OR OR - Cindy King, 15, Grants Pass, 19 July 1977

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alb1on said:
It seems surprising there is not more out there about this case. http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=bruceyork&id=I217187 is a family tree page which includes the obituary of her father from 2012. It appears her father and mother divorced when she was young so she may have been estranged from that side of her family. I assume her mother was his first wife, Martha Slaven, as Cindy was born in 1961 and Martha had 12 children after marrying in 1952. This also means there are lots of siblings still out there, including a Jamie Kent - still listed as in Grants Pass in 2012 according to the obituary. Jamie Kent has a facebook page (which now places her in Portland); the page seems a little odd. Perhaps Cindy felt out of step with her family?
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So, I got particularly turned around while researching Cindy's family tree for multiple reasons. At first glance, it seems slightly interconnected, as Martha Slaven shares the same maiden name as- Get this- James Curtis King's mother. However, this seems like possibly a census error, as I believe Martha's maiden name was actually Slaney, not Slaven, thanks to a census record I dug up from when she was 5 that gives Slaney as her last name. I also found a divorce record for James and Martha dated from March of 1962 from Josephine County, Oregon. This all but confirms that James, Cindy's father, may have been the relative that she was staying with in Grants Pass. He was also the petitioner in the divorce, meaning he filed against Martha. The reason? Desertion. So it looks as though Cindy's mother may have stepped out and she was in the care of her father, who may have ben single-dadding through life in her infancy.
 
ALightForEricka said:
So, I got particularly turned around while researching Cindy's family tree for multiple reasons. At first glance, it seems slightly interconnected, as Martha Slaven shares the same maiden name as- Get this- James Curtis King's mother. However, this seems like possibly a census error, as I believe Martha's maiden name was actually Slaney, not Slaven, thanks to a census record I dug up from when she was 5 that gives Slaney as her last name. I also found a divorce record for James and Martha dated from March of 1962 from Josephine County, Oregon. This all but confirms that James, Cindy's father, may have been the relative that she was staying with in Grants Pass. He was also the petitioner in the divorce, meaning he filed against Martha. The reason? Desertion. So it looks as though Cindy's mother may have stepped out and she was in the care of her father, who may have ben single-dadding through life in her infancy.
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I think the tree may be more than a little interconnected. I am pretty sure Slaven was Martha's maiden name as the image of her signature on the 1952 marriage certificate clearly reads Slaven and shows her father as Ezra Slaven (which accords with other records). I attach a pic of the certificate. But it goes beyond that connection. Martha's mother was Dora - whose maiden name was King, like her husband. I cannot see the relationships at present (the Slaven clan is quite extensive and King is a pretty common name) but it seems likely that it was a cousin marriage of some sort.
I do not see this as especially material to Cindy's case but it is interesting.
 

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alb1on said:
I think the tree may be more than a little interconnected. I am pretty sure Slaven was Martha's maiden name as the image of her signature on the 1952 marriage certificate clearly reads Slaven and shows her father as Ezra Slaven (which accords with other records). I attach a pic of the certificate. But it goes beyond that connection. Martha's mother was Dora - whose maiden name was King, like her husband. I cannot see the relationships at present (the Slaven clan is quite extensive and King is a pretty common name) but it seems likely that it was a cousin marriage of some sort.
I do not see this as especially material to Cindy's case but it is interesting.
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So, I've actually been able to contact a relation, very distant, who has mapped out the majority of the Slaven/King tree and they have been immensely helpful in clearing up some things. So far, the two Slaven lines and King lines don't seem to be interconnected, just popular last names at the time by chance. There was a marriage between James C. King's father and his stepdaughter, James' half sister, that produced children so that was an interesting loop to discover.
As previously mentioned, I also found a divorce certificate for James C King and Martha with no last name listed for her, out of Josephine County, and have attached it here. James is the petitioner, the reason listed for the divorce is desertion, and this was less than a year after Cindy's birth.
Things get further complicated when you consider James Kings' remarriage and the birth of his subsequent children throughout the 60s and 70s. By 1968 he had relocated and had one child in Ohio, then by the early 1970's he was in Kentucky. Was Cindy with him, or was she left behind in Oregon? I believe if the latter option is true, she may have been possibly living with James' brother Elihue Granville King, who died in Douglas County, Oregon in 1977 (the same year that Cindy went missing, only months before her disappearance.). Could she have possibly been transferred into the care of a friend or relative who was in Grants Pass at the time?

