August 21, 1989, was a hot day in Durham when Cindy Kirk took a last look down at her sleeping daughter Suzanne in her crib. She looked at the clock on the wall as she grabbed her purse and the baby’s pink diaper bag. She was a supervisor at the Liggett & Meyer Tobacco Company and had to work the second shift. Suzanne had to go to the babysitter until her husband, Bill, was able to pick her up after he got off work. When she opened the side door, the heat and humidity hit her, contrasting the cool air in her house.
Suzanne’s babysitter peered through her house’s blinds, looking out for Cindy’s car to pull in her driveway. It was not like her to be late, and she was getting worried. She knew that she had to be at work soon, so she called Cindy’s house, but there was no answer. She hung up and called Cindy’s sister Beverly who lived nearby. Beverly was worried too, and after trying to call her sister herself, she drove to her house. She was sure something bad had happened to Cindy, so when she pulled into the driveway ad saw blood on the concrete, she flagged down the neighbor and asked him to check the house.
He walked towards the house towards the side door where he knew Cindy and Bill used most often. He began to see what appeared to be blood leading to the door and then blood long the banister leading up the four stairs. The metal screen door was closed, but he could see the door to the kitchen was opened. He cautiously peered inside and saw Cindy’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. He stumbled backward and ran into his house to call the police.
When they arrived, they found that she was indeed dead. The officers moved cautiously through the house with guns drawn, unsure if the killer still lurked behind a corner or in a closet. The only other person they found in the house was little Suzanne sleeping in her crib, unaware that her beloved mother had been stolen from her just a short time before. They immediately began to investigate the crime scene. Bill was contacted, and his whereabouts for the day were verified to rule him out as a suspect quickly.
The police found the purse and the diaper bag locked in her car unmolested. Bill walked through the house and confirmed that nothing was missing to eliminate robbery as a motive. The police interviewed the neighbors. One neighbor said she saw Cindy; she was standing in the driveway, talking to a clean-cut-looking man. Another neighbor said she heard a scream about 1:30 pm but assumed that it was a child that had fallen and gotten hurt. A landscaper told the police that he saw an olive-green Chrysler with a CB radio antenna on the back. A clean-cut middle-aged white man drove the car. His description of the man driving the car was the same as the neighbor that had seen Cindy speaking to a man in her driveway. No one had seen the actual attack, though.
When Cindy came out of the house, the police determined that she had locked her purse and the diaper bag in the car and was confronted by someone in her driveway. They pieced together that she did not feel like she was in any danger since she was seen talking casually with the man. The police think that the suspect had driven by the house and asked her a simple and innocent question like asking for directions. They thought that Cindy, as she was giving him the directions, was at some point suddenly and viciously attacked. She had a defensive wound on her right hand, which almost severed her thumb. The earring from her left ear was found in the driveway, having been ripped from her ear in the struggle. She had been stabbed five times, and from everything they could piece together, after the brutal attack, the killer did not pursue her. He turned back to his car, and coolly drove away.
Cindy, on the other, had turned back towards the house. No one can know for sure what was going through her mind in her final moments as she stumbled towards the side door. As she retreated, though, it can be assumed that she was thinking of reaching safety in her home from the attacker. Still, also it can be assumed that she was moving herself in between the monster that had attacked her and her baby girl sleeping soundly inside.
The Durham Police Department immediately began to interview suspects from Cindy’s inner circle of friends and family. Still, it came up with no information that they could use to find the killer. A $50,000 reward was offered, which in 1989 was a very substantial amount of money. The police followed over 200 leads, but they all ran into dead ends. Frustration grew for the family and the community as they tried to wrap their minds around how someone could murder her in broad daylight in front of her home and then drive away with no witnesses. Speculation around what kind of killer this was ran wild through the city. Would he strike again?
Despite the rewards and the many leads, the police were stumped. They even went to the home where she had been slain and recorded Durham Police Officers recreating the murder in hopes that seeing a visual representation would jog someone’s memory, but still nothing. Over thirty years have passed since that brutal August afternoon, but the case is still unsolved and now cold. The fear of a homicidal maniac killing woman in their driveways never became a reality, thankfully. Still, the lack of other killings makes the case more baffling to the police. Although cold, the case remains open, and the Durham Police Department will still follow any leads that they are given to bring the killer to justice.
Rick Jackson 