I fought for as long as I could, as hard as I could. Every time I would talk to somebody, I wrote it down. I was just driving myself nuts and not getting anywhere. I told police, I said, if you don't want to pursue this for my daughter's sake, pursue it for the sake of the other young women that he might be targeting next.
In September 2007, 38-year-old Cynthia Robison left Stockton, California in the company of a truck driver.
The two traveled to Florida, and it's documented that they were there in early to mid-October. On October 15th, Cynthia called her mother Carolyn from Connecticut. She sounded frantic. She claimed to have witnessed the truck driver shoot someone. Before Carolyn could fully understand what was happening, Cynthia abruptly hung up and was never heard from again. Cynthia's family was left in a state of confusion and desperation. They didn't know exactly where she was, nor where the two may be headed.
When they attempted to report her missing, they encountered significant roadblocks due to jurisdictional issues. Cynthia had lived in California, but her disappearance took place thousands of miles away on the opposite coast.
Though the Stockton Police Department in California did open a missing persons case, jurisdictional challenges have severely limited their ability to conduct a thorough investigation. Nearly 18 years later, the search for Cynthia continues, with her family still hoping to find the puzzle pieces that may lead them to figuring out what happened to Cynthia. I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 482 of The Vanished, Cynthia Robison's story.
Here's a tip for growing your business. Get the VentureX Business Card from Capital One and start earning unlimited double miles on every purchase. That's right. With unlimited double miles, the more your business spends, the more miles you earn. Plus, the VentureX Business Card has no preset spending limit, so your purchasing power can adapt to meet your business needs. The VentureX Business Card also includes access to over 1,000 airport lounges.
Just imagine where the VentureX Business Card from Capital One can take your business. Capital One, what's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureXBusiness.
Hi, this is Steve Buscemi, you know, the actor. Well, now I'm an actor and podcast host. From Peace of Work Entertainment and Campside Media in association with Olive Productions comes Big Time, an Apple original podcast. Each episode follows the story of one misfit with big dreams who isn't afraid to bend a few rules or take a shortcut to get there. Well, who steals bees? I was duped. I shoot you in the leg.
This is Big Time. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.
Cynthia Robison, or Cindy as many of those close to her called her, was born and raised in California, where she spent much of her early life navigating a world that would later prove to be filled with challenges. During her teenage years, Cindy experienced a series of profound traumas that seemed to set the course for a turbulent and troubled path ahead. These difficult experiences, which included personal losses and hardships, shaped Cynthia's outlook on life and contributed to the struggles she would face in adulthood.
We spoke to Cindy's mother, Carolyn, who told us more about her daughter's early years. Carolyn shared how the impact of those formative experiences began to unravel Cindy's sense of stability. Despite her best efforts to support her daughter, the emotional scars from Cindy's past would go on to affect her relationships, choices, and ultimately her journey in life. Carolyn watched her daughter grapple with the long-lasting effects of trauma, which eventually led to her disappearance nearly 18 years ago.
Her preschool years were in Modesto, California. And then I moved to San Francisco, California. She and I did. And we lived there until she was in her teenage years. She was a normal kid. She was just like all of her friends. Did the same things that they did and went to the movies and broke curfew as she got older. She really tried to get good grades in school.
and she had an incident where she was gang raped. She went to go live with her father in Manteca to get away from the area and get away from having to see those guys. What really changed her trajectory in her life was she was living with her dad and then they got into a big fight and she went to my parents' house to stay for a little while. Then her dad died. She was 15 and that just crushed her because
because her last words with him had been angry words. They didn't get a chance to make up. So she moved to Hawaii with me for a while, and we stayed there, and, you know, she seemed to be doing okay. We moved to California when she was about 17, and we stayed in the General Bay area, not San Francisco, until she was 18 and she moved out on her own. She got close to finishing high school, didn't quite finish. Drugs got in the way.
Carolyn explained that after Cindy moved out, her life became a mix of ups and downs. There were times when she seemed to be doing well, finding stability and purpose. But those moments were often followed by periods of deep struggle. One of the most profound burdens Cynthia carried was the passing of her father, especially given that they weren't on speaking terms at the time of his death.
Her father's passing haunted her, leaving her with a heavy sense of unfinished business. Cindy often expressed feeling as though her father's fate was inextricably linked to her own, as though his unresolved passing had cast a shadow over her life, influencing the decisions she made and the struggles she faced in the years that followed.
She did well and she did poorly and she got into drugs and she got clean and she went back and forth quite a bit. But the major change was when her dad died. He overdosed on heroin. So later on, years later, she got deep into drugs. She had two children. They were taken away from her. And the social worker said when she walked into the apartment, my daughter had written a letter to her father on
She told me that she had gone to several therapists and told them that she felt like there was a chemical imbalance in her brain that kept her thoughts from going properly.
It derailed her positive thinking and sent her off into negativity. And she wanted a pill to balance the chemical imbalance. And all three said, no, that's not it. You're the only thing that's derailing you.
And who knows if she was being 100% honest with me, too. But she usually was. I'm telling you, one thing about her was that she would tell me the truth, whether it was good or bad for her. She would tell me the truth. When I went to visit her in jail, she was just as sober as a judge.
And I said, I know there's drugs in jail, Cindy. Why aren't you getting high now? And she said, well, because if I do that, then I'll wind up in here longer because I'll mess up. But as soon as I get out of here, you can bet I'll do any kind of drug I can get my hands on. That was the truth. I went to Norinov.
When Cindy really first started doing drugs, it was with the father of her oldest child. I went to Naranon meetings every single week, and they taught me that what was important was to let her know that I continued to love her no matter what she did. I could hate the behavior, and I could tell her that, and I could refuse to give her money to participate in the behavior that I hated, and I could tell her that, but continue to love her unconditionally.
unconditionally. And that was our relationship for the rest of our lives. I always said as long as there was breath in her body, there was a chance that she could get clean. But it had to be her choice. I didn't want to have a relationship where I was angry with her. And I knew that Naranon existed for a reason because they had something that was right and
And when I went to those meetings, I found out that they really did have a handle on this. It saved her and my relationship, at least.
By 2007, Cynthia had lost everything and found herself living on the streets of Stockton, California. Struggling with addiction, she turned to sex work as a means of survival. Her life had spiraled into a desperate cycle, and despite her challenges, she continued to search for stability in an environment that offered little hope. The hardships she faced painted a stark picture of the immense personal battles she fought, even as she struggled to regain control of her life.
