though, Cindy gave the police something new. She provided a sketch of her attacker based on, you know, the brief moments that she had seen his face. Now, whether the sketch was accurate or not is anyone's guests, especially since Cindy insisted she already knew the exact exact person who was stalking her because she recognized them from the other attack, right, yeah, or she still refused to
name them, But at this point Cindy could help. The walls closing in The police obviously weren't believing her, and her friends were losing trust as well, and even the private investigator was he was not having his full investment. His doubts were definitely there. So she finally gave the answer that you know, they seemed to be waiting for. She told them she believed her ex husband, Roy Makepeace, was the one behind everything.
Oh okay, so she's changed her tune.
Yeah, after all that stalking, the attacks, the harassment, and her defending her ex husband. She saying Roy is the one who's behind it, and she believes that it's his way of punishing her for leaving him and trying to force her back into his life.
That makes no sense though, because she even went about moving in with him at some point.
So I just like, I don't like that exactly. Well, that's the big problem with all this. None of the story, none of the incidents, none of the stalking doesn't add up, and none of it makes sense.
But okay, Also, I guess maybe she was thinking, if I move in there, I'll be like safer, right, because I mean it kind of makes sense going back, right, and that happens a lot. But I don't know. Yeah, this is confusing as shit.
But you would think that at least for a little while, those things would stop.
When she was living there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Now she made this confession in nineteen eighty four on Valentine's Day. Actually just a little like tidbit of information. So it's an interesting, little uninteresting date, an interesting date. But I digress. Now, the police brought Roy make Peace back in for questioning once again. You know, they pressed him both in these accusations, and just like every other time, Roy denied everything that they were bringing up to him. He's just like, Nope, not me. It's messed up. What's
going on. I'm not involved. You got the wrong guy sort of thing.
Right.
Frustrated and desperate to protect his daughter, Otto decided to confront Roy himself. Now. Auto believed that if he could sit down with Roy face to face, maybe he could finally get him to slip up and emit something right. To make sure he had proof, Auto even wore a hidden wire to record the conversation. Now, during the meeting, Otto didn't hold back. He told Roy in no no uncertain terms sorry, that he wasn't going to be allowed anywhere near Cindy anymore, and he outright accused him of
being behind the whole campaign of threats and harassment. Roy didn't confess. Instead, he offered up a wild theory of his own. He claimed Cindy maybe being targeted by the mafia. Now, according to Roy, Cindy had somehow maybe crossed the wrong people while working at the hospital, maybe getting involved with a child from a mob connected family. Whatever. He was so convinced he even wrote Auto a six page letters laying out his whole theory and begging Otto to push
the police to investigate it. In the months that followed, the phone calls kept coming. Cindy was receiving new obscene calls and threatening notes almost every single day, but just like before, the calls were too short for police to trace.
Now.
At one point, RCMP officers decided to surveil Cindy's house. They wanted harp proof that she wasn't behind the harassment herself. Right, So, only Cindy and the officers involved knew about the operation. So in theory, if someone outside of law enforcement was responsible, that have no way of knowing that they were being watched, right, and the police could catch this individual red handed. It
says many as fourteen officers took part in the surveillance. Right, So we have people going in shifts different times, up to fourteen different officers. But during all of those shifts, not a single suspicious person came near the house, No strange cars drove by, no figures sneaking around. Nothing. Yet every time the officers packed up and left, guess what happened? Seriously, Cindy immediately called the police, claiming she'd received another call or found a new note every single time.
Dang. Okay, But also if there is someone, I mean, they would know, right if like when the police did pack up, But then the police you know, would also see them in their car watching or whatever. Exactly, Okay, And it's not like it can be a neighbor anymore at this point too, if she's has relocated so many times. Oh okay, I'm very I'm very confused now.
Cindy and her family insisted though this was part of the stalker's plan to make her look like she was like crying wolf and going crazy, right, And I mean, there was no way anyone could have known exactly when surveillance had ended or started unless they were part of the operation itself or someone inside Cindy's own circle knew.
Okay, within the operation itself, that kind of makes sense.
Yeah, so you have at least Cindy or a close family member or an officer part of the surveillance team. At this point, the police were convinced though Cindy was the one orchestrating the whole thing herself. When they made that clear to her, Cindy withdrew even more convinced that no one believed her and that she was truly alone. Then, on June eighteenth, nineteen eighty four, Cindy called Ozzie Caban, the private investigator, and she was in a full blown panic.
