Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature two borderline unbelievable stories that remain a mystery to this day.
The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.
The first story you'll hear is called The Quarterback, and it's about a famous college quarterback who goes missing.
And the second and final story you'll hear is called Waking Nightmare, and it's about a woman who deals with a violent stalker.
But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Amazon Music Follow Buttons house and steal the little plastic clip on their vacuum that keeps the cord neatly tucked away after use.
Okay, let's get into our first story called The Quarterback.
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Service is not available in all states. From 2002 to 2006, Cullen Finnerty was perhaps the most successful college quarterback in history, winning three national championships and being named the Division II player of the decade.
He was also perhaps the toughest college quarterback in history.
Most quarterbacks will spend their careers looking to avoid getting smashed by defenders.
Not Cullen. Cullen was 6'2", 240 pounds. and he would tell his teammates that he wanted to get hit, and he would hit back.
And his coaches hated it about him, but his teammates loved this about him.
Cullen was also famous for playing through injuries.
His junior year in college, he broke his collarbone, and he didn't tell anyone, and he played through an entire playoff series that he won.
After college, Cullen's professional football career was not nearly as successful as his amateur one.
He played briefly for two NFL football teams, the Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos, but when he wasn't getting any playing time and he just could see the writing on the wall that this was not gonna be a match, he was not gonna make it in the NFL,
He left for Europe to play in a European football league.
But when his European football career started to sputter out as well around 2009, he came back to the United States where he joined a very small-time indoor arena football league.
And while Cullen's love of football was still there as much as it ever was, he knew at this point playing at this low of a level that his career was effectively over.
Around the same time that Cullen was hanging up his football cleats, he would meet Jennifer, who would become his wife.
She was an all-state volleyball player and in many ways was just as competitive and as athletic as Cullen was.
They were kind of like a perfect match for each other.
They married in 2010 and Cullen, this big man, big time quarterback, was shaking and crying at the altar because he was so nervous and excited about marrying Jennifer.
Because I think this was a really big turning point for him where he was basically putting football in the past and starting this new life and building a family with Jennifer.
And he was really excited about it. The newlywed couple moved into a house together in Michigan where they had two kids, and Cullen landed a good job in medical sales, and by all accounts, Cullen was just hitting his stride post-football.
On Memorial Day weekend in 2013, Jennifer's family was planning this three-day fishing trip along the Baldwin River in Michigan, and the Finnerty's decided they would join them.
And so Cullen and his wife and kids, they rented a cabin that was gonna be near the campsite that Jennifer's family was staying at, And for the entire weekend, it was just this great fishing trip where everybody had a great time and the weather was beautiful.
And on May 26th, so the last night of this three-day fishing trip, Cullen, who had recently purchased this pontoon boat that they had used for this fishing trip, he wanted to just go out one more time on his boat, this boat that he was really proud of, and fish for another 30-45 minutes before ending the weekend.
So Colin put on his waders and his jacket and grabbed his fishing pole and he had his family drive him to the stairs that led down to the water where his pontoon boat was.
Before he walked down the steps, he turned and told his family that he'd be out for about 30 to 45 minutes and that he wanted to be picked up at the next boat ramp down the way and that he would call when he needed a ride.
42 minutes later at 9.27 p.m., Jennifer receives a phone call from her husband, and she's expecting it to be the call where he says, okay, I'm ready to get picked up.
But when she answers the phone, Cullen is frantic, and he's telling her that he's being followed by two men in the tree line, that he's out on the water on his pontoon, but there are two men in the tree line that he can't see, but he can hear them, and they've been following him for some time.
And before Jennifer can even get a word out, Cullen says to her that he's going to beach the boat and take his clothes off.
And then he hangs up. Jennifer immediately tries calling Cullen back repeatedly, but he's not picking up.
And so she's left feeling totally confused about what her husband has just told her.
What stood out to her was how scared he sounded on the phone.
And fear was not something she typically associated with Cullen.
This beast of a man, this tough football player, he didn't get scared.
So for him to be that scared sounding and to be describing people basically stalking him, she knew he was in serious trouble. so she calls 911 and she describes where he is in the baldwin river and the police take her report and say we'll send someone out right away after jennifer got off the phone with police she called her family and told them about this really strange phone call from cullen and how she just called the police and she didn't know what to do and so her brother tried calling cullen and cullen answered and when he did matt said hey cullen where are you and cullen would say i don't know where i am but there's these two guys that are still following me And Matt would say, you know, are you still on your boat?