Another person who stayed closely connected to Cindy was her younger brother, Glenn, who lived nearby and owned a restaurant. The two shared a strong bond, and Cindy would often stop by the restaurant to visit him whenever she could. Their relationship was one of the few constants in her life, and Glenn was one of the few people who could always count on her to check in.
She was homeless. She lived under a certain tree in Stockton. Glenn, he owned Little Caesar's Pizza Shop in Manteca. So Cindy could find him easy. She could go over to Manteca from Stockton and go into Little Caesar's. He was her brother and he loved her. He would give her 50 bucks. Glenn, he just wanted to let her know that he loved her.
While working at a truck stop, Cindy crossed paths with an older man named Bob, a truck driver who would later play a significant role in her life and disappearance. Cindy referred to Bob as her boyfriend, and he made her numerous grand promises. He told her that he loved her and assured her that he would help her turn her life around. For Cindy, these promises were a glimmer of hope.
An escape from the harsh reality she had been living. Bob's words seemed to offer the possibility of a fresh start. But as time would reveal, his intentions and the truth behind their relationship were far more complicated than they appeared. Ultimately, it was her connection with Bob that would lead her on a fateful journey. One that ended with her vanishing without a trace. Leaving more questions than answers about what truly happened during their time together.
He was a truck driver. So he met her at a truck stop. When they started dating, she would call me on his cell phone and talk to me on a regular basis. And when he got on the phone, he said that he loved her. He was married, but he loved Cindy. And he was going to get a divorce, and he was going to marry Cindy and get her all straightened out, get her off drugs, get her cleaned up. But that was a lie. I have no idea about his work other than...
He and my daughter both said that he was an independent driver, so whoever had a job could hire him. So I have no idea why he frequented Stockton when he lived in West Virginia.
In September of 2007, Cindy climbed into Bob's truck for a trip to the East Coast, unaware that she would never make it back home to California. At the time, no one could have ever known that her journey would end in tragedy, with Cindy disappearing while on the road. In the beginning, the journey seemed like an opportunity for Cindy to escape her struggles. But they ran into trouble while in Florida, and Bob called Carolyn to let her know what was going on. Carolyn shared with us what she knows about Cindy and Bob's trip.
When she disappeared, she was with Bob. She'd been dating Bob for a year or two, and they went on a cross-country delivery trip. He was a big rig truck driver. So he took her from Stockton to the East Coast. It was the second week of September of 2007 that she got in the truck with Bob. On September 13th, Bob called me from Florida and said that Cindy had been arrested, and she was in the Panama City Jail.
And on October 11, Cindy appeared in court and was released on probation. And of course, she just hopped into Bob's truck and they just drove north and split.
Then, on October 15th, Carolyn received a frantic call from Cindy that would forever change everything. Cindy claimed to have witnessed Bob shoot someone. Her voice was filled with panic and fear as she described what had just occurred. Carolyn's heart raced as she tried to understand the gravity of the situation, desperate to find a way to help her daughter.
From thousands of miles away, she offered to buy a plane ticket to bring Cindy back home to safety. But Cindy, ever tough and independent, insisted she could handle the situation on her own. Carolyn's concerns grew as she tried to reason with her daughter. But the call ended abruptly. After that moment, Carolyn never heard from her daughter again, leaving Carolyn with a sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong.
She called me one day and said, he's scaring me. He's dangerous. I can't trust him. I saw him shoot somebody. I could tell from the ambient noise she was in a public setting calling from the pay phone. October 11th was the last time anyone had seen her because she was in court on October 11th. Four days later, I get this call and she's saying, I don't trust him. He's scaring me. I saw him shoot somebody.
She said that she and him went to a truck lot at night, and his truck, an old truck of his, had been repossessed, and he was there to get it back, and there was only one guard on duty, and he shot him. And I asked, did he kill him? And she said, I don't know, Mom. I ducked, and when it was quiet and all was clear, I ran back to Bob's truck. I
I never saw whether the guard was shot or injured or still alive or anything. I just split. So she got back in Bob's truck and she and Bob went on driving. And when she called on October 15th, it was from New Haven, Connecticut. And I said, well, if he's at the truck and you're at the payphone, why don't you just duck down and get away? Because he can't follow you. He's 60 years old.
He's not going to be able to keep up with you and he can't drive his truck and catch you if you're on foot. So get somewhere safe and then I can send you a plane ticket or a bus ticket or whatever you need to get back to Saucon if that's where you want to be or to me in Texas because you'll be safe. And then she got her chip back on her shoulder and she says, oh, no, I can handle it. That was the last time I ever talked to her.
One of the people who has fought the hardest to advocate for Cindy is her sister-in-law, Kristen. Kristen is married to Cindy's half-brother, Glenn, and has been a relentless voice in the search for answers. Carolyn shared that around the same time Cindy made her frantic call to her, she also reached out to her brother and sister-in-law. However, they weren't home at the time. Instead, Cindy left a haunting message on their voicemail. The message was brief, but it conveyed a deep sense of fear and urgency.
She called Kristen. She's married to Cindy's half-brother. And they were very close. And she was hysterical, saying, Bob isn't who I thought he was. He's a fraud. He's a fake. Nobody knows. But now I know. And she was scared. This was a message that she left on their answering machine. She said the same things to both of us.
After that, everything went silent. No more calls, no more messages, just an eerie and unexplained silence. But the next day, Bob called. What Bob said during that conversation, coupled with his actions in the days that followed, has left a cloud of suspicion hanging over him. His behavior continues to fuel the mystery surrounding Cindy's disappearance.
And then the next day, he called both of us and said that she had gotten out of his truck and gotten into another truck with a driver that was going straight back to Stockton because she said that he was taking too long to get back to California. So I think that he got rid of her when she found out whatever she found out.
At the time, Carolyn was living in Texas. She wasn't in Stockton to check and see if Cindy had returned. Cindy didn't have her own phone and was known to use payphones or Bob's phone to communicate, so it was exceptionally difficult to track her down. Carolyn eventually got into contact with Kristen, who lives not far from Stockton, to see if she and Glenn had seen or heard from Cindy.
I contacted Kristen because I had heard this line of lies from Bob. And I knew that Kristen and Glenn knew about Bob. And I said, I haven't heard anything from her. Kristen said they hadn't heard from her either since October when they got a phone call and they thought she was just on drugs because she was kind of hysterical.
We've been working together during this whole thing. She's the one, because I'm in Texas and she was in Manteca, a few miles from Stockton. She was able to go into the Stockton Police Department and make a missing persons report. Kristen went in in December to Stockton to make a missing persons report.