When he arrived at her house. She was trembling and hiding in her garden, insisting someone had broken into her home. Now, Caban led the way inside and Cindy was trailing behind him. They searched the house room by room, eventually making their way into the basement, where they found Cindy's dog, Heidi, huddling in the corner. Now, the poor dog was visibly terrified, and she had a noose tied around her neck. What Heidi had clearly been abused, and she was so shaken
and cowered in the Courrner. She would not even want to approach Kaban or her owner, Cindy.
Oh the poor baby.
Now attached to this noose was a note reading happy Birthday, along with several pornographic photos.
Cool.
Yeah. Over the next few weeks, calls, letters and threats continued, and another dead cat was left on Cindy's left for Cindy to find. But then July first, something even stranger happened. Two men showed up at her house posing as police officers. Cindy immediately knew something was off. After everything she'd been through, she was on pretty much a first name basis with almost every single local officer, right h these two were
total strangers to her. Before she even considered letting them inside, Cindy told them that she was going to radio Ozzie Caban, the private investigator, to confirm their identify identities. Without saying saying a word, both of the men bolted from her porch.
Oh okay.
Now, like so many incidents before, there was no evidence to back up this story. This was just Cindy's words.
Yeah.
There was no security footage, no witnesses, nothing. Two days later, on July third, Cindy checked in with Caban again over the two a radio, letting him know that she was going to take Heidi for a walk. Now he worried about her safety, and you know, he warned her not to go outside, but Cindy insisted she needed some fresh air. Three and a half hours later, a stranger a mile away from her house answered a knock at their door to find Cindy standing there, battered and disoriented, with black
nylon stocking tied tightly around her neck. The moment the door opened, Cindy collapsed on his front porch. Cindy was able to speak, and she was giving a chilling account. While walking Hidie, she was approached by a green van that pulled up beside her. Inside the van were a bearded man and a blonde woman, both of whom she claimed she had never seen before. The man was asking for directions, and after that, Cindy said, everything went blank.
She was immediately rushed to the hospital, and after being found, the doctors noted two needle marks on her arm. However, when toxicology results came back, the only substance found in her system was a prescription antidepressant that she recently started taking. There were no traces of sedatives, tranquilizers, or any other drug that might explain the blackout.
Hmmm, gosh, this is just getting more and more confusing. It's a kind of like, I don't know. You want to believe her, like you really do, oh one percent, but then I don't know. Yeah, it's just so weird that this it's been going on this long, I guess, and that nothing has been able to be pinpointed. I don't know. It is very confusing.
I'm very conflicted in this because, like you say, you want to believe her, Yeah, at the same time, how do you believe her? You know what I mean?
Yeah? So, but I mean she would also be paying the private investigator, right, so she's like putting money into this herself.
Yeah, definitely.
Oh ah.
Now, while Cindy was being treated, something strange happened. The hospital receptionist informed police that she received a suspicious phone call earlier that day. The caller had asked oddly specific questions about hospital's security procedures, which left her feeling a little uneasy, as if the person was on the like on the other end, was planning something.
Yeah.
Now, police decided to play a recording that they had of Roy make peace his voice to see if he was maybe the one who had called. While the receptionist couldn't be one hundred percent sure, she said that there was a strong possibility that Roy was the man who had called. Hoping to dig deeper into Cindy's trauma, Ozzie Cobban, the private investigator, suggested that she try hypno therapy now.
His theory was that if Cindy's conscious mind couldn't recall useful details about her stalker, maybe her subconscious could, which is often what hypnotherapy has used for. The first therapist Cindy saw, however, determined she was too emotionally fragile for hypnotherapy to be reliable. The session took a bizarre turn when Cindy suddenly claimed that she had witnessed a double
murder at some point in her life. The therapist, concerned about her mental state, decided, yet, we're not doing hypnotherapy.
Okay, fair enough, I guess yeah.
So Caban wasn't ready to give up. She encouraged Cindy to try another hypnotherapist in a new year, still hoping they could unlock useful memories about her stalker now. During the second session, Cindy repeated her claim about this double murder, but this time she went into a lot more detail. She told the therapist and Caban and the police that back in nineteen eighty one, while still married to Roy, they had gone sailing near Thornhambee Island. Cindy hated those trips.
Of course, we already discussed how she was afraid of water, terrified of.
Drowning, right, but he kind of made her go anyway.
Yeah, And so since she didn't want to go, Roy was in a bad mood that day even though she went right, so her ear toil ability, you know, not being wanting to be on the water, just continued to send Roy more down a spiral on that day, being more and more infuriated, and according to Cindy, he eventually snapped. She described how Roy murdered a young couple right in front of her and hacked their bodies up with an
axe and tossed the remains overboard. What. Yeah, she claimed, when Roy caught her watching, he smeared blood across her face using one of the victims severed limbs.
