The Strange Disappearance of Cindy and Jackie Leslie

On the evening of July 31st, 1974, sisters Cindy Leslie, 15, and Jackie Leslie, 13, left a note for their mother telling her that they were going to babysit at an unspecified residence.

Around 7 p.m. the two were last seen beside a road a few blocks away from their home. Their movements after this are not known with certainty. What is certain, however, is that they never returned.

The investigation into their disappearance would struggle to turn up any concrete evidence; conflicting information and a strange discovery would only introduce more questions.

Decades later, the surviving loved ones of the Leslie sisters are still fighting for answers.

What happened to Cindy and Jackie Leslie?

Cynthia Ardina Leslie & Jackie Lynn Leslie

Cynthia “Cindy” Ardina Leslie was born on February 1st, 1959. Her younger sister, Jackie Lynn Leslie, was born on February 15th, 1961. They, along with their parents Albert (“Jack”) and Erma, resided in Page, Arizona, for years.

However, in 1974, Jack was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and the family relocated to a mobile home community in Mesa in June of that year so that he could be nearer to the hospital where he was undergoing treatments.

“The girls liked to go bowling,” said their older sister Linda, “they liked roller, we were just really the normal American family.”

Little information is publicly available about either Jackie or Cindy, but it has been said that both were close to their parents. The only point of contention seems to have been Cindy’s boyfriend, whom Jack reportedly strongly disapproved of and forbade her to see.

The basis for Jack’s disapproval of Cindy’s boyfriend is unclear. The police records relating to this case—260 pages in total—have been heavily redacted, making some aspects of the case and investigation difficult to distinguish or comprehend.

In the files, there are few unredacted details about this young man, whose identity has never been revealed to the public. One of the only pieces of personal information about him is that he was a different—unspecified—race from Cindy. Whether or not this played into Jack’s dislike of him is unknown.

Though they hadn’t lived in the area long, both sisters appear to have made quite a few friends there already and they regularly attended local parties.

Jackie and Cindy Vanish

Erma and Jack were at church on July 31st, 1974, while the girls were at home with their grandmother. They received multiple phone calls that day, according to their grandmother, but the identity of the caller—or callers—is unknown.

One final call came in for Cindy at approximately 6 p.m., after which she and Jackie explained to their grandmother that they were leaving to babysit.

They also wrote a note for Erma which read: “Mom we’ve gone to babysit in the same place.”

Unfortunately, they gave no other details before they departed and, as law enforcement and their family would later learn, they had never actually intended to babysit that night.

Erma and Jack arrived home to find that the girls were still gone. Erma slept on the couch, waiting for them to get back, but they never did. When there was still no sign of her daughters the following morning, she phoned the police to report them missing.

Still No Sign of the Sisters

Early reports indicated that Cindy and Jackie decided to attend a party a few blocks away that night. Authorities interviewed those who were known to have been in attendance, with mixed results. Some partygoers remembered seeing the sisters, while others said they’d never arrived.

However, it would turn out that the party in question had actually taken place a few nights before Jackie and Cindy vanished, so it was ultimately deemed to have no relevance to their disappearance.

Searches for the girls were carried out in nearby orange groves and deserts, but to no avail.

“It’s just like the ground opened up and swallowed ‘em,” said Erma.

Law enforcement discovered that they’d actually been planning to visit the home of Cindy’s boyfriend, though where this information originally came from is unclear.

Police officers went to his place and questioned him. He admitted that the girls were supposed to come over, but said they never showed up and that he’d waited up for them all night. Investigators also questioned the teenage boy’s parents.

It’s unclear if Cindy’s boyfriend was ever officially ruled out as a person of interest, but the police records seem to suggest that they stopped pursuing him as a suspect fairly early on, due to a lack of evidence that he was involved in their disappearance.

A bizarre discovery days after the sisters went missing—coupled with eyewitness reports—would take the investigation in a new direction.

Discarded Undergarment Raises More Questions

Stacy Ransom, a local man, witnessed two motorcyclists standing beside a road. One of the men was holding something—a mysterious item which both were looking at. Ransom couldn’t say for sure what they had, but he decided to go back later to see for himself.

By then, the motorcyclists were gone but Ransom found something odd laying on the ground—a pair of underwear. For unknown reasons, he chose to take this pair of underwear home to show his wife Janet.

The Ransoms knew Cindy and Jackie, as they were friends with the couple’s teenage daughter. Janet believed that she recognized the undergarment and thought it belonged to Cindy. (Side note: Why she would have been familiar enough with Cindy’s underwear to be able to identify it is not clear.)

Instead of going to the police, Janet took the underwear over to the Leslie household. Erma agreed that the pair looked like her daughter’s, which was also missing from the trailer. Erma went to the police and gave them the underwear, thinking they might be evidence.

