Cindy Wanner

True Crime All The Time

The episode explores the 35-year cold case of Cindy Wanner, who was abducted and murdered in 1991 near Granite Bay, California. Despite earl

Key takeaways

• Cindy Wanner's body was discovered in a mountainous area near Forest Hill, showing signs of ligature strangulation.
• A suspicious $40 withdrawal from Cindy's bank card at an AMPM mini mart occurred shortly after her disappearance.

Main topics

• Cold case resolution
• Advancements in DNA forensics

Notable quotes

She's got a four year old. She's got an 11 month old. They're not going to, you know, get that time with her.

Conclusion

The episode highlights how the evolution of forensic science can event

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hello everyone and welcome to episode 535 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? I'm good, man. And yourself? I'm doing great. Speaker 3 (0:13) Yeah. We Speaker 2 (0:14) just talked on Patreon about all the good television shows we're watching. I know. There's so many out there, it's kind of hard to get them all in. Speaker 3 (0:22) I feel like I need to develop my own series. Speaker 2 (0:24) Yeah. That would be Gangbusters. There's the name. The gangbusters. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time? I'm ready. We're talking about Cindy Wanner. In November 1991, Cindy Wanner was abducted from a suburban home outside Sacramento and strangled to death. Decades later, facial recognition technology helped solve the murder. 35-year-old Cindy was a devoted mother of two. She was married to Bob Wanner. And they had two children who were four and 11 months old at the time of Cindy's death. Little ones. Yeah. It's, it's heartbreaking, right? Anytime someone is killed, but then you look at the scenario, right? She's got a four year old. She's got an 11 month old. They're not going to, you know, get that time with her. No. Growing up. Speaker 3 (1:26) And, you Speaker 2 (1:27) know, kids need that. Speaker 3 (1:28) They need their mom. Speaker 2 (1:30) They do. And then you start to think about, okay, all the milestones. So every birthday, every Christmas, graduation, getting married, and it just makes it even that much more heartbreaking. I Speaker 3 (1:47) mean, for an 11-year-old, I mean. 11-month-old. I mean, 11-month-old. I don't remember when kids start walking and talking and some Speaker 2 (1:54) about, I think my oldest started about 11 months. Speaker 3 (1:57) Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:58) Walking, Speaker 3 (1:59) missing all that, you know, missing the, you know, time that you don't have to change diapers anymore. Speaker 2 (2:05) I don't miss those days, but Cindy and Bob moved to Rancho Cordova, California from Denver in 1990 after they both lost their jobs. Bob was working as a truck driver at the time of his wife's death. You know, you and I have talked a lot about Denver. We spent a lot of time in Denver. We had a company that we worked with out in Denver. So we had to go out there. Both of us did. And it's a great state, man. It's beautiful. And I love the city of Denver. Colorado is great in general. Colorado is Speaker 3 (2:37) beautiful. Yeah. It really Speaker 2 (2:39) is. Cindy's oldest sister, Elaine, described her as a very religious woman and a devoted mother with no enemies. Okay. Well, we already know that she's going to be found strangled to death. So for investigators, you're starting out with a woman who allegedly has no known enemies. Where do you go? Speaker 3 (3:05) She had to make somebody upset. Speaker 2 (3:06) Yeah, to want to kill her. Unless this was just an opportunistic type of stranger murder. About six weeks before Cindy went missing. Her sister Susan and her husband Phil moved into a new home in Granite Bay, a suburb of Sacramento. Cindy was paid to clean her sister's house on Mondays. Cindy had recently spoken to officials at her church about getting help finding a job. Several weekends before her death, Cindy collected a box of clothes from the church to put on a garage sale to help pay for an ear operation their youngest daughter. need it. Speaker 3 (3:47) Okay. So, I mean, she sounds like she's doing what she can to help out, right? Speaker 2 (3:51) Yeah. But it also sounds like, you know, they, they couldn't have been, you know, in the best place financially. They both lost their jobs. That's why they had to move to California. I mean, uh, Bob's working, she's still looking for a job. She's cleaning her sister's house. But the other thing is you can see, and this happens a lot with the church, right? People will oftentimes really come together and help out, you know, a member of the congregation who's in need. And it sounds like they were, you know. an ear operation for their youngest daughter. That's not elective. That's not, you know, something that, you know, you're not straightening teeth. This is something that really needs to be done. It needs to happen. It needs to happen. And I'm sure it's not cheap. On November 25th, 1991, Cindy went to her sister's home in Granite Bay to clean. She brought her 11 month old baby with her. Authorities believe. Cindy was abducted between 1230 and 1 15 PM. This was between the time her sister and brother-in-law left the house and Cindy's husband, Bob arrived to pick her up. It was just fairly small window. That's what I was thinking. I just talked about, you know, here's a woman who people said, you know, have no known enemies, but they do have what appears to be a pretty. Small window of time. Yeah. When they believe that this abduction took place, Bob told police that he was bringing over a load of wood from Susan and Phil's old house and had just picked up their daughter from daycare. When he arrived at the house to get Cindy, Bob rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. He heard his younger daughter crying inside. The front door was unlocked. He entered the house. He found the baby sitting in her high chair at the dining room table where she had been when Cindy's sister and brother-in-law left. So I just got done talking about, right, here's a woman, no known enemies. That doesn't give investigators much to go on. But they do have a pretty small window of time here where they believe the abduction happened. And then it's like, you know, as you're putting it all together, it seems pretty obvious to me, and I think it would to investigators, that this happened pretty soon after. Her sister and brother-in-law left. The baby was already, you know, like in a high chair. And then the baby's still in that high chair. Yeah. So somebody came in, abducted, you know, Cindy, left the baby. And then her husband comes in and finds the baby. Speaker 3 (6:52) And if I was the husband, I'd be wondering, did I just miss him? Did I just? Oh. I mean, how close was I to getting there when this was all taking place? Was Speaker 2 (7:00) it five minutes? Was it 30 minutes, right? 