Updated Oct 8 2024
Details of Disappearance
Cynthia departed from her family's residence in the 1400 block of Warrington in Washtenaw County, Michigan, west of Ann Arbor, at 7:30 a.m. on January 19, 1970. She was en route to her school, Forsythe Junior High School in the 1600 block of Newport Road in Ann Arbor. She didn't like to ride the bus and preferred to walk the one-mile route.
Cynthia never arrived as scheduled and has never been seen again. She had no prior history of running away from home and she was a good student. She was carrying only two or three dollars in cash when she vanished. There were possible sightings of her in the Ann Arbor area in the days following her disappearance, but none were confirmed.
She called her parents twice during a two-hour period on April 1 or April 2, 1970. The calls reportedly came from the Detroit, Michigan, but during the conversations Cynthia claimed she didn't know her exact whereabouts. She has not been heard from again.
Her relatives received an extortion-type phone call on May 5, 1970, nearly four months after she disappeared. There has not been any other communication regarding her case since that time.
In 2018, authorities announced Arthur Ream was a possible suspect in Cynthia's case and in the disappearances of
Kimberly King,
Kim Larrow,
Nadine O'Dell and
Kellie Brownlee. A photo of Ream is posted with this case summary.
He was convicted of sexual assault in the 1970s and, in 1986, murdered
Cindy Zarzycki, a thirteen-year-old girl who was dating his son. He was convicted of her murder and afterwards, in 2008, he lead authorities to her body, which was buried in a shallow grave 30 miles from Detroit, Michigan.
While in prison, Ream reportedly told cellmates he was serial killer with four to six victims. In May 2018, police began digging at the same property where Cindy had been buried, expecting to find the bodies of other missing girls there. No human remains were located, however, and the digging stopped after a week. Ream died of cancer in prison in August 2024.
All the cases remain unsolved.
