On April 17, 1982, the body of an unidentified woman
was found by a motorist that had stopped to use the restroom in the wooded area
of Munford. The motorist saw what appeared to be a hands sticking out of the
wet pine straw. The police arrived a little after 9:00 a.m. The victim had been
hit in the head four times with what investigators believe was a tire iron;
there were also signs that she had been strangled. She had been dead for two or
three days before she was discovered.
For the next 28 years, all investigators could do was
speculate who the victim was, even though the name Hanes, Cynthia was etched in
the right pocket of her pants. During her autopsy, toxicologist determined that
she was on the drug Librium used to treat anxiety and depression, which led
investigators to believe that she was an escaped mental patient. The
toxicologists also noted that the victim was intoxicated at the time of her
death but there were no outward signs of drug abuse. County officials referred
to the victim as "backwoods" because her armpits and legs were
unshaven.
In 2010, police were finally able to match the victims
fingerprints with those of Cynthia Hanes. On March 27, 1982 Cynthia checked
herself out of a Rehab program in Maryland for the second time; she got into a
Black Van and no one saw her alive again. Cynthia had graduated from Warren
Hills High School in New Jersey then quickly joined the United States Army in
1977. She served at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama but was honorably
discharged; soon after she headed to her parents' home in Maryland. Where she
would soon fall into a world of drugs and alcohol, that would ultimately cause
Cynthia to go to Rehab. Her family searched for years for Cynthia but never
thought to check Alabama and investigators never thought to check states that
far North.
Henry
Lee Lucas was suspected of killing Cynthia; after a videotaped interview police
knew that he had not killed Cynthia. Henry Lee Lucas claimed to have killed
over 157 people; often fabricating stories of victims in order to prolong his
incarceration and for the fame that it brought.
Jerry L. Johns was also another suspect in the murder
of Cynthia. Jerry was charged with the aggravated kidnapping of Linda Schacke;
she had pretended to be dead after Jerry had choked her with cloth strips.
Police believed that Jerry was involved in multiple murders throughout the
early 1980's.
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