The Disappearance of Cynthia Anderson
In the early 1980s, Cynthia Anderson was just a mere 20 years old. For weeks she had been plagued with horrendous re-occurring nightmares of being abducted. About ten months before her disappearance someone had painted ‘I Love You Cindy – By GW’ on a wall in the parking lot of where her office was based. At the time she was the only Cynthia/Cindy that work in the vicinity. The weird love note was left for six months before being painted over. Cynthia was then horrified to see that a few weeks later the weird message appeared again, but this time even bigger. The police initially investigated all those who worked in the area with the initials ‘GW’ including a maintenance man who had keys to the legal office in which Cynthia worked. Although there was no evidence tying him to her being abducted. The police also couldn’t confirm that these incidences were actually linked to her disappearance.
On August 4th 1981, Cynthia went to work like she did every day as a secretary in a legal office. She usually worked alone during the morning so would always keep her office locked. At just after noon two of her colleagues returned to find her office completely empty. The door was still locked from the inside, the radio, lights and air conditioning were also all still on. Her coworkers also found it weird that the romance novel she had been reading had been left open on the only violent page in the book. One of them stated that “It wasn’t until really looking at the book, particularly reading the passage in the novel, that I had a sickening feeling that something was wrong.” Once the police investigated the scene they found that Cynthia’s purse and keys were missing but other than that the office was undisturbed. They also believed that based on the fact that she hadn’t answered any calls since 10 am that she was abducted around that time.
Since her disappearance, Cynthia has never been seen again and her body never found. Although in the September of the same year the police received an anonymous call from a woman claiming that Cynthia was being held against her will. The caller appeared very nervous and refused to give the police her name. The woman stated that Cynthia was being held in a basement of a white house and that they were two house, side by side, owned by the same family. The caller gave no address and when pushed for more information hung up. A few minutes later she did call back but subsequently hung up when another investigator tried to listen in on the call. The unknown caller has not called back since and the police could never be sure whether the information was legitimate.
After Cynthia’s disappearance, a local jury charged nine people for drug trafficking. Many believe that Cynthia knew one of the individuals and was killed after overhearing a conversation that would incriminate them. However, no charges were ever filed.
Cynthia’s father Michael Anderson often thought that his daughter was living somewhere with amnesia and didn’t know who she was, “If she herself is out there, we want her to know we love her and we certainly want her to come back, whatever the case may be. The door is open, we certainly want anybody and everybody that can possibly help in this situation to do so.”
Police still believe, forty years on, that foul play was definitely involved in Cynthia’s disappearance and that she was most likely killed shortly after she went missing. Although her mother died of cancer in 1983 and her father sadly passed away in 2006 after years of searching for Cynthia, she still has family and friends in the Toledo area who hope that one-day justice will finally be served.