What the actual shit?
Yeah, it's a horrific story and a massive claim, but there is one problem.
And she's just deciding to share this now.
But okay, well yeah, but the biggest problem is exactly that none of this is true. None of this happened.
Well, because I'm just confused too. If they were sailing, why the fuck is this random young couple with them? And I don't know?
Oh man, Okay, Well, Roy and said did go sailing near Thornaby Island that year before they separated, but they weren't alone. Cindy's sister was with them the entire time, and she told investigators that absolutely nothing unusual happened on that trip. To top it all off, police scoured records and found no reports of any missing young couple in the area, nor were there any records of dismembered body members washing ashore.
Wow that is weird.
Yeah, the whole incident appeared to be either a false memory accidentally implanted during maybe hypnotherapy, or delusions Cindy had come to fully believe.
Yeah, okay, okay, this just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
Cindy's mental state continued to deteriorate, and in late June of nineteen eighty five, she was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility after a prescription drug overdose. But initially it looked like a suicide attempt. Cindy later insisted that it hasn't. It wasn't you know, She's never meant to kill herself. It was just kind of an accident or whatever.
Okay.
When she was Cindy became more determined than ever to prove Roy was the one behind everything. She even asked police to tap her phone so they could catch him in the act. Now, I'm sure they already had her phone tapped at this point and they were just like, Okay, yeah, sure, let's do that. But I could be wrong.
Now.
Her belief in this guilt had only solidified after her recovery or recovered memory of the double murder, and now she was convinced Roy was the one who orchestrated the threats to call the attack, all of this sort of thing.
Okay, I just said this thought though your mind. Ken play tricks on you, especially if you're in like Highley's stressful situations, right, Yes, it can. So it could almost be making her come up with this, you know, because she thinks she's like thinking it's Roy, and then making him seem like even more of a terrible person in her mind, and.
Yep, there is a high possiblity, high possibility of that being the situation, which we do talk about a little bit later. Okay, Cindy called Roy herself, knowing that the police were listening into the call, and unleashed everything she believed. She told him she remembered him killing the couple on the boat, She accused him of abusing her throughout their marriage, and insisted he was the mastermind behind her stalking. Roy
was stunned. He denied everything, the murders, the threats, the abuse, and he told Cindy that she was delusional and had become obsessed with blaming him for things that he had nothing to do with.
Well, also, if he was, you know, it seems helping in some ways. And then he gets this call, he's probably just like, what the actual fuck like.
Just pissed exactly. And so as this conversation escalated, Cindy swore she would expose him to gather proof, no matter what it took, and Roy was exhausted, fed up, and he finally cut her off, and he told her not to contact him again unless she planned to take him to court. Okay, so he's just like I'm done.
Yeah, final straw for sure.
Yeah. So, in the weeks that followed, police decided to put Roy under surveillance. They wanted to see if he would slip up, if he was the one responsible, if his movements lined up with harassing phone calls, the letters, anything, right, But Roy's life was rather ordinary and honestly kind of boring.
It wasn't quite as entertaining to watch him.
No, he went to work, ran errands, and didn't do a single thing that raised any suspicions. After an entire week of watching him, they called off the surveillance. There was nothing. On August fifth, nineteen eighty five, Cindy called emergency services to report the next event, which was a
fire at her home. When firefighters arrived, they found newspapers scattered across the floor, clearly meant to act as kindling, but the fire itself never really caught and they were able to put it out rather easily before it did any damage. The next day, firefighters were back once again, another attempted fire, more newspapers, but still no real damage. Police were already starting to question whether Cindy herself was
behind these fires. Right, there was no sign of forced entry, nothing out of place, no evidence that anyone had broken in to start these fires or to burn the house down. To investigators, it felt like these were failed fires. They were just warm up for something bigger to come. And then on August twenty, first, the fires escalated at about three fifteen am, Cindy decided, oddly enough to take your dog hiding out for a walk at three fifteen.
Okay, yeah, that's a super odd time.
Yeah, even though even the last time she went for a walk didn't go very well. Right, So we have a super odd hour and we have her going out and the walk again, when last time she got assaulted. Right, So while she was out, her soccer apparently saw the opportunity and slipped into the house, set the fire, and left once again without a trace. Now this time the fire actually spread, and when investigators arrived they found the same setup newspapers across the floor used to help start
the fire. Right. The strange part, the doors in the home were all locked when Cindy left the home. There's no sign anyone made their way in.
