Cynthia L. Day, Missing, Aug. 1990 MO.

Women seek mother missing 16 years By Denise Hollinshed ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 08/24/2006 EAST ST. LOUIS Police are seeking the help of the public to find a mother who has been missing for 16 years. The woman, Cynthia Day, was living at 206 Bowman Avenue in East St. Louis at the time of her disappearance, according to police. She was 38, about 5 feet 2 inches, 125 pounds, had blond hair and went by the nickname "Peaches." She had a hysterectomy scar, pierced ears and a missing eyetooth on the left side. Day's daughter, Melody Day of Dupo, said she and her sister, Kimberly Day of Cahokia, reported their mother missing on Aug. 12, 1990. They heard nothing from the police after the initial report, they said. East St. Louis police Capt. Lenzie Stewart said the department's files do not show that a report was filed in 1990. He said an officer might have asked them to return later with an older family member. Melody Day disputed Stewart's explanation but said she did file a second report in March 2004. A detective was assigned to the case at that time but has turned up little. The mother was last seen getting into a semi on First Street and St. Clair Avenue in East St. Louis, said Melody Day, who added that she also had heard that her mother may have been a prostitute and used drugs. Since then, Day has taken on the job of investigating the case herself. She searched the Internet and ran across stories on the so-called "happy face killer," a trucker who killed women along the interstate and sent letters to newspapers signed with a happy face. At this point, though, there is no known connection between the "happy face killer" and Cynthia Day's disappearance. "I'm trying to cover all bases," she said. "It's like we don't know what happened to her, but just finding her and putting her soul to rest, that's what we are trying to do." Day discovered that her mother's ex-boyfriend was in jail and had him questioned by the head investigator in California's Wasco State Prison. She said they even gave East St. Louis police permission to come there to interrogate him. "I was even willing to buy an airline ticket to fly one of them down there," she said. "I'm serious. Their excuse is that they don't have a 'cold case team' down there, but before, it was that they didn't have the money to fly down there." Stewart said Cynthia Day's old boyfriend probably needs to be interviewed again. But, he said, his department lacks the staff and the resources to properly investigate Day's disappearance. He said the Illinois State Police has an investigator assigned to cold cases and the resources to investigate Day's disappearance. Some information on the case already has been forwarded to the State Police. Greg Fernandez, a State Police spokesman, said late Wednesday that the case would be looked at - if there are leads worth pursuing. Stewart said an old police report indicates that Cynthia Day was staying with her boyfriend at the Indian Mound Hotel in Fairmont City. Stewart said the officer who worked the case after the 2004 report was filed said he had talked to the owner of a tavern, Perry's Lounge in East St. Louis, where Cynthia Day used to work. The tavern owner, John Perry, said he couldn't remember the year or date that he saw Day getting into the semi, according to Stewart. Perry "said it went eastward, and he never saw her again," Stewart said. Anyone with information is urged to call 618-482-6700. In addition, Melody Day has set up a website called www.findcynthia.com with information about her mother. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/metroeast/story/25337F6B2BAC4885862571D4001F9D9E?OpenDocument

Federal DNA database offers hope to father of missing woman By Denise Hollinshed ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 09/18/2006 Gregory Parker has kept a vigil in the State Park Place area since his 19-year-old daughter disappeared almost a year ago. Anquiaette Parker's 1995 black Ford Crown Victoria was found in the neighborhood southwest of Collinsville, but she and the 4-month-old nephew she was baby-sitting have not been seen since they vanished Nov. 6. Police and volunteers have searched for Parker and the boy, Cermen Toney, at least 20 times. Gregory Parker is eager to widen the search nationwide, and he'll soon get help from a federal database. He added a sample of his blood for the database, which will eventually compare DNA samples taken from unidentified bodies found nationwide and those of relatives of people who disappear. Advertisement "Anything, if it would solve a case or crime or something, is worth dealing with," Parker said last week from his East St. Louis home. "I didn't expect it to take this long." Illinois State Police say they are making it standard practice to ask family members of anyone who is reported missing whether they want to submit DNA samples for the database, which is expected to be in use by next year. The agency also is submitting DNA from six unidentified bodies found in the Metro East area to a forensic lab for eventual inclusion in the database and hopes other police agencies will do the same, Sgt. James Morissey said. He told relatives of one missing woman that "the least we can do is to get you submitted into this database." "It may not be good news if we get a call and they say we got a match. It means that they found her body some place," Morissey said. "At least they will be able to know that she is dead, and it's not that glimmer of hope that she is still out there somewhere. They will know for sure." The cases from the Metro East area being added to the database are: A woman whose remains were found by two hunters Jan. 21 on Norfolk Southern railroad property in the 100 block of West St. Clair Avenue in Brooklyn. A Hispanic man whose body was found in the trunk of a car in Brooklyn on May 3, 2003. An unidentified woman whose body was found in a cornfield near Summerfield, in St. Clair County, in September 1986. She was strangled and mutilated. Three unidentified women who were found from January to March 2002 whose deaths were linked to serial killer Maury Travis. Morissey estimates that police vaults nationwide hold tissue samples from thousands of unidentified bodies. Another national database already contains the DNA of convicted criminals. The new federal database will be separate and just for DNA from unidentified bodies and family members. "They don't take the DNA and compare it to, like, unsolved crimes," he said. "We are not going to compare it to DNA from rape cases. They are separate. A lot of people are very leery of DNA. They know it is overpowering. They are afraid the government has their DNA and what they are going to do with it. It's very limited in scope on what we use it for." He said if matches are made in the missing persons database, the law enforcement agency will be alerted, notifications will be made to families and follow-ups will be done on the investigations. Gregory Parker isn't the only Metro East resident who hopes the database helps his search for a missing loved one. Melody Day of Dupo and her sister, Kimberly Day of Cahokia, submitted their DNA to the State Police a few weeks ago. Their mother, Cynthia Day, 38, has been missing since Aug. 12, 1990. She was last seen in East St. Louis. "I think it's super, it's like a step forward," Melody Day said. "It's something that we have been trying to do forever. They seem like they are going to try and help." Day, 34, said she had no reservations about supplying a blood sample for the DNA database. "Absolutely not, . . . because, you know, this is my momma, and I'm no criminal," she said sternly. "I have nothing to hide. Heck no, if it's going to help us. I've been practically begging to do it." dhollinshed@post-dispatch.com 618-624-2659 http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/metroeast/story/D26B4FE9A50CAA4C862571EE0019F466?OpenDocument