This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Who taught you about money? Was it your parents? Your school? Let's be honest, most of us learned about saving and budgeting way later than we should have. But here's the good news. You can give your kids a head start with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families that lets kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely. Parents can send money to their kids and keep an eye on kids' spending and savings.
Meanwhile, kids and teens build money confidence and skills in a fun, accessible way, like with games. I've been using Greenlight with my teenagers for years. It's given them a sense of independence, while also teaching them the benefits of saving. Greenlight is the easy, convenient way for parents to raise financially smart kids and families to navigate life together. Maybe that's why millions of parents and kids are learning about money on Greenlight already.
Start your risk-free Greenlight trial today at greenlight.com slash vanished. That's greenlight.com slash vanished to get started. greenlight.com slash vanished.
Stop allergy season in its tracks with big savings from GoodRx. Seasonal allergy medication starts at just $15, so you and your family can kick those itchy eyes, stuffy noses, and scratchy throats straight to the curb. Check GoodRx before every single trip to the pharmacy to save up to 80% on both brand name and generic medications. GoodRx is free and easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or the app. Come
Compare prices and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use GoodRx to save at over 70,000 local pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publix, Kroger, and many more. Remember, GoodRx works with or without insurance and could beat your insurance copay price.
I use GoodRx all the time, and it saved me so much money. It always surprises me just how often GoodRx beats my copay prices. Don't let allergies slow you down. Save big on allergy medications this season with GoodRx. Go to GoodRx.com slash vanished. That's GoodRx.com slash vanished.
We also spoke with Kristen, who explained that she didn't know Carolyn before Cindy's disappearance. But both women were independently searching for any trace of Cindy. As more time passed without hearing from her, Kristen and Glenn's concerns grew, and they began to feel an overwhelming sense of urgency. Driven by the hope that Carolyn may have heard from Cindy and could ease their worries, Kristen found a way to reach out to Carolyn.
However, when they spoke, their fears only deepened. Neither had heard from Cindy, and they both realized how much more serious the situation had become. The shared worry and uncertainty propelled them to join forces in the search, determined to uncover the truth together. I didn't know her mom at all. I had never met her mom. And when we realized that something wasn't right, we...
We contacted some of my husband's aunts on their dad's side and asked if they had any information or any way to contact her. And after talking to her, she agreed something was not right and said, yeah, let's go ahead and file a missing persons report.
And now we talk email or text to kind of keep things fresh. And if she's learned anything new or I've learned anything or she's reached out somewhere, try and keep each other in the loop. But in the beginning, she was doing a lot of things that I didn't know. And vice versa, we really didn't have any type of relationship. So we were kind of just both doing whatever we thought was best at the time and trying to figure out what had happened or where she was.
Kristen was the one who first reached out to the show, hoping we would cover Cindy's case. After hearing Susan Marable's story, which aired in 2024, Kristen felt a strong connection between Susan's life and Cindy's. The similarities between the two women's struggles struck a chord with her. Kristen and Carolyn had faced many challenges in gaining media attention for Cindy's case, but they hoped that this time, with the right platform, they might finally be able to bring attention to Cindy's disappearance and keep her story alive.
I started listening to your podcast six months ago. And when I started listening to a couple of them, I was like, Oh, wow. There's a lot of these people who are the same background and same lifestyle as Cindy. When Carolyn had originally reached out and thought we were going to be able to get some news coverage. Once they found out her background, they said, Nah, nevermind. It's not a case we're gonna do. And so she had gotten her hopes up. And then that happened.
And then after listening to several of the podcasts where the people's backgrounds were very similar, I reached out to her. I said, you know, this might be something we should look into. And she's like, I don't know if I want to get my hopes up. I'm like, look, I'm going to send you this podcast. It is the exact scenario, pretty much, as far as background. I said, humor me and listen to it and let me know what you think. And then she said, yeah, I think you're right. I think we need to do it.
Kristen shared more about the relationship she and her husband Glenn had with Cindy over the years. While Cindy's struggles with addiction made it difficult for them to have the kind of relationship they had hoped for, they still kept in touch and did their best to look out for her. Cindy would occasionally reach out to them in small ways, letting them know she was okay, whether it was a quick visit to the restaurant or a brief call. But one day, those small signs of life stopped altogether.
Her dad actually passed away of a drug overdose. That was the reason they lost their dad. And I think once she lost her dad, she just went downhill. But I think she started getting into partying and it was the 80s. Drugs were everywhere back then. And she started experimenting. Once her dad passed, I think it just kind of escalated. It wasn't until she moved back here to Manteca that her and my husband, they even kind of reconnected.
And it had been many years since he had even spoken to her. Once their dad passed and they didn't see each other regularly, they kind of just didn't have the opportunity, I guess, to see each other. So when I first met my husband, I didn't even know he had another sister for a really long time. And then as our relationship progressed, he had explained that he did have another sister and she lived with her mom and their dad had passed. I encouraged him, well, you need to reach out to her. But
But she lived here in Manteca, not far from us, way back in the early to mid-90s. She lived here with her boys. Christmas, she was a single mom, that kind of thing. We would bring gifts over to the boys. But she really didn't live there that long. The drugs just always took over. And she ended up losing her boys. They both went to live with their dads. She ended up just going down the deep end.
She was very much in and out. There were a couple of constants. She would always contact my husband. She did not know where we lived. We own a business and she knew she could always get ahold of us through that business. And she had our home phone number.
But by then we had children. There were a lot of years, actually, that they didn't talk in the beginning, right after she first kind of went downhill. I think she got arrested and reached out to him and he went to the jail and visited her. And then after that, it was a continuous thing. She'd reach out, he'd go see her.
Then it got to the point where she would call collect and just leave little messages on the machine. It'd say collect call from and then it would give you an opportunity to say your name. And she'd say, happy birthday, brother. I love you. Stuff like that. So then it was where it was continuous. She would be doing those things. During this time when she went missing, they were in contact.
often based on what she was doing or where she was. And there were times even she would just pop into our restaurant and get pizza. There were times she would just pop in with whoever was driving her. She knew she could always come there. So she went missing in October. We last talked to her in October after a weird phone call or a weird message on her answering machine, actually. Then...
Then January came around and we expected to get that annual message on the answering machine because their dad passed on New Year's Eve, nothing. Then when his birthday came around March 17th, and once again, there was nothing between those two incidences. He finally was like, yeah, I think you're right. Something's not right.