Okay, I'm like, oh, man struggling here, because I'm starting to just, i don't know, really be skeptical as well.
Yeah, after the investigation, police determined Cindy set the fires herself.
Well it makes sense that she would, you know, she wasn't there. Yeah, and that's when it like she went for a walk and her house is like in flames.
So now that fall. In nineteen eighty five, RCMP officer Carol Halliday requested that doctor Anthony Marcus, a psychologist, conduct a full evaluation on Cindy and review the case files. Now, Halliday had long suspected that Cindy was fabricating the entire ordeal and believed that many of the male officers who had worked with on Cindy's case, including Ozzie Coban and Patrick McBride, have been blinded by their attraction to her.
To Halliday, it seemed obvious Cindy was manipulating them. After reviewing her case and speaking with Cindy directly, doctor Marcus offered a surprising theory. He believed Cindy might be suffering from disassociative identity disorder. In his opinion, Cindy was genuinely terrified because she believed her own story if she was the one harming herself, Though Marcus theorized she was doing it in a disassociated state with no memory of her own actions.
Okay, that makes sense. And also, how good looking is this woman then? If she's just able to I don't know, make all these police officers, I don't know.
I mean, don't get me wrong, Like I looked up her image and everything, Like she's pretty. She's a good looking woman, But I don't think she's like, you know, a superdel Yeah, she's not like a temptress or anything like that, you know.
Oh okay, huh.
Now. By December of nineteen eighty five, Cindy decided it was time for yet another fresh start. She moved to Richmond, BC, hoping that putting the distance between herself and her past would be the answer, but the move brought no peace. Now longer after settling in, she was found collapsed in a ditch six miles from her new home. Once again, Cindy had no idea how she got there. She was bruised,
cut up, and barely conscious, suffering from hypothermia. Even as usual, there was a black nylon stocking wrapped tightly around her neck, the same signature from past events.
You would be even tell if some of that shit was self inflicted, though, like the bruising and even probably the way the nylon was tied and stuff. So what the hell?
Well, and that's exactly what that doctor was saying that he's there. These officers are being blinded to a degree.
By their attraction, right right, Okay.
So they're not exactly investigating like.
A damsel in distress, like oh my gosh, yeah, and they just want to help.
Yeah. Now, after this latest attack, Cindy left the country again to stay with her family, and just like before, when she was away, there were no incidents, no calls, no letters, nothing. Her brother begged her to stay, to leave Canada behind and rebuild her life somewhere where she felt safe, but Cindy, she refused.
I agree, she should just stay with her fam.
Yeah. When she returned home, her friends Agnes and Tom Woodcock turned They took turns sleeping over her house to try and keep her company. Cindy had stopped eating at this point and was barely taking care of herself. She told him more than once that she would rather be dead than keep living like this.
Oh brutal.
Yeah. On April sixteenth, nineteen eighty six, with Agnes and Tom spending the night, Cindy woke up in a panic, saying she heard something downstairs. When they investigated, they found another fire, this time in the basement. They tried to call the fire department, only to discover that the phone line had been cut. Tom ran outside to get help and noticed a man standing in the street watching the flames. But the second Tom tried to approach, the man took
off into the night. That was it for Cindy. She went straight to police and made a formal statement accusing Roy of being behind everything.
Okay, well, now she has another witness.
You know, well, he only witnessed a person standing there.
I guess I Well, could she have set that fire though? Or no? I mean I guess she could have said it quietly and then and then gotten woken up in like a ah kind of thing, and then that's panic.
Yeah. Well, let me put it in this way. I don't understand. I'm not going to pretend to understand what is going on, because no one does, right uh huh. Now, the theory is disassociative disorder. So she does a thing, doesn't remember it, and then, you know, gets in a panic state. I'm gonna say, just for instant the sake
of looking at Devil's advocacy. What if she slept walk, did the fire thing, went back to bed, and then woke up in a panic, thinking that, like the sleepwalking thing that she just did was like a nightmare, and she just like, oh, this someone was down there. I know I heard them. It was actually hurt, you know what I mean.
Kind of random though that this person would just be outside too. That would freak me out.
Well, what if it's just a delinquent tee or something like that, who's out to like spray paint some property, or maybe it's someone looking to rob something, or maybe like who knows, and then their approach and it's like, oh shit, I got to get out of here. Yeah, it's very honestly, it's pretty likely that you run into just someone walking by at a situation like that.
I don't know, Maybe I have trouble believing that. I guess.