Are you on land? And all Cullen said is, you know, it's getting pretty rough out here.
And then he hung up. Afterwards, Matt would call Jen and he would tell her about this phone call with Cullen.
And it really didn't add any clarity to the situation.
And so Jen and her family decide the best thing they can do is go to the boat ramp where Cullen had said he wanted to be picked up in hopes that maybe he would make his way there and they would find him.
So Jennifer and her family head out to this location and Cullen's not there.
They get out, they're yelling for him. There's no sign of him.
And shortly after, a police car would show up because this was one of the areas where Jennifer had said when she spoke to police that Cullen might be.
And so the police officer gets out. They take an official statement from Jennifer.
And at this point, they file an official missing person report.
Before the police began looking for Cullen, they reached out to his wireless service provider and they asked them to ping his cell phone from the tower.
Any service provider has the ability to roughly triangulate the location of a cell phone based on the last few locations of the phone.
The last four locations that the service provider pinged for Cullen were up to four miles apart from each other, which was bizarre in its own way because the idea that in a very rugged, rough area in a very short amount of time, that Colin had been moving four, five, six, seven miles just to get to these different points, that didn't really make sense.
But also when they looked at these points on a map, it looked like each of them was either near a paved road or in order to get to them, you would have had to cross a paved road.
And so they're thinking to themselves, why does he keep moving point to point if at any one of these locations he's near relative safety?
But as strange as these four locations were, the police now had a really solid starting point.
So they dispatched people to each of these points and they began combing along the river where he had last been seen.
And within an hour, they discovered his boat.
It was a little ways down from where he had been dropped off.
It was missing an oar, and it was basically beached on the side of the river.
It wasn't clear if it had been intentionally beached, but Cullen wasn't in it, and when they searched around the area, they couldn't find any sign that Cullen was in the area.
They were yelling for him. He wasn't yelling back.
Interestingly, a man who owned property near where the pontoon boat was found reported to police hearing screaming or yelling coming from the area where the boat was found around the same time that Cullen went missing.
But despite this piece of information, it didn't actually help them discover where Cullen actually went.
For the next 48 hours, police and hundreds of people searched in the areas where his cell phone had pinged and along the river where his pontoon had been found, but there was no sign of him.
Then on the evening of May 28th, approximately 48 hours after Cullen had gone missing, they discovered his body.
It was located less than a half mile away from a paved road, and it was situated in between those four points that the cell phone provider had given.
He was laying completely face down with his right arm under his body and his left arm over his head, clutching some grass.
When they rolled him over, he had some blood coming out of his nose, but besides that, there was no significant trauma anywhere on his body.
Colin appeared to be wearing all of his clothes.
However, it was noted that the strap on his waders was really badly twisted.
Now, if he had never taken his clothes off, that would have been something he would have fixed.
It would have been very uncomfortable when he started this trip to go fishing.
That would have been something he would have fixed.
Now, he said to his wife on the phone that he was going to be taking his clothes off, which there was no explanation for that, but he clearly said that to his wife and she reported that to police.
And so some have speculated that between that phone call and finding him with the twisted strap on his waders, that that indicates that perhaps his clothes did come off at some point over the past couple of days and were put back on again, either by him or by someone else.
His cell phone had also been found in his front pocket, indicating that those cell phone pings had been his actual location.
Initially, Cullen's autopsy was completely inconclusive.
There was no trauma to his body. There was no obvious thing that killed him.
But later on, it was determined he died of pneumonia caused by inhaling his own vomit.
So we don't know how you get to a place where you're inhaling your own vomit, but I would imagine you're in a pretty panicked state of mind if that could happen to you.
Many people believe Colin's death was the result of a traumatic brain injury caused by all the years of playing football and getting hit in the head.
And so that can lead to paranoia. And so perhaps this was a fit of paranoia.
He got turned around. He got scared. He thought somebody was chasing him.
And then, you know, he vomits and inhales his vomit and that ultimately kills him.
And in 2011, Cullen had briefly shown signs of being a little bit paranoid when one day he thought someone was following him and he actually went to a family member's house and said, I think someone's following me, but he could never identify where this person was or who they were.
But even if this was a fit of paranoia and no one was following him in the woods, well, why didn't he stop on the paved road every time he crossed it?
Because that would have represented safety.