This mystery just gets deeper.
 

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I'm also willing to consider the possibility that Cindy could be the product of an extramarital affair that James King could have had in Oregon, but if so it's admittedly strange that there doesn't seem to be record of her birth ANYWHERE online. It's like poor Cindy just...faded into the background or was some kind of secret.
 
OK, Unexpected update, but I'm working on verifying this information more solidly so I may be a little vague until then.
I made contact with a person who was younger than Cindy at the time of her vanishing and claims to have been present when Cindy was killed.
This individual told me a rather distressing story in as much detail as they were able, including giving a possible location for Cindy's body on a property in rural Grants Pass.
Apparently, they also told this to JCSO detectives around 2009, when the sheriff's department was going through some financial struggles and were able to do nothing with the information at hand. At least one of the people this individual claims was involved in her death has passed away since then. The second individual who may have simply been present and not directly responsible for her death may still be alive.

To add insult to injury here, the deputy who this person spoke with back in 2009 was fired sometime in the early 2010s for drunken insubordination and espousing conspiracy theories (see attached article) so I'm not even certain if anything with his name attached to it would be given a thorough glance by current LE.

Guess this means I've got to determine who owns the property CIndy could be on, contact them, get a hold of the Sheriff's department somehow to see if they're willing to go over the file again and re-open the case..... anyone have any ideas on how to go about doing all of this?

 
I got the report on Cindy's disappearance from the Josephine County Sheriff's Office. It is FULL of random information. Here are a few highlights.

-Cindy's assumed mother may not have actually been her mother, as the mother who reported her missing is not in fact the Martha Slaven who we were looking at there.

-Cindy wasn't formally reported missing for TEN YEARS. Her mother told police that she attempted to file a missing persons report with their department back in 1977 but there's no record of this.

-Cindy's alleged nickname, Suzanne, is likely only attached to her case because there was a woman named Suzanne who had married into the King last name and was known to use the alias Cindy. She was flagged twice in Florida and brought to the attention of JCSO in 1987 and again in 2008. This person is not Cindy, she's been ruled out twice by LE. This needs to be corrected in all databases.

- in her previous runaway periods, Cindy would usually wind up in the LA/Orange County California areas and was known to hang out with biker types.

I'll make a more comprehensive post in the morning, but this is something to chew on.
 
Aurora90 said:
WHAT?!? I am in disbelief. Please update us all asap. Does this mean there is no DNA on file for her?
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There is DNA on file, that was taken from the mother who reported her missing, a maternal half sister, and a (full?) sister. The information in the report is a little confusing as far as Cindy's genetic makeup. I came up with three possibilities and ruled one out, but the other two are still debatable. I found a divorce record from the woman listed in the report as her mother, and it is interesting specifically because this woman divorced her husband in Josephine County WITHIN WEEKS of the divorce that took place between King and Slaven in the same county. The two also lived within blocks of one another. There is one child listed as being affected by the divorce on the mother's certificate, and 3 listed on the father's as we have seen in this thread.

1- Cindy is the 1 child listed on the mother's divorce. I ruled this out, as I found the ex husband's obituary that clearly states that the woman listed as Cindy's half sister in the report is the child that resulted from this union.

2- Cindy is one of the 3 children on the King/Slaven divorce certificate. While I believe this to be possible, given Cindy's birth date falling before the divorce took place, there is a third theory.

3- Cindy was the result of an extramarital affair between the mother who reported her missing, and James C King.

If theory 3 is the correct one, that means that the DNA on file is accurate. If theory 2 is correct and there is a long-buried family secret (possible but the state ME doesn't seem to believe that Cindy's mother would lie about giving birth to her), that would mean that the DNA on file is not accurate. I really hope that it's theory 3, but if so I am perplexed by why the sister who is a year older than Cindy is listed in her missing persons report as her sister and there is no half-sibling distinction.
 
Update- I have confirmed through family that Cindy was the product of a union between the mother listed in the report, Joy, and James C King. So we can at least rest assured that the DNA on file is accurate.
The conversation with Cindy's family also yielded some interesting insight. Cindy was a bit of a chronic runaway, but always stayed in contact with family, and even wrote her mother a letter (that was filled with what her mother wanted to hear, like that she was in school and doing well) from the LA area before she vanished.