I think the first time I called, we were like, can someone just go out, see if she's around there? And I do remember they said they went out to the truck stop and it was a detective said, oh, we went out, we asked around and they said, oh no, she had left with so-and-so. But that's when we started saying, okay, we need to get ahold of her mom. Let's figure this out. Maybe she's with her mom. We didn't know.
Kristen told us more about the communications she and her husband received from Cindy during that fateful trip in the fall of 2007. Initially, Cindy seemed fine, casually checking in and giving the impression that everything was okay. But by the last message, something had shifted drastically. They weren't sure exactly what was going on, but before they could reach Cindy, all contacts stopped abruptly.
The story he told us is that after he picked her up from jail in Florida, he did go back and get her. That was the 11th of October of 07. She actually called us that same day, left a message on our answering machine. She was happy, cheerful. She was recalling earlier conversations that her and my husband had had about their grandpa and uncle. She had called from this man's phone.
Either a day or two later, we get a message on our answering machine where she's freaking out. She's crying. Her words were, Bob is a phony. He's not who I thought he was. He had been arrested. He's been in jail. And then the phone went dead. Her mom always kept an 800 number so that no matter where she was, she could get a hold of her. She
She did call from a payphone. I think she said she witnessed him shooting a guard. We reached out and contacted Bob on the 16th. And he said that she got into the truck with someone else in New London, Connecticut, because she wanted to get back to Stockton and he was not getting her there quick enough. But yet when he went back to Stockton himself, he told...
The people at the truck stop that her mom put her in rehab. So definitely different stories based on who he was talking to.
Despite not knowing each other beforehand, Carolyn and Kristen became an unlikely team in the search for Cindy. Kristen is married to Cindy's half-brother on her father's side, and their shared love and deep concern for Cindy brought them together in a powerful bond. Together, they faced roadblock after roadblock in their search. Jurisdictional complications proved to be a constant challenge. Cindy was from California, but the last confirmed sighting of her was in Florida.
and she had called her mother from Connecticut. To make matters even worse, Bob lived in West Virginia. On top of all of these obstacles, Carolyn and Kristen also felt that Cindy had been unfairly stigmatized because of her struggles with addiction and sex work, which made it harder for others to take her case seriously. Despite these challenges, their determination to find answers has been unwavering.
Police wouldn't look into anything because Cindy lived in California and Bob lived in West Virginia. They said that that made it an FBI case. And FBI said that an adult has the right to be missing if they want to be missing. And they don't consider this a missing persons report, especially in the line of work...
that my daughter was in. And I even got my state representative to write a letter to the FBI in Stockton, insisting that they give a clearer response on following up on this case. And they wrote him back and said exactly the same thing. Now,
Nobody ever did anything to follow up except for Kristen and I. Kristen, Glenn, and I hired private detectives. Kristen and Glenn put up flyers all over the place in Stockton with Cindy's picture on it and a toll-free number that people could call anonymously and give tips. And every one of Cindy's friends called in and said, I do not want to be anonymous. And they gave their name and their phone number if they had one.
We have not seen Cindy since she got in that truck, that Bob guy, and left. Carolyn shared that to her recollection, Bob had been in Cindy's life for about a year or two. Curious about their relationship dynamic, we asked Carolyn if she had ever met Bob. She told us she had only met him once, but that brief encounter left a lasting impression. There was something about him that made Carolyn uneasy, especially considering the grand promises Bob had made to help Cindy turn her life around.
Despite his assurances, Carolyn's instincts told her something wasn't right. Bob's role in Cindy's life and the events that followed remained key pieces of the unsettling puzzle surrounding her disappearance. I only met him one time. He drove her in his truck to have dinner with her children and my husband and myself.
And we all went to a restaurant, the Rainforest Restaurant in San Francisco at the wharf. And we got one of those pagers and they said our table wouldn't be ready for about an hour. Cindy and Bob were there and they were both perfectly straight and clean. Cindy said, we're going to go to Bob's truck and we'll be back before the pager goes off so we can join you for dinner. When she came back, she was definitely high on heroin. If she went to his truck...
And he's supposed to be somebody who's trying to get her clean. She could not have done heroin without him knowing about it because there's not that much room in a cab. He's the one with the money. She had not a penny to her name. He had to supply it. That business about getting her clean is a lie. He just creeped me out. He was an older man with a young girl and obviously been lying about how straight he was and how much he wanted to get her straight. Everything he said was just kind of full of himself. How?
How did I feel when I met him? He creeped me out. I always think, well, why aren't they with somebody their own age? Is it because they're threatened by somebody who has the same intelligence and the same background information of the years past? They might be able to see through you. That's my first thought.
Kristen shared that her husband had also met Bob on another occasion, and during that meeting he was told the same thing, that Bob was going to help Cynthia get clean and turn her life around. At the time, it seemed like a hopeful promise, one that gave them a sense of optimism for Cindy's future. However, in hindsight, both Kristen and her husband began to question Bob's true intentions, especially as the events surrounding Cindy's disappearance unfolded.
My husband met him and she was telling my husband they were getting ready to go and leave town. She was going to go on a long haul with him and he was going to help her to try and get clean. That was the premise that was given to him. This is it. I'm going to try to get clean. He's going to help me being on the truck with him where I'm not able to access any of these things. So that was her plan. But I don't know that that was ever his plan, to be honest.
It wasn't long after they left that she ended up getting arrested in Florida and she was picked up on drug charges. He did say he was an older man and that he didn't see why Cindy was even with him. But in the back of your head, you're kind of thinking, well, their dad passed. He's an older man. Maybe she's grasping on to that. I don't know. He never said anything.
He never really said that until after the fact, but not during that time when he met him. Now, looking back, he says, yeah, he was odd, but at that time there was no red flag.
Carolyn remains uncertain about the details of the investigation into her daughter's disappearance. She provided the investigator with Bob's phone number, but given that he lived thousands of miles away in West Virginia, the Stockton police couldn't simply show up at his doorstep. Instead, they had to depend on his cooperation and willingness to take their calls, an obstacle that made an already complicated investigation even more difficult.
I gave them his phone number and they called and left a message that they wanted him to come by and speak with them. I don't think he ever did. They may have talked to him on the phone eventually.
But in March, when I called the records department and said, I just want the records of what has happened so far on this case, they said that I couldn't have them, that I wasn't entitled to them. And I said, well, I'm the mother of the missing person. I can't give them to you. And then the records person said, I'm really surprised they hadn't done more follow-up considering his background, his history. I didn't know what that meant. And I said, well, what do you mean? And she hung up on me. And she said the same exact thing to Kristen. And
And I called back and spoke with the supervisor who told me I was not entitled to the three subsequent reports because this case could become a criminal investigation. And then I called and spoke with the head of the missing persons department. She said she didn't know anything about it becoming a criminal investigation. I found a bunch of information about Bob where you look up your family tree. I just put in his name and his birth date and boom, up popped Bob. Lots of information.