I'm not saying that it's a high probability, but I'm saying it's definitely a situation that could occur. Now, there was just one major problem though, because Roy was being accused of this. Right yep, Roy wasn't in the country at the time.
Oh okay, he.
Had returned to South Africa and had been there for actually quite some time. At this point. Police also confirmed that during many other harassing phone calls, Roy was under surveillance like they're watching him right, like we have eyes on him right now. And Cindy just reported a phone call.
He was not on the phone.
No, he's like getting groceries or some shit. Yeah, so there was to police, there was no way he could have been the one responsible. Right if he was involved, he would have to have an accomplice.
Which is possible because there has been times where other people, like two individuals or like a female or whatever, was involved.
That's true now by now. Alan Connolly, a psychiatrist who had been treating Cindy on and off since nineteen eighty three, He had serious concerns about her mental health. He had originally believed her reports of harassment, but in mid nineteen eighty six, he feared that Cindy was spiraling into suicidal depression. He arranged for her to be involuntary admitted to a psychiatric ward in Saint Hospital. There, she was diagnosed with
anorexia in severe depression. During her stay, Cindy wrote an entry in her journal rather concerning one quote I feel like suicide is my best option in an unbearable situation, and as soon as I get out of here, I'll carry out my plan. All Now, over the ten weeks stay that she spent in the hospital, Cindy's mental health showed remarkable improvement. With steady treatment, structure, and support, she seemed to finally regain a small sense of control in
her life. Now, surprisingly, life it seemed to take a turn for the better for her, so she's released from the hospital. The call stopped, threatening notes disappeared, and for the first time in ages, she could step outside without fear that someone was lurking in the shadows. She stuck with therapy, telling her counselors that she's starting to feel more like herself. By September, Cindy was confident enough to buy her own house and was making plans to return
to work the following month. Now. All this progress, unfortunately was short lived. Almost immediately after going back to her old job, she was fired. The hospital saw her mental health struggles as too much of a liability, and they unfortunately let her go.
WHOA. Yeah, it was a.
Crushing blow, but Cindy didn't give up. Nearly a year later, in August of nineteen eighty seven, she landed a new position at Richmond General Hospital. Now, unfortunately, that same month the harassment started all over again. Cindy called the police to report that someone had tried to break into her home tried to pry open a window. Three days later, she phoned again, this time saying that the light bulbs in her front porch had been loosened as if you know,
wanting it to be dark from there. It was a weekly string of new reports, strange noises, signs of trespassing, and Cindy's growing fear that someone was targeting her once again like before. About a month in the new renewed harassment, Roy make Peace received two bizarre voicemails, one on his home answering machine. Sorry, both on his home answering machine, and the messages they're from someone who was obviously trying
to disguise their voice. Now, however, it was very clear they were trying to be a pretend to be a hired killer. The killer claimed that Roy paid them to kill Cindy.
And this is left on his voicemail.
Yes, okay, and these the voice that's obviously being like disguised. It was a female voice. Huh shit, So like my voice is like this, and the voice is sucking like this, Like it's like a female trying to do this and talking on his voicemail. It's yeah, very bizarre. Yeah. Now, when Roy got these messages, he was absolutely fed up and he immediately handed these tapes over to his lawyer. He didn't trust the police to handle it fairly anymore either. Meanwhile,
Cindy was unraveling. She confided in her sister, admitting that she felt like she was losing her grip on reality. She believed that all the drugs she'd been injecting during the past week had somehow damaged her brain, leaving her unsure of what was real or what wasn't. Now, Cindy went to police and accused Roy, once again of orchestrating everything, the threats, the break ins, the harassment. She said, Roy, with all his expertise as a psychiatrist, was trying to
systematically break her mind peace by peace. The police arranged another recorded phone call between Cindy and Roy. As before, Roy denied everything and he just begged her to leave him alone and moved on. He wanted nothing to do with her. After they hung up, Roy's lawyer contacted the police again and turned over the suspicious voicemails left on his entering machine. The police immediately suspected Cindy herself had left them trying to frame Broy, which I'm sure we
all already thought. Two weeks later, Cindy was once again attacked. She was found unconscious in her car, naked from the waist down and hog tied as always a black nole and stocking was tied tightly around her neck. When she came to she remembered getting out of her car and
being grabbed, but after that her memory was blank. The cycle started again, threatening notes, phone calls nearly every day, and this time the harassment even followed her to work, and her coworkers at Richmond General Hospital began finding disturbing notes meant for Cindy left around the hospital. After the attempted break in, police even brought in sent dogs to try and track whoever had been near her home, but the dogs came up with nothing, no trail, no scent,
no evidence. Then about a month later, Cindy was attacked for what would be the final time. At around four pms. He went to Richmond General Hospital to pick up her paycheck. She chatted briefly with some coworkers, and they later recalled that she was in surprisingly good spirits. She told them that she hadn't had any strange incidents lately and was hopeful that maybe the stalking had finally stopped. But knowing her luck, she admitted she even still had her dots.
