Dark Premonitions and the Mysterious Vanishing of Cynthia Anderson

Throughout the ages, there has been the idea that sometimes dreams are more than just dreams. It has long been believed by many cultures that dreams are not always merely images spewed forth by the subconscious, but rather can also be glimpses into the landscapes of the future or even other alternate dimensions and realities. One person who may have known this to be true was an otherwise nondescript woman who had dark nightmares of her unfortunate future, before vanishing off the face of the earth. 

Born in Lambertville Michigan on February 4th, 1961, Cynthia “Cindy” Anderson, her sister, Christine, and their two brothers Mark and James were raised in a very strict Christian fundamentalist family where much of their life revolved around going to church and doing church activities. They were hit with strict curfews and rules about who they could associate with, but Cynthia was friendly, well-liked, and had a lot of friends. In 1980, she was 20 years old and excited about a new chapter unfolding in her life. She and her boyfriend Jeff were getting set to attend a Bible college together, with her planning to quit her job, putting in a two-week notice at the law office she worked at as a secretary in Toledo, Ohio. At around this time, she was growing up out of her strict Christian roots, spending more and more time on her hair, make-up, and general appearance, as well as socializing more with an array of people that her parents did not always approve of. This annoyed her strict parents, but mostly she had a lot to look forward to and a new life stretched out before her. But things were about to take a turn for the ominous.

It began with a creepy occurrence at work. One day she went into the office as usual and scrawled across the wall in front of her office window directly in view of her work desk were the words “I LOVE YOU CINDY BY GW,” written in big letters that everyone could see. This was very disturbing to not only Cindy but also her coworkers. Everyone at the office insisted that they had not written it, and making it even more peculiar was that Cynthia did not know anyone with the initials “GW” and there was no one else named Cindy working there. The message was removed but a few weeks later it appeared again, this time even bigger and more visible than the first time. Not long after this, an unknown caller began calling her office and harassing her, and her boss advised her to keep the doors locked at all times for her safety. The company was so freaked out that they even installed an emergency buzzer at her desk that she could press at any time to bring help. 

At around this time, Cindy began having a series of potent nightmares in which the same thing always happened. In these nightmares, she would be in her office and hear a knock at the door. When she would answer it she would find a man she recognized standing there and she would let him in. After this, the man would start to chase her around the office and she would desperately try to get away from him before he would subdue her, torment her, and finally brutally murder her. This last part would propel her from the nightmare in a cold sweat and panic, her heart beating out of her chest. These nightmares would happen nearly every night for months on end, and when she would tell her mother about them she was told it was just bad dreams. Cindy wasn’t so sure, feeling that the nightmares were incredibly realistic, detailed, and lucid far beyond the norm. 

These nightmares plagued Cindy for nearly a year, and she became more paranoid and reclusive, to the point that her family and friends were getting worried about her. She was nervous, losing sleep, she was a wreck. It made her particularly nervous because she was usually working alone in the office in the morning hours, so her hand was never far from that emergency buzzer and the doors were always firmly locked. 

On August 4, 1981, Cindy arrived at the legal office as usual at 8:30 a.m. for work. When she left home there was nothing really amiss, and she went off to work as if it were any other day. She was seen to arrive, and like usual she locked the door and sequestered herself away to work the morning alone. At 12 p.m., two of her coworkers arrived to find the office empty. It was odd because Cindy's car was still in the parking lot, all of the doors were locked, and the lights, air conditioner, and radio were all on. The phones had also not been placed on hold and there was no note saying she would be back, both things being what Cindy would have normally done when leaving the office even for a short errand. A book Cindy was reading was lying open and face down on the desk. Oddly no one had seen what had happened to her, despite the office being covered with large plate glass windows allowing a full view of the surrounding strip mall. It was all really weird because Cindy was considered a model employee not prone to just leaving the office on a whim. It looked as if she had just stepped out and would come back at any moment, but she never did and authorities were notified.

Police soon found that the only items missing were Cindy's car keys and purse and that there was no evidence at all of a forced entry or struggle in the office. She had stopped taking calls at around 10 a.m., so it was thought that if she had been abducted or run off, then it had probably been at about that time. Rather eerily, the book found on the desk was open to a page that depicted a violent abduction at knifepoint, which was indeed the only violent scene in the entire romance novel, but whether this was intentional or pure coincidence is hard to say. Police suspected an abduction, but it was difficult to prove since there was no trace of forced entry, the doors were all locked, and the emergency buzzer at her desk hadn’t been activated. It was also suggested that she might have run away, but her family vehemently denied that she was the type to do such a thing, especially since she had been looking forward to going off to college with her boyfriend and starting a new life. 

Authorities would find another ominous clue when they spoke with one of Cindy’s clients, a man by the name of Larry Mullins. He claimed that the day before her disappearance he had been at the office to pay a bill and he was just sitting and chatting with Cindy at her desk while he was paying it. While they were doing this, the phone rang and Cindy picked it up. Almost immediately her face had gone pale and she had slammed down the phone. A few minutes later, the phone rang again and the same thing happened. According to Mullins she would not explain what the calls had been about and said she was fine, but that she had looked absolutely terrified. It was so unusual and unnerving that Mullins had even called the police to request a patrol car to drive by there later that day to make sure she was alright. 

