In 2001, She Attended A Party With Her Friends, But After She Got Dropped Off Back At Her Home That Night, This College Girl Mysteriously Vanished
After being born on February 25, 1980, Cindy Song spent most of her young life in South Korea before moving to live with her family in Alexandria, Virginia.
Once in the United States, she was a student at Hayfield Secondary School before transferring to Randolph-Macon Academy in Front Royal, Virginia.
Then, after Cindy graduated high school in 1998, she went on to attend Penn State University. There, she studied integrative arts and joined various clubs– including the Korean Undergraduate Student Association, the Advertising Club, and the American Red Cross.
Much like many of her peers, she also rented an apartment, worked, and dated.
Come Halloween in 2001, though, Cindy’s future dreams of becoming a “talented graphic and fashion designer” were shattered after the 21-year-old mysteriously disappeared.
That year, Halloween was on a Wednesday– which gave college students like Cindy the perfect opportunity to celebrate on a school night.
So, she and her two friends– Lisa and Stacy – dressed up and went out to a Halloween party for a night of dancing and drinking.
Cindy decided to dress up as a bunny, wearing a pair of bunny ears and a tail. According to Lisa, she looked cute– which was “her thing.”
“She was very cute. She liked to look cute,” Lisa recalled.
State of California Department of Justice – pictured above is Cindy
The group of girls wound up partying until about 2:00 a.m. And afterward, they traveled to a different friend’s home to play video games for a couple of hours.
So, they did not arrive home until 4:00 a.m. At that point, Stacy dropped Cindy off at her apartment and waved goodbye.
Stacy never actually saw Cindy enter her apartment, though, and the 21-year-old was never seen again after that night.
“We have no body, we have no crime scene, and we have no actual crime,” said Detective Brian Sprinkle of the Ferguson Township Police Department.
“So it’s been very frustrating without any of those pieces of the puzzle. And because of that, it seems like she just vanished into thin air.”
Cindy was known among her peers as an independent and spontaneous young woman. However, she was also a responsible and hard-working student.
While maintaining good grades in school, Cindy also worked two jobs. On top of that, she had already enrolled in classes for her next semester and bought Britney Spears tickets for an upcoming concert.
Due to this, both Cindy’s friends and authorities did not believe she had just run off.
Stacy reported the 21-year-old missing the day after Halloween. Cindy had missed her shifts at work, and authorities reportedly launched their investigation promptly.
Upon searching Cindy’s apartment, investigators did not find any signs of a struggle. But Stacy claimed to have discovered some suspicious clues.
“We found her eyelashes on the counter because she was wearing fake eyelashes. So we knew that she must have at least come in and taken those off,” Stacy explained.
“And her backpack was in her room as well, which she had been carrying earlier. So we knew that she at least came in and dropped that off.”
Cindy’s cell phone had also been left in her backpack– which was extremely uncharacteristic. According to her friends, the 21-year-old never went anywhere without her cell phone.
Even more bizarrely, the outfit Cindy had worn on Halloween– her bunny costume- was nowhere to be found in her apartment.
“We know that whenever she left the apartment, she was wearing the clothes she had on that night,” Detective Sprinkle said.
“We also know that her purse, her pocketbook, or whatever she had with her that evening that contained her driver’s license and credit cards were with her, too, because we could not locate those in the apartment.”
Upon checking Cindy’s bank account, though, investigators found there was no activity on her credit cards. Cindy’s email also had no activity– providing investigators with few clues about her disappearance.
So, authorities began conducting interviews– ultimately speaking with hundreds of people as the years passed following Cindy’s disappearance.
Search parties and bloodhounds also combed the area surrounding Cindy’s apartment, as well as the woods. Unfortunately, though, none of these efforts ever yielded any results.
One prominent theory surrounding Cindy’s disappearance is that she decided to visit a local 24-hour grocery store near her apartment after arriving home on Halloween. According to her friends, it was not unusual for the 21-year-old to make late-night store runs.
But, if the theory is true, what happened to Cindy after she left remains unknown.
“There’s no evidence of foul play or that a crime’s been committed. There’s only so much you can do,” Detective Sprinkle said at the time of Cindy’s disappearance.
So, for over 21 years now, Cindy has remained missing.
While efforts to keep her case in the media were successful in the early months and years following her disappearance, much of her case coverage has shrunk.
According to authorities, Cindy’s case has remained open in Ferguson. And it will remain that way until a conclusion is reached about Cindy’s whereabouts or her fate.
In the meantime, Detective Jonathan Mayer revealed how he still thinks about her case often, and investigators will “periodically” review information and go over tips as they are reported.
He also claimed that he is still holding onto hope regarding getting justice and closure.
“I don’t know. I hope so. We are going to try everything we can to make sure it is. I know there are people out there who have information about it. Maybe they’ll be able to provide us with information to either find her or find out what happened to her,” Mayer said.
At the time of her disappearance, Cindy was five foot one, weighed 115 pounds, and was last seen wearing a pink tank top, a white shirt, brown boots, and a red hooded jacket.
If you have any information regarding her case, you are urged to contact the Ferguson Township Police Department at (814) 237-1172.
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