That night, Cindy had big plans. She was supposed to have a high tech infrared security system installed in her house, the kind used at banks, right, so making sure that you can even see in the dark all this sort of stuff. This was going to finally catch whoever was tormenting her. After that, Agnes and Tom Woodcock were planning to spend the night just like they had many times before. After picking up her paycheck, Cindy made a quick stop to pick up some groceries, then headed to the bank
to deposit her check. Security footage showed her leaving the bank at about seven fifty nine pm, and after that Cindy vanished. When Agnes and Tom Woodcock arrived at her house at around ten PM, they immediately noticed something was wrong. Cindy's car wasn't in the driveway and the house was dark and empty. They managed to speak to her downstairs tenants, who told him that Cindy had gone out earlier to
run some errands, but she hadn't come back yet. Worried, the two drove to the shopping center that Cindy usually frequented, and there they found her car abandoned in the parking lot. Inside the car were her groceries, and sitting beside them was a wrapped birthday present for a child's friend. There was a blood smear on the driver's side door.
Oh boy.
Inside was also some of Cindy's wallet contents. They were scattered underneath the vehicle, and it almost appeared to suggest a struggle. Terrified, the two called police and reported Cindy missing right away. Now, given her history, law enforcement treated it as an urgent case, launching a large scale search right away. Her face was plaid stirred everywhere TV newspapers, posters, and shop windows, but despite the attention, Cindy remained missing
for two weeks. Two weeks when she was finally found, it was exactly what her family and friends had feared. Cindy was discovered in the yard of an abandoned house a little over a mile where her car had been left. The property sat on a busy street, and although the house was vacant, it was known as a large hangout for local teams, especially in the summer. However, no one
had been there for a few weeks. Adding to the eeriness, graffiti had recently been sprayed on the house, reading someone died here whoa and it circled the exact spot where they found Cindy's body.
WHOA. Okay shit.
The scene was brutal. Cindy had been beaten severely and her hands and feet were tied behind her back. The bindings were so tight that one finger had been worn down to the bone from trying to free herself.
Oh my gosh.
She was fully dressed. She wasn't wearing any shoes though, and her feet were perfectly clean, indicating that she hadn't walked there on her own. And as always, a black nylon stalking was wrapped around her neck. A small needle mark was found on the inside of her right elbow, and for the first time in her ordeal, the toxicology reports actually found drugs in her system, a massive overdose
of morphine along with diazepam and floresepam. I Hope I pronounced that correctly, the dose of morphine alone was more than ten times a lethal amount. Despite the sheer brutality of the scene, the RCMP leaned towards ruling her death either as a suicide or an accidental overdose.
Okay, that okay.
Their theory was that Cindy, after seven exhausting years of stalking attacks and fear, may have overdosed, believing that someone would find her in time to save her. So they're saying she did this just like they believe she did the other attacks. What she set this up? She was setting it up to be found. However, no one found her.
Yeah, but would you be found in that way? Like would she have been able to do all that to herself?
That's the question.
And also, I don't know, just her actions prior to doesn't really make sense for someone who's about to commit suicide, like picks up a check, cashes the check, gets groceries, and then also like has this rapped presence? Well, the rap present maybe, but getting the money and stuff doesn't necessarily it.
It doesn't, it doesn't. You have to consider the fact for a moment. Just just think that Cindy was suffering from something along the lines of this dissociative disorder. Okay, that there is something that Cindy was responsible for this and she just doesn't remember. Just pretend that is the case, factually the case for the moment, not saying it is. Just pretend it is for the moment. Yeah, she had seven years to learn how to set this up, to learn how to throw police off, to learn how to
make it look real. So who's to say she didn't learn that normal things prior to would make it look real. Not saying she's doing it on purpose subconsciously dissociative stuff, right, Who's to say she didn't learn how to do it over the course of these seven years of these alleged attacks and stockings.
Okay, but how can you explain to me again how she was found like she had her finger was all fucked up to from her trying to like free herself.
Right, Yes, so she was apparently hog tied. Her hands and feet were hogtied behind her back, and the ropes were tight enough that her finger was worn down to the bone from trying to actually like free herself.
See, I don't feel like you could do that yourself. How the hell could you do that to yourself?