The family was not abusive, but the upbringing was slightly unstable. The family moved around but Grants Pass was always "home base."
Cindy was also in need of extra nutrition as an infant. The tattoo is still widely unknown and it's presumed she got it in the Los Angeles area. The arm being broken twice? Accidental, just the result of her being a rambunctious and kind of klutzy child.

My heart genuinely goes out to this family y'all, we've got to keep the light on for Cindy.
 
ALightForEricka said:
Update- I have confirmed through family that Cindy was the product of a union between the mother listed in the report, Joy, and James C King. So we can at least rest assured that the DNA on file is accurate.
The conversation with Cindy's family also yielded some interesting insight. Cindy was a bit of a chronic runaway, but always stayed in contact with family, and even wrote her mother a letter (that was filled with what her mother wanted to hear, like that she was in school and doing well) from the LA area before she vanished.

The family was not abusive, but the upbringing was slightly unstable. The family moved around but Grants Pass was always "home base."
Cindy was also in need of extra nutrition as an infant. The tattoo is still widely unknown and it's presumed she got it in the Los Angeles area. The arm being broken twice? Accidental, just the result of her being a rambunctious and kind of klutzy child.

My heart genuinely goes out to this family y'all, we've got to keep the light on for Cindy.
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Wow there are a lot of twists and turns. You have done a fantastic job in chasing all of this info down. Is this summary of what you have found correct?
1. James and Martha were married with 2 kids.
2. Cindy was the 3rd child born during their marriage but her mother is not Martha. Her mother is Joy (who was married to another man when Cindy was born) and her father is James.
3. Shortly after Cindy was born, Martha left James, and Joy divorced her husband. James and Joy married.
4. In addition to the two half sibs born to James and Martha, Cindy has another sister. This sister is reported as a full sister, but is a year older than Cindy so born during Joys previous marriage (perhaps Cindy is not the only extra marital child for James and Joy..?)
5. By the time Cindy disappeared, her parents and siblings were no longer in Grants Pass. One uncle remained in the area.
6. Cindy also remained in the area and was last seen/reported to be in Grants Pass.
 
Maat99 said:
Wow there are a lot of twists and turns. You have done a fantastic job in chasing all of this info down. Is this summary of what you have found correct?
1. James and Martha were married with 2 kids.
2. Cindy was the 3rd child born during their marriage but her mother is not Martha. Her mother is Joy (who was married to another man when Cindy was born) and her father is James.
3. Shortly after Cindy was born, Martha left James, and Joy divorced her husband. James and Joy married.
4. In addition to the two half sibs born to James and Martha, Cindy has another sister. This sister is reported as a full sister, but is a year older than Cindy so born during Joys previous marriage (perhaps Cindy is not the only extra marital child for James and Joy..?)
5. By the time Cindy disappeared, her parents and siblings were no longer in Grants Pass. One uncle remained in the area.
6. Cindy also remained in the area and was last seen/reported to be in Grants Pass.
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Most of this is correct, but Cindy's family (at least the sister, brother, and mother she lived with) was actually in the Grants Pass area when she vanished! It's also mostly theorized that while she was last seen by family in GP, she may have been staying with a family friend in LA after that sighting. I'm still working on connecting those parts of the timeline
 
ALightForEricka said:
Most of this is correct, but Cindy's family (at least the sister, brother, and mother she lived with) was actually in the Grants Pass area when she vanished! It's also mostly theorized that while she was last seen by family in GP, she may have been staying with a family friend in LA after that sighting. I'm still working on connecting those parts of the timeline
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Ah ok got it. So she was last seen by family in GP, but given her history of running off to LA, naturally they thought there was a chance that she had done it again.

Did anything ever pan out wrt the person who claims to have first hand knowledge about Cindy’s disappearance? Is the story at least consistent with what is known? Do her family members know the people who were supposed witnesses to her murder?
 
Maat99 said:
Ah ok got it. So she was last seen by family in GP, but given her history of running off to LA, naturally they thought there was a chance that she had done it again.

Did anything ever pan out wrt the person who claims to have first hand knowledge about Cindy’s disappearance? Is the story at least consistent with what is known? Do her family members know the people who were supposed witnesses to her murder?
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That story hasn't quite panned out, and it doesn't really align with what the report or family has to say. I am still interested in figuring out how to check just in case, but got a little stuck in that the property that the person claimed she was buried on is owned by a trust rather than a person.
 
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