The summer of 1974: Cindy was four and a half, and Michelle was seven. They played by the water at Hamilton beach, and the playground and pool outside the apartment.
Everyone knew most everyone else in the building. Cindy had several friends. One of them, Charmane, lived in the unit above, on the fifth floor.
Cindy was allowed to take the elevator by herself to visit friends, but only one floor up or one floor down.
Friday, July 26, broke with rain and the rest of the afternoon was grey and muggy, drizzling on and off.
Johnny's teenage daughter, Teresa, and her friend, Robyn, had slept over the night before, babysitting when Johnny and Diane went out.
In the morning Cindy dressed in a navy blue tank top, blue shorts and white sneakers.
After lunch Cindy asked Teresa and Robyn if she could go to Charmane's. They told her to ask her mother.
Diane said yes, but only if the kids stayed indoors, because Cindy had earlier complained of an earache.
Diane and Johnny's unit, number 402, was at the end of the hall, next to the interior stairs. Cindy went out the door. The elevator was down to the left.
After a couple of hours, Cindy had not returned. An early dinner was nearly ready.
Johnny arrived home from work. He finally had a regular job, had been working at Burlington Steel five months.
Diane sent Michelle upstairs to get Cindy from Charmane's. No one was home; they had been out all afternoon.
They started knocking on doors. By 5 p.m. Diane had called police.
Johnny told his truck-driving buddies to spread the word on their CB radios to look for her.
He visited Diane's parents on East 45th Street. Diane's youngest sister, Kathy, answered the door.
"Go get your father," he said.
She listened in when he told them: "Someone has taken Cindy," and then he broke down.
"Hundreds comb Mountain for child missing all night" read the headline in the next afternoon's Hamilton Spectator.
"More than 100 searchers were up at dawn today looking for a pretty four-year-old girl missing since yesterday near the precipitous edge of Hamilton's eastern Mountain Brow."
