These Teen Sisters Disappeared After Writing Their Mom A Note That They Were Babysitting
In mid-1974, sisters Cynthia Ardina Leslie and Jackie Lynn Leslie moved to Mesa, Arizona, with their family. Their father had been battling terminal lung cancer, so they left Page, Arizona, and relocated to Mesa to be near his medical team.
Cynthia, 15, and Jackie, 13, were both extremely close to their father and knew he had limited time left. That’s what made their joint disappearance about one month after their move even more puzzling.
Leading up to the night they went missing, the sisters had begun babysitting in their neighborhood to earn some extra money.
Then, on the evening of July 31, 1974, their parents went to church, leaving Cynthia and Jackie at home with their grandmother.
Their grandmother later told the police how, at one point, Cynthia received a phone call. After the call, the 15-year-old wrote a note for their parents and left their home, located in the Desert Sands Mobile Home Park, with Jackie. The note read, “Mom, we’ve gone to babysit at the same place.”
Cynthia and Jackie proceeded to walk down Baseline Road, and afterward, they were never seen by their loved ones again.
The girls’ mother, Erma Leslie, sat on the couch all night and waited for her daughters to come back home. Tragically, they never returned, and by the following morning, the Leslie family contacted the police.
Searches were conducted that same day in the orange groves and desert areas surrounding Mesa. However, a few days later, new information came to light, suggesting the teens had never left to babysit at all.
Instead, Erma discovered her daughters had planned on attending a party located on Power Road, approximately three blocks away from their home. Cynthia supposedly wanted to meet up with a boy whom her parents had forbidden her from seeing.
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Today, the area where the party took place has been filled with homes and businesses, but in 1974, it was a remote desert region surrounded by orange groves and cotton fields.
Authorities spoke to the party’s attendees, and while some reported seeing the sisters, others claimed they hadn’t. They also searched the area but turned up nothing.
Erma believed that her daughters never would’ve willingly left while knowing their father was fighting terminal cancer. The police suspected that foul play was involved, too.
Cynthia and Jackie’s father sadly passed away seven months after they vanished, though, and over 50 years later, what exactly happened to the teens remains a mystery.
Their older sister, Linda Herring, recalled how they enjoyed bowling and roller skating, saying, “We were just really the normal American family.”
In the wake of Cynthia and Jackie’s disappearance, the Leslie family felt alone. Authorities reportedly wouldn’t file a police report until 48 hours after the girls went missing, and investigative resources were far less advanced. Police jurisdictions didn’t communicate, the FBI wasn’t brought in to assist, and there weren’t hotlines for tipsters to contact.
This left Erma sitting and waiting by her phone, hoping that someone would reach out with good news regarding her daughters.
“I was sure that they would call me and tell me to come get them. But it didn’t happen. It still hasn’t happened,” she shared in 2017.
“I’ve tried to keep the story of their disappearance alive so nobody forgets about it. I think there is someone out there who knows what happened to them but never came forward.”
Cynthia had brown hair and hazel eyes, wore glasses, and went by the nickname of “Cindy.” Jackie had brown hair, blue eyes, and a mole on her right cheekbone. Both girls were wearing jeans and summer shirts the day they vanished.
Cynthia would be 66 years old today, and Jackie would be 64 years old. Anyone with information regarding their case is urged to contact the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office at (602) 256-1087.
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