In light of the disappearance, this certainly seemed eery, but there was no real evidence to tie the mysterious calls to the vanishing. Likewise, the mysterious love notes left by “GW” could not be linked to it, and there was no one found with those initials who had anything to do with Cindy. The only one found with those initials was a maintenance man for the building, but he was questioned and cleared of any wrongdoing. A local man named Greg Wiczynski would eventually come forward and claim that he was the one who had written the message, but that it had been for a different Cindy, a Cynthia Betz, who he had been dating at the time. He was not charged. The Cindy whom the message was meant for was very upset about how that message had become such a big part of the mystery of Cindy Anderson’s disappearance, and in 2009 she wrote a long ranting e-mail to the TV show Unsolved Mysteries petitioning to take that part of the mystery out. She would write:

“It really bothers me that you still have the GW. Part of the story included the part about the spray painting. My name is Cindy Betz. My name was Cindy Jones at the time. GW was Greg at Wiczynski. He spray painted "I love you Cindy" on everything from overpasses garages and the walls at the Manhattan Plaza where Cindy Anderson worked, they were for me, not her. I went into the army from 1981 to 19 to 85. 

When I was in Germany, Greg was killed in a motorcycle accident. You can verify this in the Toledo Blade newspaper. He died September 27th, 1983. He was only 20 years old. He was the love of my life. After returning from the army, I seen the original Unsolved Mysteries. I was flabbergasted when I seen the spray painting part of the story. I contacted the show and the next day detective Kulakowski came to my house. I gave him letters from Greg Tommy with the handwriting that was identical for proof on the letters was the same. I love you. Cindy GW and GW and CJ forever. He chastised me for not letting them know who GW was earlier. 

I was in the army, knew nothing of this. I told them that the handwriting was also inside of the walls where a fashion bug was being built. And Cynthia Anderson could not possibly have seen if it were for her, why would it be anywhere she could not see? He acknowledged I was correct. And so they did not put that information out there since it was in places she could not see any good detective could have possibly opened their mind to the fact that maybe the messages were not for her and check the neighborhood. All they had to do was cross the street Manhattan Boulevard and go down the first alley. This was Greg's alley. And there were plenty of GW loves Cindy's spray painted on the garages. They were also on overpasses. He would get out of the car and run up the embankment and lean over and spray pain upside down. 

They could have asked any teenage kid in the neighborhood who GW was, and they would have told them. I feel this was left in the story for ratings, but the love of my life is being disrespected. I still have plenty of letters from him with the same handwriting and initials that were on the wall. This should also be in a file somewhere that detective Kulakowski filed GW was my GW, not some crazy abductor. And I am proud to be a Cindy. Toledo police dropped the ball on this with narrow-mindedness not doing very good detective work. Since these messages were clearly on the inside of the unfinished fashion bug building, where nobody could see it, they should have entertained the fact that maybe the messages were not for her and maybe found the real culprits. 

Instead, they tried to blame me for all the time spent looking for GW. I was in the army defending my country and we were in love teenagers who never knew who Cynthia Anderson was, or even that there was a law office there. We hung out at the Plaza because of the pizza hut. And when the workers left for the day, we went into the unfinished building to hang out. That's what teenagers do. This story needs to be updated with the fact that the spray painting had nothing to do with the story. I would be glad to send copies of my letters with postmarks to anywhere you want to send them for handwriting analysis. I believe good journalism should contain the truth, not just exciting possibilities to make the story more juicy. Thank you for your time. Proud to be GW's real Cindy.”

It seems to have cleared up that part of the story. Nevertheless, the whole GW thing continues to be a part of the “mystery” even though it appears to have been solved. Despite an extensive search and investigation, at the time police could find no trace of what had happened to Cindy Anderson or what connection the mysterious phone calls had had in the case. In the meanwhile, her bank account remained untouched and there was no activity on her social security. She had seemingly just vanished into thin air. 

It would not be until September of that year that there would be a potential lead in the case. One day a very scared and nervous-sounding woman called the authorities and claimed in low whispers to know where Cindy was. According to the anonymous caller, the missing woman was being held against her will at a white house and there were two houses side-by-side that were owned by the same family. Apparently, they were out of town, but their son was home and he was the one holding her captive. Police pressed her for more details but the woman stammered out that she was scared and hung up the phone. She would call a few minutes later, but once again she was hesitant to give out any information on the location of the house or the identity of the purported abductor. When another investigator got on the line to listen in, the spooked woman hung up again and never called back. Despite an in-depth investigation into this potential clue, the house was never found, and to this day it is unknown who the woman on the line was or if her information was legitimate or not. 

In November of 1995, there was a potential break in the case when police said they believed that Cindy had overheard conversations between Cindy's employer, Richard Neller, and his friend, Jose Rodriguez, Jr., who was allegedly the ringleader of the drug ring that Neller was also involved in. The two were part of a twenty-five count indictment of nine individuals charged with involvement in a large drug distribution ring in Toledo, and the fact that Neller was Cindy’s employer was seen as extremely suspicious. While Rodriguez was on trial for the drug charges, a witness testified that he had confessed to killing Cindy, allegedly to send a message to Neller because he did not adequately represent him at his previous trial. Apparently, Rodriguez would later claim that he knew where Cindy’s body was and would tell the location in exchange for early release from prison, but he never did. However, police could not confirm these confessions, nor could they gather enough evidence to link the drug charges with Cindy’s vanishing. Rodriguez is currently serving a prison sentence for drug trafficking and although Neller was eventually released both remain potential suspects in this case. 


One thing that has always baffled authorities is that the doors had been locked, there was no sign of forced entry, and no sign of a struggle. This led to the idea that the perpetrator could have been someone she knew and trusted. This further led to her family and boyfriend being checked out, but there was nothing to connect them to the disappearance. It was also speculated that she could have been the victim of at least two serial killers known to be operating in the Toledo area at the time, but again nothing stuck and this theory was more or less abandoned. 

It has not gone unnoticed by people discussing the case that Cindy had had nightmares about being abducted and that perhaps she had somehow foreseen her abduction. While this held no weight with the police investigation, could there have been some potential clues hidden in her nightmares and had she really seen what was going to happen? The only one who knows that for sure is Cindy herself.