I had no idea that the original Unsolved Mysteries segment featuring my sister’s mysterious death was different than the one I had seen on the Best of Unsolved Mysteries DVD set. I was really surprised at how much was edited out of that original one!

In fact I was shocked at how upset I became after hearing the 1988 taped police interview with Cindy. In this version she spoke for a much longer amount of time than in any other TV segments and it was so hard hearing the distress in her voice. She was in such a state of anguish. I wanted to crawl through the computer and give her a big hug! –It really sucked that I couldn’t! It’s hard to make out her words but listen to her emotion…

(Listen to Cindy clip below)

“All of a sudden there was somebody behind me, and I don’t know where he came from…I don’t know what I thought I was going to do, but I was trying to push his knife away or something…I don’t think I really remember anything else.”

And right off the bat I noticed differences between this version and the Unsolved Mysteries segment from the boxed set that I have—the NBC version starts with different music, there is a scene about the polygraph (lie detector) test Cindy took, and throughout there are more comments by both my parents, by the reporter who covered the inquest, and more talk of Multiple Personality Disorder with a good rebuttal from Dr. Connolly, the therapist (psychiatric consultant) Cindy saw for three years after the January 1983 assault.

Dr. Connolly says,

(Listen to his clip below)

“There was no indication in all of the time that I saw her…and I saw her not just in conversational states—I saw her in deep hypnotic states as well…there was never any evidence that there were other personalities there. The psychiatrists that were speculating about that were looking for an explanation for things that can’t be explained, and who can argue against Multiple Personality Disorder?”

I didn’t see signs of MPD either.

And I thought it was interesting that Robert Stack says the RCMP turned down a request for an interview with UM.

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In my next Blog I’ll point out some of the factual errors in the video segments.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James