I mean, in 2011, when he supposedly had another fit of paranoia, his instincts were to go to a family member and to seek help.
And so you would think his instincts in this situation would be similar.
He would seek help. He would seek safety.
But he continuously left safety. He left the road.
He left his boat. His boat was safety. Why did he leave his boat?
And even if we turn this around and we say, no, it was not a fit of paranoia that he was in fact being followed by someone or something in the woods, Well, then why would that prompt him to call his wife and say, I'm going to get out of the boat and take my clothes off and then proceed to walk four, five, six, seven miles in a very short period of time, crossing over a paved road at least one or two times and not stopping, not signaling for help?
That doesn't make sense either. And what was that screaming that that resident heard coming from the area where the pontoon boat was found?
Unfortunately, there are many questions in this case, and the vast majority of them will go unanswered.
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The next and final story of today's episode is called Waking Nightmare.
In June of 1982, 38-year-old Cindy Hack divorced her husband, Roy.
As soon as she moved into another home in Vancouver, Canada, she felt this wave of relief come over her.
Their marriage had become abusive and toxic years ago, but her newfound happiness would be short-lived.
Only four months after leaving her husband, Cindy's waking nightmare would begin.
It all started with a late-night phone call on October 7, 1982.
When she answered, the voice on the other side was raspy and angry-sounding.
It addressed Cindy by name and quickly told her that they planned on hurting her.
And before Cindy could do anything, the caller had hung up.
Cindy was horrified and didn't know what to do, so she did nothing.
And then over the next few days, she received more calls from this phantom caller, and each of them began with this person addressing her by name and then threatening violence.
And Cindy began to convince herself that this had to be some terrible prank, and so she continued to do nothing about it.
One night, Cindy couldn't help but feel like she was being watched, and she looked into her living room and she noticed one of her windows was still open.
At night, she would draw all the curtains in her house.
And so she walked over to the window, and she pressed her face up against the glass to look outside, and she didn't see anybody out there.
And so she drew the curtains, turned around, and began walking back towards the kitchen when her phone rang.
She hesitated, but eventually picked the phone up, and on the other side of the call was the mystery caller, who in a mocking tone told her that curtains weren't going to protect her, that they knew when she was home.
This incident pushed her over the edge and she knew this could not be some bad prank.
This was real. And so she contacted the police who made a house visit, but there wasn't any sign of a break-in or any sign of a crime being committed.
And so after walking her property and feeling confident that she was safe, they told her that, you know, you should really consider getting an unlisted telephone number.
That way this mystery person can't keep contacting you.
And so Cindy thanked them and would go on to get an unlisted telephone number.
But not only would the calls continue, they would become more frequent, and in fact, the harassment in general only began to escalate.
Three days later, on October 15th, Cindy and her good friend Agnes were coming back from dinner to Cindy's house.
When they got there, they noticed that one of the front windows had been broken, and so they carefully walked onto the porch and realized the front door was actually unlocked and slightly ajar.
They considered immediately leaving the property and just calling police.
But they sat there for a minute and didn't hear anything inside the house.
And so they decided they would just poke their head in and investigate.
And so when they went inside, all the lights were off and there was no sign of a disturbance.
It was totally quiet. But when they went upstairs, they found feathers all over the hall.
And they followed those feathers all the way to Cindy's room.
And in her room, all of her pillows had been ripped apart.
And a key to her front door was laying conspicuously on her bedside table.
The women fled the house and called police, but when they showed up, there really wasn't much they could do, despite knowing about Cindy's threatening phone call she was getting.
There was just no clear sign of who broke into her house and cut up her pillows.
And so they told her that the best thing she can do is change her locks, make sure everything in her house stays locked at all times when she's home, and if she notices anything out of the ordinary, to call back.
Over the following few days, Cindy got more threatening phone calls and began waking up to threatening notes laying on her front porch that had been made from newspaper and magazine clippings.
This led to the police launching a larger investigation into the matter.
An officer named Pat McBride, who had been on the force for eight years, began checking in on Cindy almost daily.
And very quickly, Pat and Cindy developed a romantic relationship and Pat actually moved into Cindy's house while he was investigating this case.
As soon as Pat moved in, the harassment seemed to stop.
But just a couple of weeks later in early November, Pat woke up one morning at Cindy's house and discovered that her phone lines were dead.
When he went outside to investigate, he discovered that the lines had actually been cut and he found a pair of wire cutters laying on the ground.