The Criminal Report Daily : July 08, 2008 By: David Lohr The Missing - A Weekly exposé of Lost Souls - Issue #19 In this week's edition of "The Missing," we revisit the mysterious disappearance of Cynthia Louise Day, a 38-year-old resident of East St. Louis, Illinois, who went missing on Aug. 10, 1990. "I was 18-years-old and fresh out of high school when my mom disappeared," Cynthia's daughter, Melody, said in a telephone interview with Investigation Discovery. "On the day she went missing my sister, Kimberly, had just come home from the hospital with her son. My mom was excited, so my sister and I went over to her house so she could get to know her new grandbaby. My mom took him around and proudly introduced him to all the neighbors. We had a good time. We did not know it when we left, but that would prove to be the last time that we ever saw her." Approximately one week later, Melody and Kimberly became concerned because they had not heard from their mother. It was unlike her to stay out of contact for such a long period of time, so the girls decided to go check on her. To their surprise, their mother, along with her boyfriend of seven years, had vanished. In addition, all of their possessions were also gone. "My mother was into beauty and fashion and everything – clothes, makeup, perfumes – was all gone" Melody said, adding, "We did not even find a single toothbrush." Both girls were young at the time and neither of them had any idea what to do, so they went to the East St. Louis Police Department and filed a missing person report. It was their hope that the police, people they felt were skilled and knowledgeable in missing person cases, would be able to uncover the mystery of their mother's disappearance. "With each year that passed by, I just assumed that the police were investigating the case," Melody said. "I would call them whenever I heard they had found a body and would check to see if it was my mom, but they always said it was not her. Then, in 2004, when I needed a police report to get the website going and all this stuff, I discovered that they had never even opened a case. We resolved the issue but from that day forward I decided to do everything in my power to find out what happened to my mother." As part of her own investigation, Melody went back to the neighborhood where her mother had lived and discovered that many of her mom's old neighbors suspected that Cynthia's boyfriend had something to do with her disappearance. This was something that Cynthia's daughters had also considered because, according to Melody, their mother had allegedly voiced her unhappiness about the relationship the last time they spoke. In addition, there was another incident that had occurred prior to Cynthia's disappearance, which her daughters found troubling. "Sometime before they went missing, my uncle Wayne supposedly shot himself in front of my mom and her boyfriend," Melody said. "The entire thing is strange and my family is convinced that Wayne did not commit suicide. We think that something happened to him and that my mom witnessed it." The case took another unusual twist about five years ago, when Melody discovered her mom's boyfriend was being held in a California Prison. She cannot recall the exact charges but said she believes they had to do with an armed robbery. "He never once contacted us to tell us that our mom was not with him," Melody said. "Why didn't he say, 'where's my old lady, where's your mom?'" According to Melody, an officer in California questioned her mom's ex-boyfriend but he claimed to have no knowledge of what happened to her. "The officer in California who questioned him told me he is convinced this guy did something to both my mom and my uncle," Melody said. "He gave my local police department permission to come down there and question the guy but they said they did not have the money. I offered to buy the plane tickets myself but they would not take me up on the offer." The boyfriend was paroled from prison two years ago and to date Illinois investigators have yet to question him. "Getting the cops to do something is like pulling teeth," Melody said. "I've been the detective on this case for a long time. Two plus two equals four and if the police had done their job they would have had this case solved a long time ago. To know that the cops are not doing anything is frustrating. They take more interest in an animal stuck in a tree than a missing person. We know my mother is not alive, we just want to put her to rest whatever way we can." When asked what she would like to say to her mother, Melody responded: "I love and miss you so much. I am still looking for you all these years later and will continue to look for you until I find you. You have a beautiful family that is still hopeful. We will do whatever we can to keep your memory alive." Yesterday, Investigation Discovery contacted East St. Louis police Capt. Lenzie Stewart and asked him if he could provide any information on the case. Stewart had this to say: "At this particular time we don't have very much going for that. We have elicited the Illinois State Police to help us … What has happened there is we have got DNA from the family members and we are trying to run that through our database to see if we get any pop-ups on any Jane Does we have found … I am not actively investigating the case and cannot answer any further questions at this time." Stewart referred further questions to the investigator who is handling the case for the Illinois State Police; however that investigator was unavailable for comment. Cynthia Louise Day, nickname "Peaches," would be 55-years-old today. She is described as a white female, 5'2" tall, 125 lbs., with blonde hair and blue eyes. She has a hysterectomy scar and is missing an eye tooth on the left side. Anyone with information is asked to call the East St. Louis Police Department (Case # ES-04-06787) at 618-482-6724 or the Illinois State Police at 618-346-3781. For more information or to help, please visit: www.findcynthia.com. http://investigation.discovery.com/blogs/criminal-report/missing-person/cynthia_louise_day.html

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