September 15th of 07, he was found guilty of a felony conspiracy. Don't know what it's for. It was in West Virginia. We too ran into similar roadblocks with the Stockton Police Department when we contacted them to request an interview or statement regarding their investigation into Cindy's disappearance. We began contacting them in October and kept trying through the month of February. As of the date this episode was recorded, they have yet to respond.
We also submitted a record request in August 2024. They responded to that request and said that the records are part of a criminal investigative file, making them exempt from disclosure. However, they did provide the following information. Cynthia was reported missing on December 29, 2007 at 11.18 a.m. The reporting party said her sister-in-law hasn't been heard from since October, and she had gone to Florida with a truck driver. When we
When we looked into Bob's history ourselves, we found a number of traffic offenses, as well as the felony conspiracy conviction in West Virginia that Carolyn mentioned. That had an offense date of September 15, 2007, around the same time Cindy left California with him, though he wasn't charged in that case until 2008. Additionally, we discovered that in 2021,
Bob was charged in Pennsylvania with several offenses, including carrying firearms without a license, making terroristic threats with intent to terrorize another, causing serious public inconvenience with terroristic threats, simple assault, and recklessly endangering another person. He pleaded guilty to those charges and was sentenced to three years of probation.
Rewinding back once again to the time that followed Cindy's disappearance. By 2008, many months had passed without any word from her. While her communications had always been sporadic, they could usually count on her to check in on a regular basis, and there were milestone events that she never missed. By May of 2008, Carolyn decided to reach out to Bob once again, hoping for some answers, or at least a sign of her daughter. What followed was a series of bizarre interactions that seemed too unbelievable to be true.
Oh, I called him sometime in May and said, "Look, nobody's seen her since you took her from Stockton." And he was really rude to me and he was very dismissive and how dare I accuse him and what was I talking about? I didn't know anything. And then on May 14th, he called me at midnight and talked to me for an hour. He said he was sorry for talking the way he did the last time, but his wife was right there.
He said that he had been to Stockton several times and everybody he talked to said that Cindy had been around. And I asked him if that was true, then why did these same people that he's naming tell the police and Cindy's brother that?
but they haven't seen her at all since she got in the truck with him. So I asked him to go to Stockton and find Cindy. If she was there, that he could find her. He drove to Stockton. He called me back and he said, okay, I found her and she's fine. She was hanging out with Green Eyes. She was at Green Eyes' place. And I sat and spent half the day with her talking to her. And
I said, really, Bob, where is she right now? And where are you right now? He said, I'm on my way back to West Virginia. And he said, Bob, in the past, when I've been worried about Cindy, I've asked you to go find her and you found her and you handed your cell phone to her and put her on the phone with me. Why didn't you do that this time? And he started stuttering. He said, well, I thought you've never stuttered before. You know, you're a really bad liar because I talked to Green Eyes today already and
And she hasn't seen Cindy today or any other day since she got in the truck with you and left in September. If there's a shred of truth in what you're saying, then you would go to the police department and tell him. And he never did.
And if it hadn't been for the dozen or so times in the past that I had called him because I had his cell phone number on my phone records and I'd say, you know, Bob, I haven't heard from Cindy in over a week. And she usually calls me at least once a week. Next time you're in Stockton, can you find her for me and put her on the phone? And he would do it. He did it every time. I didn't get a call from Bob. I got a call from Cindy on Bob's phone. So, I mean, that had been his behavior prior to that. All of a sudden, it's different.
And I wasn't supposed to even notice or question. He thought I was stupid. He thought he was so smart and I was so stupid. He could just spill that lie out and I'd buy it. And what the cop said to me when I told him that Bob said he'd seen her when he really hadn't, he said, you know what? All you're proving is that Bob is a liar. Just because he's a liar doesn't mean he's a killer. He hasn't answered everything. I said, if you guys would just pursue...
a couple of things like talking to the person of interest that I'm telling you about, then you can catch his truck and find DNA of my daughter. But no, they didn't want to do anything.
It felt as though Carolyn and Kristen were left to fend for themselves in the search for Cindy. Frustrated by the lack of progress in the investigation, Carolyn took matters into her own hands and decided to hire a private investigator to help find her daughter. Desperate for answers and determined to bring Cindy home, she hoped this new approach would finally lead to a breakthrough.
When I hired the private detective, he went poking around Stockton and talking to people and people that knew Bob. He never got to talk to Bob, but he did meet a girl who was at that time involved with Bob, another young girl. And he told her what happened to my daughter.
And she said she would agree to bait Bob to say that she was going to meet him at a certain place at a certain time. Then the private detective and I could be there to confront him. But he didn't show up. And she never said anything about him raising a hand to her or threatening her in any way. And neither did my daughter. She didn't say he threatened her, but she said, he's scaring me because...
I saw him shoot somebody and I just don't feel safe.
Cindy had been living on the streets for a number of years, which made tracking down her friends and acquaintances more challenging. However, Carolyn had met some of Cindy's friends while she was still living in California. With determination, she was able to reconnect with a few of them, and they too were deeply concerned about Cindy's disappearance. Their shared worry fueled Carolyn's resolve, and helped to piece together what little information they had in hopes of finding answers.
When I lived in San Francisco and Cindy was in Stockton and I hadn't heard from her in a while and she hadn't met with Bob yet, didn't know Bob, I would drive to Stockton and I could drive down what they call Skid Row in Stockton and spot my daughter walking down the street in a heartbeat. And I'd just roll down my window and say, Hey, Cindy! And she'd go, Oh!
how do you find me like this? You're my daughter. We're connected. I can find you. I know your walk. I would park my car and she would take me to her friend's house. She would take me into their home and introduce me to them. And I knew these people. They were her friends. They liked her visiting because she was funny and she was fun. They were worried about her from the time she got into that truck. They told me that they felt like something bad was going to happen because she was getting in the truck with Bob, who they didn't like. They
They didn't trust him. They didn't think she should go off alone with him for two weeks or so, which was what she anticipated their trip to take.
With Carolyn so far away in Texas, Kristen stepped up to help by putting up flyers and visiting the truck stop that Cindy and Bob were known to frequent. While there, she spoke to other women who had traveled with Bob, and what they had to share was deeply alarming. Their accounts painted a frightening picture of Bob's behavior, raising even more concerns about what had happened to Cindy and intensifying the urgency to find her.