An analysis would reveal trace amounts of blood and semen. While the undergarment was preserved as evidence, it appears that they haven’t been DNA tested in recent years.

There were other odd details that caused some to wonder if the Ransom family knew more than they were saying.

Their teenage daughter (another player in this story whose name has never been released to the public) was seen wearing Cindy’s necklace after she went missing. She gave more than one explanation for how it came to be in her possession, but ultimately landed on the claim that Cindy gave it to her.

Stacy Ransom refused to cooperate further with law enforcement and encouraged his wife to do the same, telling her not to speak to anyone “without a court order.”

Investigators later wanted to question their daughter again, but Stacy Ransom said she was sick and not up for it. This appears to be where law enforcement’s focus on the Ransom family ended.

Troubling Eyewitness Sightings

Although there was reason to view the Ransoms, as well as Cindy’s boyfriend, with suspicion, two eyewitness sightings would introduce another theory.

Steve Townsend, a local man who owned a grove, told authorities that he saw Cindy and Jackie around 7 p.m. on July 31st. They were in a blue Ford Pinto with an unidentified man, whom he described as being possibly Hispanic and 20 to 30 years of age.

Townsend said the stranger dropped them off along the side of Power Road (around three blocks away from their home) and started to drive away. Cindy and Jackie began walking. Then the driver abruptly turned around and came back for them. The girls got into the vehicle once again and he drove off with them.

Townsend also knew the sisters, as he was the father of one of their friends, lending credence to his eyewitness account. Additionally, a teenage boy who worked for him came forward with essentially the exact same account, stating that he’d seen a man in a blue Pinto with Jackie and Cindy.

Although this was likely a very important clue as to what happened to the girls, it only created more confusion.

The problem was that no one knew who this might be. No one in the girls’ known circle of friends and acquaintances owned a blue Pinto. So law enforcement began pulling over random Pintos and searching them, as well as questioning their drivers, but this strategy led nowhere.

They also pulled over random motorcyclists based off of Ransom’s account, but similarly had no luck.

Was the stranger in the blue Pinto passing through the area and not a resident?

Did the Girls Run Away?

For quite some time, authorities favored the theory that Cindy and Jackie had run away. An incident that took place a few months before they vanished seemed to support this idea.

In April 1974, Cindy ran away from home and went to stay with a woman named Joanne. Jack went to the police station to report her missing and also told the officers of his belief that she was with Joanne. Few details have been released about this person, but she apparently owned a home that was known to be a party house.

Jack went there himself, found his daughter and brought her home. Because of this prior incident, investigators went to Joanne and interviewed her. However, the girls were not at her residence and she was adamant that she didn’t know where they were or have any knowledge about the events which led to their disappearance.

What led Cindy to run away in April—or why she went to Joanne specifically—is unknown.

Authorities still believed it was a possibility that the sisters left willingly.

Their family, on the other hand, did not think this was likely or even possible. For one thing, Erma was certain that they wouldn’t have abandoned their father while he was terminally ill. Additionally, neither one had taken their purse or any of their belongings with them, making a voluntary disappearance seem less plausible.Subscribe

Other Leads

Over time, the police department devoted fewer resources to investigating this case due to being understaffed. Unfortunately, it also received little media coverage.

Jack Leslie passed away in February 1975, at the age of 48, having never learned the fate of Cindy and Jackie.

With Jack gone, Erma and Linda continued to investigate leads themselves. The family was often contacted by people claiming to have seen the Leslie sisters in various states.

A trucker stated that he’d seen them working at a diner in El Dorado, Kansas.

A caller from Casa Grande said that Jackie and Cindy boarded a train that was headed for Douglas, Arizona.

Erma and Linda traveled to these locations, each time hoping to find the girls or clues as to their whereabouts, but were always left disappointed.

There were many other such tips, but ultimately none could be substantiated.

“I’ve been to several states, but all I’ve accomplished is to put fliers out,” Erma noted sadly.

Later Developments

Erma remained in the Desert Sands mobile home community until 1999, in case her daughters returned. She eventually remarried, and she and her husband relocated to another city to be closer to Linda, who now lived in Nevada.

With little in the way of evidence or solid leads, their case has grown cold.

It’s unclear if the underwear has ever been re-tested for DNA, as technology has greatly advanced and it could potentially lead authorities in the direction of a new suspect or perhaps solidify their former suspicions towards an already known person of interest. It doesn’t appear that this has been done, though.

Erma spoke about the difficulty of not only losing her daughters, but having to come to terms with the lack of answers.

“I guess that’s what’s so hard—it is the not knowing what happened.”

The disappearance of Cindy and Jackie Leslie remains unsolved.

If you have any information regarding their disappearance, you are encouraged to contact the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office at (602) 256-1087.