Over the following month, in addition to the threatening phone calls and notes left on her porch, Cindy began hearing somebody walking around outside her house at night, but she was always too terrified to go to the window and look outside to see who it was.
She began finding raw meat sitting outside of her door in the morning, and she would find pictures of dead bodies tucked under her windshield wiper on her car.
One day, she walked into her backyard and she discovered three dead cats hanging in her gardens.
Cindy, who was a bubbly, happy person before the harassment started, had become a totally anxious and paranoid mess.
But despite her obvious distress, the local police were starting to doubt her claims that the stalker was even real.
Every time she called them claiming stalker activity, they would go to her house and look around, but they could never find any evidence to suggest that anyone besides her, her friends, or her boyfriend had been there.
And speaking of her boyfriend, police officer Pat McBride, he would tell his co-workers that he was never home when the stalker called and he never heard anybody walking around outside of her house.
He said the only reason he knew about these things is because Cindy told him after the fact.
Upset that the police were not taking her seriously, Cindy broke up with Pat and decided she needed to move and start over in another town.
Just days before Cindy was supposed to relocate, her friend Agnes stopped by.
When she went to the front door and knocked and there was no answer, she walked around to the back and she found her friend crouched down behind the stairs as if she was hiding from something.
She ran over to her and noticed she had this black nylon stocking wrapped tightly around her neck.
But Cindy seemed to be totally unfazed by it and just kept looking out towards her shed.
And so Agnes runs over to Cindy and says, Cindy, what are you doing?
What's on your neck? And Cindy turned to look at her and her eyes were super wide and she was panicked.
And she told Agnes that just minutes ago she had been walking out to her shed to get something when a man leapt out of the shadows and wrapped this nylon around her neck and began choking her. and threatened that if she turned around to look at him, he would attack her family.
So Cindy and this man struggled for a minute until Agnes' car approached, which spooked the man and he ran off.
Agnes was shocked and she grabbed her friend and picked her up.
She pulled the nylon off of her neck, and the two of them ran inside and locked all the doors and windows.
And then at that point, Cindy called the police.
But when the police showed up, the only evidence of this attack was Cindy's first-hand account and this nylon stocking. but the police believed the nylon stocking was Cindy's and she had staged the whole event and she had tied it around her neck herself.
A few days later in January of 1983, Cindy moved into a new home in a town called Richmond, which is a suburb of Vancouver, Canada.
And as soon as she got there, she painted her car a new color and she actually changed her last name to James.
For months, she didn't see or hear from her stalker.
But in October of that year, she found another dead cat on her property with a note next to it that just said, you're next.
Fearing for her life, she called the Richmond police, who set up a surveillance operation on her property.
But for months, despite dozens of officers watching her house at practically all hours, they never, ever saw any stalker activity.
But as soon as the officers left, for any amount of time when there was a gap in surveillance, Cindy would call the police and report stalker activity.
In time, this town's police department also began to suspect that Cindy was fabricating the stalker story, and they told her as much.
Now, blatantly knowing the police were not taking her seriously, Cindy hired a local private detective named Ozzy Caban to look into her case.
Immediately, he installed floodlights all around her property and he gave her a two-way radio to place inside of her house that constantly broadcast back to Ozzy.
That way, if she was in trouble, he would know about it even if she couldn't get to the radio to actually tell him.
He also installed a panic button inside of her house that would send an alarm to him as well as to the police.
In January of 1984, after only being on the case for a couple of weeks, Ozzy heard some strange sounds coming across the two-way radio.
It sounded like there was some sort of struggle happening in Cindy's house.
And so he tried radioing her to ask what was going on, but he didn't get a response.
And so he flew over to her house, he knocked on the door, but there was no answer.
And so he kicked the door down and found Cindy lying in the hallway motionless with a note on top of her hand that was held in place by a paring knife that had been stabbed through the note and then through her hand.
The note said, you're dead, lady. Cindy also had a black nylon stocking wrapped around her neck.
And so initially, Ozzy believed Cindy was dead, but he managed to find a pulse.
And so he brought her to the hospital. And when she regained consciousness, all she could recall was feeling someone inject her arm with a needle.
And then after that, she had no memory of the attack.
The police, believing Cindy had staged the attack, did not bother to take fingerprints at her home or on the knife or on the note.
Ozzie, on the other hand, believed his client was telling the truth.
He didn't believe Cindy was physically capable of injecting herself in the area where the needle had entered her body.