So he was a long-haul truck driver. We found out later he was married, and he would come out here to the truck stop where Cindy would...
hang out frequent and he would pick her up. So she would see him whenever he was out in this area. And he would let her know somehow or word got around that he was there. And so she would go to the truck stop to see him. And I guess that was as often as he was in the area, which at this point, I really don't know how often that was. I do know...
There were other women that also worked at that truck stop that had interactions with Bob. They said he was dangerous. One of them had even said she had gone on a cross-country trip with him and she was terrified the entire time. And he had returned after we thought Cindy was missing. I guess he had returned to the truck stop and he was telling Bob,
the other women there that her mom put her into rehab in like Texas or something. When we went back out, because my husband and I live 30 minutes from that truck stop. So him and I were canvassing, putting up flyers, talking to employees, talking to some of these women. They all said he was dangerous. One of them even...
called the detective at the time that was working the case. And she basically said that they just kind of brushed her off and didn't really pay any attention to what she was saying. But Bob told these women himself that her mom put her in rehab. I also created an 800 number and that was on the flyers. So we're
So we got several hits and phone calls from different people that knew her in that area. And that's how we found out it was a woman who told us that she had gone cross country with him. She was scared to death. A woman who worked at the convenience store there said that another one of the girls had told her because she asked, Hey, where's Cindy been? And she said, Oh,
Bob said her mom put her in rehab in a different state. So that's how we learned some of those things. Another lead...
We got people said they thought they saw her after that time, but there were no actual confirmed sightings. And of course, the police went back out and their notes, I believe, had said there was no confirmation that she was seen after we reported her missing. They don't believe that that was the case. Now, he also said he spent half a day with her and that she was fine.
And we know that that also was not true. And he was also supposed to go into the police department when he was back and agreed to do that when they reached out to him. And he never showed up for that either. They had asked him some things over the phone, but he never came in for an official interview. My husband spoke to him on Twitter.
January 16th. At that point, he left my husband a message saying that he had gone back out to the truck stop because prior to that, he had said he had seen her and spent half a day with her. So I think my husband had left him a message and said, I want to talk to you. Give me a call. That was on the 16th of January 2008. And he told my husband that he went back to the truck stop to try and find her. He
He showered. He hung out for a while. He never saw her. It's odd that Bob seems to be the only person who claims to have seen Cindy since she disappeared. If you search online for information about her case, you might come across a possible sighting from November 2007, a month after she last phoned her mother and brother. However, Carolyn said that tip never led anywhere, and she believes it was nothing more than a red herring meant to throw them off the trail.
We think that that was one of Bob's friends that Bob put up to leaving that tip because he might have been feeling a little uncomfortable with suspicion being thrown at him and wanting to get out of the heat.
Kristen mentioned that they included a 1-800 number on the flyers she distributed in the areas where Cindy was known to frequent. Over the years, she's received a couple of calls in response. While none of the tips have led to a major breakthrough, each call has kept the hope alive that someone might know something that could finally bring Cindy home.
So with the 800 number that we put out, there was a gentleman that called and left his name and number and asked for us to contact him. He lives close to that truck stop area. And he had befriended Cindy and he saw the missing person's flyer. And he was like, wait, she was leaving with this guy. What's going on? And I guess...
He had a boat out front of his house. And whenever Cindy wouldn't have anywhere to go, he would tell her, just go sleep in my boat. You're fine. So he was one that we had spoken to. And then there was a woman who claimed she had seen her in a car and said that it was a Cadillac, a
a newer model Cadillac, and that they were driving around Zaki Farms. I think it's a chicken warehouse or something, but that's right by the truck stop. So of course we went back out there. None of the other ladies said that was her.
In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at him. And the suspect. He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione. Became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was meant to sow terror. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him. We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world. And the suspect... He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione. ...became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was targeted...
premeditated and meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse Weber, host of Luigi, produced by Law & Crime and Twist. This is more than a true crime investigation. We explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Hurry! Hurry!
Finally, maybe this would lead rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our health care system. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts.
Part of the challenge in investigating Cindy's case is the vast and uncertain territory that the investigation covers. While it's known that they traveled from California to Florida, and then Cindy called saying she was in Connecticut, the reality is that something could have happened to her anywhere along the route. Where would you even begin to search? Carolyn has come up with a few ideas about potential places to focus their efforts.
but she's unsure if any of these leads have been properly investigated. The uncertainty about where to look next only adds to the frustration, making every step in the search feel like a step into the unknown.
When he took my daughter to the East Coast, he had some deliveries to make. I don't know whether he drove something from California to the East Coast or what. I have no idea. That was one of the things that I said to them because he is a big rig truck driver and he was on the East Coast. I know there's toll roads back there. His sticker had to been scanned every time he drove onto a toll road so they could tell exactly where he was when.
And if he had the same truck, there could still be DNA evidence that could be found with forensics the way they are today. But I don't know what truck he was driving then. He got a divorce shortly after this incident. Don't know exactly when, but he's living with his children. And the son has a trucking company. But that clerk's saying, given his history, I don't know why they didn't pursue this more. It might be something.
You may have heard of the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, a crucial initiative that helps law enforcement track, analyze, and solve violent crimes, particularly serial offenses.
In the early 2000s, investigators began noticing a disturbing pattern. Bodies of murdered women were being dumped along interstate highways. In response, the FBI launched the Highway Serial Killings Initiative to raise awareness amongst law enforcement agencies and the public about this troubling trend, while offering their unique support in solving these cases.
According to the FBI's website, their research found that the victims in these cases are primarily women who were living high-risk transient lifestyles, often involving substance abuse and sex work. They're frequently picked up at truck stops or service stations and sexually assaulted, murdered, and dumped along a highway. The suspects are predominantly long-haul truck drivers.
But the mobile nature of the offenders, and the significant distances and multiple jurisdictions involved, and the scarcity of witnesses or forensic evidence can make these cases tough to solve. By 2016, VICAP analysts had compiled a list of more than 750 murder victims found along or near U.S. highways, along with nearly 450 potential suspects.
To help law enforcement agencies across the country crack cold cases, VICAP analysts create detailed timelines for many of these suspects. The timelines are based on company logs, gas station receipts, and other records, allowing investigators to track suspects' movements, helping them pinpoint where a suspect was when certain murders were committed. We were hopeful when Carolyn mentioned that the FBI had been involved at some point, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have led to any significant progress.