Good question.
I just yeah, that that's not sitting well with me. Again.
Now this description, though, I mean, we are relying on descriptions, it's hard to say. Maybe it wasn't as tight as it's described and these these reports, maybe that's not quite telling the entire picture. I don't know. I don't have the exact police reports from the situation, right.
Yeah, but I just don't feel like, Okay, if she would say found in her home, you know, with like a little beat up or like but laying in bed or on her coach or on the floor or something, I would maybe like believe the suicide thing a little bit more. But this I'm having trouble believing it. I guess fair.
Enough, fair enough. I do want to say, now, working at a hospital as a nurse, she does have access to needles.
Yeah, drugs, she does.
It's like she was drugged with something that she didn't have easy access to.
Oh man, Okay.
Now, her friends and family were horrified with the conclusion that the authorities came to. They believed that it was obvious Roy make Peace was the one behind it, and that someone, if not him, you know, it was a murder, plain and simple, one way or another, but they did believe Roy make Peace was the one behind it. In nineteen ninety, a formal inquest into Cindy's death was launched. The proceedings stretched over forty days and the testimonies that
came were shocking. Roy himself even testified, in fact, claiming that Cindy had suffered sexual and physical abuse as a child. According to Roy, Cindy told him during their marriage that her father Auto had been both physically violent and emotionally cruel an and even that one of her brothers had sexually.
Abused her oh Okay.
Roy said that whenever he tried to talk to Cindy about her past, she would explode with age sometimes her Various psychiatrists over the years even confirmed this as well. Another revelation came from Cindy's parents, who admitted they'd found and destroyed a stash of medication in Cindy's home shortly after her death. Some of these prescription drugs matched the
ones she overdosed on. They destroyed the medications because they were feel fearful that these would lead authorities to conclude her death was a suicide, so they flushed everything down the toilet and vowed never to speak of it again, so they hid evidence.
Yikes, okay.
Cindy's sister Melanie also testified, revealing that she had found a glass cutter, a medical syringe, a urinary catheter, and saline solution in Cindy's room after her death, items that seemed eerily similar to tools used in some of the staged attacks. Cindy had previously reported these ones, and you know, like these attacks happened whatever, and these tools were most likely and potentially used in those attacks. The psychiatrist who
treated Cindy over the years also took the stand. One doctor, Paul Termisano, testified that he believed Cindy suffered from hysteronic personality disorder, a condition marked by attention seeking behavior and exaggerated emotions. Another specialist suggested borderline personality disorder with elements
of severe PTSD. Several forensic experts were also brought in to demonstrate how Cindy could have tied herself up during those past attacks, and medical professionals explained how long she could have remained conscious after injecting herself with drugs that were found in her system. After forty days of testimony, the jury couldn't reach a clear conclusion. They found no solid proof that Cindy had been murdered, but they also couldn't find definitively proof or one way or another to
say that it was a suicide. They officially ruled her death as death by an unknown event, and with that the case was formally closed. The RCMP had spent over one point five million dollars investigating the case of Cindy James, and yet there was no evidence at hand. There was no evidence a stalker ever existed existed, there was no
evidence there was a murder. And because of that, many people who study the case of Cindy James believed that she was behind the entire ordeal from the beginning, whether she knew it or not. And that's the case of Cindy James. Ding fucking dang, yeah right, try and swallow that case and process.
It no shit, Because the amount of times, even just listening that I went back and forth to like, there's a stocker, No, it's Cindy, there's a stock or no, it's Cindy. At this point, I have no fucking idea. I can't even I can't even say.
I'm right there with you. Did I or did I not? Tell you that you're gonna be like what the fuck at the very end, I can't remember what we said in part one, the exact quote or how we said it, but I remember being like, no, you're gonna be like this is a fucking, weird, fucked up case. And I can't remember or don't know. Shit.
Yeah, this amount of times that I've gone back and forth, and I'm even right now, I just did again because I'm like, no, like she someone did this to her, No, it was her, just oh man, I don't know. No, I mean, even the jury couldn't figure it out, right, and they had all the details, so.
Yeah, wow, So yeah, I don't even know what else to say. I can't say much more on this one, because holy shit, what a case. There is so much to it, so much tunpack and like you said and put it very well, even the jury couldn't figure it out.
So yeah, okay, because she in Part one we did discuss though, how she there was she felt like she was a little bit I don't know if neglect does the right word, but not really giving the attention as a child, right, or she didn't get much attention as a child. That was a thing, right, I can't recall, I don't think so, okay, I don't know.