The angle was nearly impossible to achieve on her own.
Once she was released from the hospital, the police, despite believing she was lying, continued their surveillance operation of her property.
But like always, nothing ever happened when any of the officers were on duty.
The stalker activity only was reported after they had left.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery+.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
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You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
Life went on like this for over a year, and during that time, Cindy's mental health continued to decline rapidly.
She lived in constant fear of this stalker, and she was deeply embarrassed that the police believed she was lying.
On December 11th, 1985, Cindy was attacked again, but the details on this are incredibly scant.
Someone found her lying in a ditch six miles away from her home.
She was wearing a single work boot and a single glove.
She was suffering from hypothermia, and she had cuts and bruises all over her body, and she had a black nylon stocking wrapped around her neck.
She had no memory of the attack. The police told her that they believed this was yet another staged event, and so they did not do any significant follow-up.
After a few days in the hospital, she was sent home, but she was terrified to be alone, so she reached out to her friend Agnes and asked if she and her husband Tom would stay with her for a couple of days, and they agreed.
The first night they were there, Cindy woke up in the middle of the night and heard strange sounds coming from the basement.
She woke up Agnes and Tom and they heard the sounds too.
And so they went down to the first floor, they opened up the door to the basement and they looked downstairs and very clearly there was a fire raging in her basement.
And so Cindy immediately ran to the phone to call 911, but they discovered the phone lines had been cut.
And so Tom ran outside to try to find a neighbor to call 911 for them.
And when he went outside, he found a man just standing there in front of the house watching it.
And Tom yelled to him, hey, you need to call 911.
This house is on fire. And this man, without saying a word, just turned and ran down the street.
And that man was never identified. Finally, Tom did get a neighbor to call 911.
The fire department arrived and they put out the fire.
And then after an investigation, they determined that the fire had been set intentionally.
This was an act of arson. And the police said there was no signs of forced entry anywhere around the house, which means someone who was already in the house had to have started the fire.
And they specifically said Cindy had to have started the fire because she stages these events all the time because of the stalker delusion she has.
Agnes and Tom denied this claim, saying they never heard Cindy walking around at night, and she would never jeopardize their lives.
After this event, Cindy became extremely depressed and had to be hospitalized, and for 10 weeks she was under intense psychiatric care.
But at the end of those 10 weeks, the doctors determined that she was not a threat to herself or to anyone else, and so she was sent home.
It was at this time that Cindy went to the police and said that she thinks Roy, her ex-husband, was behind all of the attacks.
Police immediately brought Roy in for questioning and he emphatically denied all allegations, saying he had nothing to do with it and in fact, he had been the victim of this stalker that was going after his ex-wife.
He said he got a number of these threatening phone calls and one time when they called, they left him a voicemail and he played it for the police.
After speaking with Roy and confirming his various alibis, the police ruled him out as a suspect.
For the next three and a half years, Cindy continued to receive threatening phone calls and messages at her house, but no one besides Cindy ever saw this stuff happen live.
While her private investigator, Ozzy, still believed every bit of her story, The Richmond Police Department had grown tired of her and stopped responding to her calls.
On the evening of May 25th, 1989, Agnes showed up at Cindy's house for their scheduled game of bridge.
When she knocked on the door, there was no answer.
And because Agnes and Cindy were very close, Agnes tried the front door, it was unlocked, and so she let herself in, thinking Cindy must be upstairs taking a shower.
But when she stepped inside, the house was totally silent.
And after a couple of minutes of no commotion upstairs, Agnes began searching the house for her friend, and she discovered that Cindy wasn't there.
And so she called the police. The police launched a search and very quickly found Cindy's car in a parking lot at a local supermarket.
And when investigators went over the car, they discovered there was blood on the outside of the driver's side door.
The contents of Cindy's purse, including her credit cards and ID, were scattered about on the ground near the car.
And then in the trunk of the vehicle were the groceries that Cindy had recently purchased.
But despite her car being found, there was really no indication of where she went next.
Her friends and family believed she had been kidnapped by her stalker, and the police believed she was staging yet another event.
But regardless, no one could find her. Two weeks after her disappearance and one and a half miles away from where her car had been found, a road worker had drank too much coffee and needed to use the bathroom.
But where they were working, they did not have a portage on and they were not near any local businesses that might offer public restrooms.
The only area that offered any privacy was the abandoned building that was right near their worksite.