Kristen shared that she did hear from the FBI one time, but the communication was brief. Despite the involvement of a federal agency, Cindy's case still seemed to stall out, leaving Carolyn and Kristen feeling as though they were back at square one. I did get a phone call at one point because of this, so I'm guessing the FBI must be involved, and it is an FBI initiative.
the Truck Driver Serial Killer Initiative. And so a woman did reach out to me at one point and literally was sitting in my car at the bank. I had no information in front of me. I was just having a conversation with her. And she asked a lot of questions. And I believe that that may have been part of that FBI thing. It has to be because otherwise, I mean, I don't feel like they would have contacted me knowing that that is an FBI initiative. So maybe they were involved somehow.
In her spare time, Kristen has continued digging into every angle she can think of, determined not to leave any stone unturned. She's driven by the hope that even the smallest piece of information could make a difference in finding Cindy. However, she also acknowledges the limits of what she can do on her own. While her efforts have been tireless, she knows that to truly move forward, the case will need more resources and support than she can provide herself.
I have some friends in law enforcement, and they have run him, and they've also run her social, her driver's license number. And there's never been any activity at all since she went missing. There's no activity whatsoever of her ever running her credit, but there wasn't really much prior to that based on her lifestyle. And I
And I actually have one of the things that they were able to pull was every vehicle. The truck that they were in, he got rid of that shortly after as well. And we know it was a white Volvo diesel. My husband knew that from when he went to see him before she left. And then looking through the DMV records are all on here. Even people he purchased the vehicle from or sold it to, they're even listed on here.
I mean, I don't know what to do with this information and I don't know where to go and maybe try and track down the vehicles somehow and see where it's at now. I mean, it's so long. What are the odds 20 years later? I do know that once this all came about and the police started calling and poking around, I
I believe it was shortly after that, his wife left him and they sold or moved out of the house that they were previously living in. And when I've done an aerial search of that area, it's right by a river and there's huge wooded area all around. And Cynthia's mom said that at one point, she read somewhere that he was doing excavation work during that time as well.
And so all of that's kind of concerning. I did reach out to the police department in that area, just asked if that was private property around this particular address or if it was public property, forestry or state owned or whatever. And they have never...
return my call. They did mention at one point, and I can't remember what it was called, there's some kind of a ID or something that trucking companies use, these vouchers that they get to spend. And these vouchers are traceable. And I'd never heard the term before, but the police had said something about these particular vouchers. So they kind of had
a roundabout of his movement, I guess you could say. I do think they reached out a little bit, I think kind of to tell us something or to have something to tell us, but I just feel like they never followed up with anything. And we've asked several times to try and get records of what the police department has done. And they deny us every time. And their response is, we feel this may turn into a criminal investigation, so we cannot share our records.
So even they know there's something there. So I am actively on NamUs, on the Doe Network, on all of those for Unidentified. Every couple of months, I pull it up. I do as vague as possible. So it gives me a ton of results that I look through myself.
And I will spend as much time as it takes to get through all the new ones. And I'll review the old ones. And I'm continuously sending all the cases to the Stockton Police Department because
Because what I'll do is I'll be up in my room at night watching TV or whatever, and I'll just start looking and writing them down. And then I email the Stockton Police Department. They forward that on because she is in NamUs. And my husband and both of her boys gave DNA. So they're all in the system. And then I'll get an email after a couple months and say these people were ruled out. I've been doing that for quite a while.
One key to solving Cindy's case may lie in the shooting she claimed to have witnessed. We sourced newspaper archives from Connecticut around the time of her call to her mother, when she described the shooting, but we didn't find anything that seemed to match what she had described. However, we don't know exactly where this incident occurred. She had called from a payphone, which makes it possible that the shooting happened earlier, possibly in another state, and Connecticut could have just been the first opportunity Cindy had to reach her mother.
While Cindy called Carolyn from Connecticut, Kristen believes that when Cindy called their home, she had actually called them from New Jersey. New Jersey makes sense if they had traveled north from Florida on the most direct route, which would have been I-95, a highway that runs straight through New Jersey.
I mean, it was somewhere in Connecticut is where she called from. The only thing I know to do is just start calling police stations and saying, did you ever have a shooting victim during this timeframe? It would have been October. She called her mom the 15th and she called us between the 13th and the 15th. We didn't know exactly. And I went back and tried to go through and look for my phone.
phone bills even back several years ago to see exactly where she had called from, from that New Jersey number. I couldn't find it. And here's the thing too, when she called us when we thought she was in New Jersey, I also had a cousin that lived in New Jersey. Sometimes we weren't really good about listening to our messages every day. Sometimes it'd be a week and we'd be like, oh, the answering machine is going to be full. We better listen to it.
But we would just go through the call history. There were a couple of New Jersey numbers in the beginning on there. Oh, I thought it was probably my cousin. Cindy wasn't supposed to be in New Jersey. They were different, but they were New Jersey numbers. We hadn't heard the panic phone call yet. We had only had the phone call from her a couple of days before where everything was good.
Fast forward, we finally listened to our messages. We got that information. We went back through our call history. It was gone because it only keeps so many. And I told my husband, I said, there were two New Jersey numbers. One definitely was my cousin. I'm betting you anything. The other one had to be Cindy. She had to be in New Jersey. And I started in New Jersey.
And then kind of went around, you know what? She could be anywhere. He's a long haul trucker. There's no telling where he could. And I only got that part in my mind because of that woman who reached out to me from the serial killer initiative.
Carolyn believes that Cindy's case has not been fully investigated, largely due to the stigma surrounding sex work and addiction. She feels these biases have played a significant role in the lack of urgency or attention given to Cindy's disappearance. But beyond her own pain, Carolyn worries that by allowing Cindy's case to be ignored,
Other women, many of whom are vulnerable due to similar struggles, may end up missing or murdered in the same way. These harmful attitudes not only hinder justice for those already missing, but also embolden perpetrators. Killers are aware that victims involved in high-risk lifestyles are less likely to be thoroughly searched for. Their disappearances or murders dismissed as inevitable or unimportant. Something we've shared on the show before that we'd like to share again.
are the words of Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer. Ridgway was a trucker who targeted sex workers. After he pleaded guilty to murdering 48 women, he made a statement about why he chose his victims. He said, quote,
I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away. It might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught. It took decades for law enforcement to finally catch up to the Green River Killer, and his own words show us that this dangerous mentality puts countless women at risk, as it perpetrates the idea that their lives don't matter, and that they can disappear without consequence.