Maybe thinking of a different case.
I don't know, because I was just thinking about the one diagnosis where they said that she was like seeking attention and stuff, you know.
Okay, Well, let me go back in my notes here and let's double check this now. I do recall. I don't think she had like the best upbringing by any means. And obviously, I mean, as far as Roy says, it does seem like there was.
Some other shit really mad.
Yeah, yeah, okay, So I found the spot that you're thinking of here. So I'm just going to read right from the script exactly what we said in part one. Where should I start? Okay, So she was one of six kids, and growing up back then was a whole different world Matilda and Auto. Her parents were pretty old school. They believe kids should be quiet, behave and not make a fuss. Auto in particular, was off as nails if he was in a bad mood. It was unusual that
the kids, sorry, where am I here? It was usually there we go. It was usually the kids who ended up on the receiving end. And his way of handling discipline was well, let's say not exactly gentle. In his mind, if something was wrong, he could just smack it out of you. From a young age, Cindy figured out the safest way was safe at bat was to stay out
of Auto's stay on Auto's good side. Yeah, okay, Now, I mean she did like trying, Like she threw herself into her schoolwork and like hope that, like you doing well, she might make her dad proud or something like that.
Yeah, but she never really yeah happened.
Yeah, so she is like a sentence I do have here is whenever she got even the sliver of attentions from him, she would light up and go on about her latest accomplishment.
Yeah, like it wasn't something that was often handed out to her.
Yeah. So I'm not gonna say that she was like attention seeking, but she did, I guess, I guess maybe yeah.
Yeah. So then of a sudden, so I'm just thinking as an adult, then you know, she may crave attention because she didn't necessarily get it as a kid. I don't know.
Holy shit, even if someone craves attention, this is an extreme way to go about it. Yeah, because she ended up If that is the case, she ended up killing herself and she would get attention like holy shit.
Another thought too that I had while you were chatting is if if she'd set this up and then at one point, I don't know, I don't know exactly how it works, but it came to and realized what the fuck she did? You know, because I don't know if she I don't know how quickly you can switch back and forth to what they're saying she could have, do you know what I mean, Like.
She snaps out of it and she's, yeah, yeah, who.
Knows, Like she did this to herself in that you know state and then comes too from it and is like holy shit.
But if that is the case, if she was in a state where she did it to herself and then she comes to she probably didn't realize she was the one who did it.
Well yeah, but just like panicking to try to get out and oh gosh. Well.
And that's the thing too, is if she was the one to do it, as the theory goes, she did it to herself expecting to be found and saved, but when she came to if she if she did, if she did, that's heavily on the if she did theory, then when she came to. Then she's struggling to get free because hey, she doesn't remember that she put herself in that state, but the in that state version of
herself was expecting her to be found. And then she's struggling, and then never did get found, and then she died, and then it was two weeks later that she gets found. Like you know what I mean, it's there's a lot of theories about it, and it's it's so messed up to think about. I don't know where I was going with that thought, but it's so messed up to think about.
I know, in my mind, I think it would just be so easy to prove if she did that to herself, but I guess it wasn't.
So yeah, well, gang, Yeah, So that's the story of Cindy James and the Invisible Man, very aptly named because she claimed there was a man stalking her and there is no evidence he ever existed at all. If you guys have some thoughts in this case, we'd love to hear it. Use an email message, you name it. We have all our stuff in the description of this podcast. You can check it out, get a hold of us, check some things out like Patreon. Maybe you can go
join it. Maybe you can give us a review. We are an indie podcast, produced, hosted, researched all of it on our own. So thank you for support, because your support is what keeps us going.
Okay, just the last note here, I'm like, creep the shit out now, because during this recording, we well, we have a scale that talks to us, which is really fucking annoying me. You step on there and it's like hello, and then it tells you your weight, so it's like announces it to the world. But we were just like sitting here and the thing was just we haven't used it for a few days, and it just started going like hello, hello, Hello, Hello. Something was trying to talk to us. Maybe like that
is so creepy. Maybe it was Cindy.
Maybe it was.
Like, Okay, now I don't know how I'm going to go about my day.
Clearly you're still stuck on the scale.
That's creepy.
Well not stuck on the scale, but in your mind.
So yeah, that's creepy though. Yeah, that's never done.
That before, No it hasn't. I mean it is an older scale at this point. Maybe it's just starting to crode inside yourself.
Throw it out and get We.
Have a haunted scale in our.
House communicating about these cases.
What if it's not Cindy, What if it's the invisible Man?
Okay, we gotta go.
Okay, Well, until next time, stay wicked,