45 minutes. It's somewhere in there. Speaker 3 (7:07) Did I be thinking about all the cars I passed headed Speaker 2 (7:10) there Speaker 3 (7:10) coming in? Did I see the, Speaker 2 (7:11) yeah. Did I miss them? Cindy's brother-in-law, Phil, called the house around 1.15 p.m. to talk to Cindy. Bob answered and asked where she was. So, you know, you're. finding out a little bit more, right? How they came to this kind of a small window of time. Concerningly, Cindy left behind her shoes and her coat, but seemed to have taken her purse with her. And this is something that we talk a lot about, especially on unsolved, right? What do people leave behind? And sometimes it's in the context of, well, did they, uh, you know, up and leave to start a new life where they're not happy. But here there's a couple of things that are jumping out to me. First of all, what mother's going to leave her 11 month old baby just sitting in the high chair? Yeah. Speaker 3 (8:10) Very unlikely. Speaker 2 (8:10) Very unlikely. And then who leaves the house without your shoes or a coat? Well, yeah. Depending Speaker 3 (8:18) on what the weather's like. Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:20) That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I go out all the time without a coat. I don't leave the house barefoot. That's kind of a non-starter for me. Speaker 3 (8:29) But if she was abducted, right? They're not going to take those items. Maybe they grab the purse because maybe they think there's a way to get some money from her. Speaker 2 (8:37) Yeah, maybe her ATM card is in there or cash is in there or whatever. But they don't care if she has to walk barefoot. No. Possibly. Bob called the police to report his wife missing. Yeah, that has to be a really tough one for a husband, would be for a wife if it was the other way around. Officers found no signs of a struggle in the home, but Cindy had vanished. Her family knew she would never abandon the baby. Speaker 3 (9:06) No, as you just talked about, who would ever leave an 11-month-old? Speaker 2 (9:10) Yeah. And they knew she wouldn't leave without, you know, her coat or shoes or a vehicle, right? How, what is she going to do? She's walking on foot to where? Barefoot. Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:25) It Speaker 2 (9:25) doesn't make any sense. Investigators wouldn't comment on whether Bob was a suspect, but family members told the Sacramento Bee that Cindy and Bob had a really strong marriage. Now, make of that what you will. Because we've done many cases where the marriage was said to have been great. There's no cracks there. You know, these people are the perfect couple. And then, you know, it all starts to come out that no, they weren't right. One was cheating on the other or one was plotting to kill the other or did kill the other. But it wouldn't surprise me. Right. Bob. May not be called a suspect, but at the very least, he has to be a person of interest. Speaker 3 (10:14) Oh, I think for sure. The Speaker 2 (10:16) husband's always going to be. They're Speaker 3 (10:17) going to look into it. Speaker 2 (10:18) Until they're ruled out. Yeah. Pastor Glenn Cole of the Capital Christian Center told the Bee that when he arrived at the house, Bob was lying in the backyard, sobbing uncontrolled. And, you know, you would expect a loving husband. in that scenario where he thinks his wife has been abducted, to kind of be inconsolable. Speaker 3 (10:43) I think you'd either be like that or you'd be so mad, you know, that you would just be screaming and just like. Speaker 2 (10:51) Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is, people can fake that. They can. You know, it can be faked. And police are normally pretty good, especially detectives, at telling what's real and what's not. You know, they can't always. Police called off intensive search efforts on November 28th after scent dogs, helicopters, and ground searchers failed to find any trace of Cindy. So that's why it's like three days. Speaker 3 (11:23) Yeah. You Speaker 2 (11:24) know, but at a certain point when you feel like, you know, there's nothing else to look at or. you know, you don't have a direction, right? You've probably gone within a certain radius anywhere outside of that. You'd just be throwing darts at a, at a wall. Well, that's true. And spending a bunch of money and, and using up a bunch of resources. Now, if you're the family, That's not going to make you feel good, but it is the Speaker 3 (11:56) truth. Yeah. I mean, at this point, it's a needle in a haystack. Speaker 2 (11:59) Yeah. At a certain point, you're going to have to wait to get some more information. Now, investigators had to resolve some possible sighting. On December 3rd, Placer County officials issued another plea for help. Inspector Johnny Smith said there was nothing in the family's background that was out of the ordinary. there were no indications that Cindy would have left voluntarily. And I think that's true in most cases. Speaker 3 (12:28) I think so. Speaker 2 (12:29) Every now and then somebody says, you know, I hate my life. I don't want to, you know, go through this. I want to do something different. Okay. Well then maybe you start to think they could have voluntarily left to start a new life. But in most of the cases that we've done, that that's just not how it works. Speaker 3 (12:50) Yeah. Or how it's been. I can see where you can say, well, maybe there's some of that postpartum, you know. Speaker 2 (12:58) Depression. Depression driving this. Speaker 3 (12:59) But from everything that we heard, I don't believe that that was the case. So if she didn't leave voluntarily, that means somebody had to come and take her. Speaker 2 (13:10) I Speaker 3 (13:10) mean, that's the only option you have left, right? Speaker 2 (13:12) Yeah. Yeah. I don't