I told police, I said, "If you don't want to pursue this for my daughter's sake, pursue it for the sake of the other young women that he might be targeting next." Eventually, I got a hold of a reporter who was doing a story on serial killer truck drivers. And he was very interested, and he was from the LA Times. And then he found out that my daughter had been a prostitute. He said, "No, need somebody a little cleaner." It's actually telling the serial killers who they should go after.
It makes the people who are not the creme de la creme of society throwaways. And everybody is somebody's child. They aren't throwaways to everybody. Kristen shared that Cindy's disappearance has deeply impacted her husband, and it's something that he's struggled with for nearly 18 years.
The uncertainty and pain have weighed heavily on him, and he often finds himself grappling with the emotional toll of not knowing what happened to his sister. Kristen, though busy with her own life, has done everything she can think of to help find answers for him. She's dedicated herself to the search, reaching out to anyone who might know something, and tirelessly following leads, all in the hope of bringing some answers to her family. I keep calling to
And sadly, I don't have a million hours to work on this all the time. I have an hour or two here. So I'll just try and figure out what I did and where I left off and just try to make a phone call or two. I try as hard as I can. And my husband, I think...
This bothers him a lot more than what he portrays on the outside. I can tell that it really gets to him. He just can't believe it's been this many years, his sister's missing. And I feel like in the back of his mind, maybe he feels there could have been more he should have done back then before this happened, maybe help her turn her life around. It just really bothers him. Maybe there's some regrets.
Cindy is also the mother of two sons, though she no longer had custody of them at the time of her disappearance due to her struggles with addiction and instability. Her children have grown up without their mother, and the absence of answers about what happened to her has left a lasting void in their lives. They've had to navigate their childhood, all while wondering where their mother is and what fate befell her. The pain of not knowing has been a silent burden they carry, just as it has for Carolyn, Kristen, and the rest of the family.
The oldest one, his dad got custody of him. I tried, but his dad got custody of him. And the younger one, his dad got custody of him. So they were separated from that point on. They both just kind of treated me as if I were the substitute mother instead of the grandmother.
When the older one got married, I was seated in the front row where the parents of the bride and groom are normally seated. And the younger one's getting married next month. And yes, we've always been very close. And the older one still has hope that his mom is alive somewhere and just had a severe concussion. ♪
So what happened to Cynthia Robison after she left California with a truck driver named Bob in September 2007? We know that the two made it to Florida because Cindy was arrested there, though she was released on October 11th, 2007. After her release, she called her mother and her brother. Kristen believes Cindy phoned them from New Jersey, based on her recollection of the missed calls. During that call, Cindy left a voicemail about Bob, suggesting he wasn't who she thought he was.
When she spoke to Carolyn, Cindy said she was in Connecticut. She also told her mother that she had witnessed Bob shoot someone. Carolyn tried to convince her daughter to leave Bob, even offering to buy her an airline ticket back to California or Texas, where Carolyn was living at the time. But Cindy declined, assuring her mother that she would be okay. However, no one ever heard from Cindy again.
Bob's story was that Cindy wanted to return to California, so she supposedly hitched a ride with another trucker. He also claimed to have seen her when he later returned to California himself. The circumstances surrounding his account are strange, and it's easy to see why Cindy's family suspects Bob may have played a role in her disappearance.
They also feel that a thorough investigation was never conducted, citing jurisdictional complications and the challenges of trying to investigate a case spanning multiple states. To make matters worse, there's a fear that Cindy has been dismissed as a throwaway due to the stigmas surrounding addiction and sex work, stigmas that may have made her a target in the first place.
Is it possible that Bob's version of events is true? That Cindy got into another truck and perhaps that person harmed her? Or is it more likely that Bob is somehow involved in her disappearance? Could it be a mere coincidence that Cindy told her mother she witnessed him shoot someone, and then she vanished without a trace?
What did Cindy know? Despite the obstacles they've faced, Cindy's family has refused to give up. They continue to fight for answers, tell her story, demand justice, and seek the truth about what happened to her. They refuse to let her case be forgotten and remain determined to uncover what happened to their daughter, sister, and mother. If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Cynthia Robison, please call the Stockton Police Department at 209-937-8377.
It blows me away that every single one of these that I listen to says they keep reminding us that it's not a crime to be a missing adult. Maybe they went missing on their own. Maybe they didn't want to talk to family. Regardless of what you say, they go back to that every single time. And it's so frustrating if they would not have that mindset. And I know there's laws, but maybe those laws need to be changed.
Because the sooner they would start investigating some of these, I think the sooner they would solve these. And maybe there wouldn't be so many people missing for this long. The history of her, regardless of her state of mind, whether she was high, whether she wasn't, she would always reach out. That's the part that makes it so hard is we know what her habits, I guess, or her
We knew there were certain times that we'd always hear from her. When she was arrested in jail in Florida, she was calling us collect. It's not like she wasn't reaching out or didn't want us to know where she was. I mean, we knew. It doesn't make sense. Because of her lifestyle, we feel like they think she's just disposable and not worth the time of searching for, to be honest.
The detective who I talked to when I reported her missing is either retiring or has retired. So I contacted her a while back requesting the records, asking if we could talk about the case. She basically said she was retiring and she would have this other person contact me. He called me. I was in a meeting. So I text back.
and said i'm in a meeting can we chat in a little bit can i call you later this afternoon or tomorrow and he said yeah perfect then when i reached back out to him it went to his voicemail so i text him and said call me when you get a chance i text him again a few days later and still he has not called me again that was probably the beginning of september
That brings us to the end of episode 482. I'd like to thank Kristen and Carolyn for speaking with us. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook.
You can also find us on Instagram. If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon, where you can get early and ad-free episodes. Be sure to tune in next week. We'll be covering a case from New Jersey. Thanks for listening.
If you like The Vanished, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Everyone has that friend who seems kind of perfect. For Patty, that friend was Desiree. Until one day... I texted her and she was not getting the text. So I went to Instagram. She has no Instagram anymore. And Facebook, no Facebook anymore. Desiree was gone. And there was one person who knew the answer. I am a spiritual person, a magical person.
A gorgeous Brazilian influencer called Cat Torres. But who was hiding a secret?
From Wondery, based on my smash hit podcast from Brazil, comes a new series, Don't Cross Cat, about a search that led me to a mystery in a Texas suburb. I'm calling to check on the two missing Brazilian girls. Maybe get some undercover crew there. The family are freaking out. They are lost. I'm Chico Felitti. You can listen to Don't Cross Cat on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.