And so this worker told his crew where he was headed.
He turned and began walking across the totally overgrown front yard of this property.
And as he began walking around the side of this building, he smelled this horrific smell, like one of the worst smells he'd ever smelled in his life.
And he assumed that because this property was abandoned, maybe people were dumping their trash on it somewhere and it's a hot day and that's why it smells.
But either way, he wrote it off. He walked around to the back of this building.
He found a good spot. He relieved himself.
He turned around and began walking back along the side to go back to the road when he stopped because he saw something lying near the side of the house that he was surprised he hadn't noticed on his way in.
He couldn't really see what it was because the tall grass was obscuring his view.
And so he took a couple steps forward to get a better look.
And when he could see clearly what it was, he stopped because laying in front of him was a clearly deceased woman laying on her side, with her hands and feet bound behind her back.
And around her neck was a black nylon stocking.
It was the body of Cindy James. Despite the nylon around her neck, the autopsy revealed she did not die from strangulation.
She died from an overdose of morphine and other drugs.
The police brought in a not-expert who was easily able to put himself in the same position that Cindy was in and tie himself up.
With this information, combined with their belief that Cindy was a pathological liar, they concluded that this had to have been self-inflicted, that she injected herself with the lethal dose and then dropped down to the ground and tied herself up to stage the epic conclusion to this stalker delusion.
To cover their bases, the police did re-interview Roy, the ex-husband, but his alibi checked out and realistically, he was never actually a suspect.
It's not listed online whether Pat McBride, the police officer ex-boyfriend, was ever investigated.
While the police were very confident in their theory of what happened to Cindy, there were some discrepancies.
The medical examiner did not agree with the ruling that this was a suicide.
He said that you can't conclude that, there's not enough evidence.
During the autopsy, it was discovered that Cindy did have an injection mark in her arm but they could never find the needle anywhere near her body or anywhere between her and her parked car.
Considering the extremely high dosage of narcotic that was found in Cindy's system, if this had been a suicide, as soon as she injected herself, she would have had to immediately shift gears, get down on the ground, and start hog-tying herself before she became too intoxicated to function.
Meaning the needle should have been right around where she was found, but it wasn't.
Also missing from the crime scene were Cindy's shoes and socks.
And interestingly, her bare feet were totally clean, despite the fact that in order to get where she was found, she would have had to cover a distance of at least a mile and a half from her parked car.
But again, there was no dirt or any markings on the underside of her feet.
Also, it was strange that she wasn't discovered faster than two weeks.
Although she was found near this abandoned house that was totally overgrown, the house was actually frequented by teenagers And there was a walking trail nearby that would have had a line of sight on her body.
These discrepancies have led many people to believe that Cindy did have a stalker.
And this stalker kidnapped her in the supermarket parking lot.
They tied her up. They injected her with the lethal dose of morphine.
And then after she had died, they dumped her near this abandoned property right before she was found.
And they had left that black nylon tied around her neck because that was the stalker's signature.
Some have taken this a step further and said Pat McBride, the police officer, was behind the attacks, because he would have known when surveillance was set up on her house and could have very easily avoided detection.
But the most bizarre and fascinating theory of what happened to Cindy is that she had Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID.
This is where someone maintains at least two distinct personalities, and when one of those personalities is active, the other kind of fades and has no memory of this experience, creating these huge memory gaps.
And so the theory goes, one of Cindy's personalities was effectively stalking herself.
Or more specifically, one of her personalities hated herself and wanted to do herself harm.
And so that personality would do things like stab her own hand or run six miles away into some ditch and leave herself for dead.
And then Cindy's other personality would take back over and she would suddenly come to having no memory of how she became injured or how she wound up in this ditch.
And so when she went to police to tell them that someone is stalking, is harassing, is attacking me, she was telling the truth.
But that someone, that stalker, was actually her.
She just didn't know it. But Roy, her ex-husband, was a psychiatrist.
And in their 16 years of marriage, he never noticed this condition.
And when Cindy was in that psychiatric ward for 10 weeks following one of her stalker attacks, none of the doctors or psychiatrists ever noticed or diagnosed her with this condition.
It's still possible she had DID and it just came on later in life and it didn't present itself enough to be noticed during those 10 weeks of psychiatric care.
But realistically, this reduces the chances of DID being behind this whole thing.
To date, her death is still considered a suicide and no one has ever been charged in connection with her death.
A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
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