art ream, the father of cindy s boyfriend. jen interviewed ream s ex-wives, extended family members, and the picture that came together was ugly. he was a pretty prolific pedophile. he definitely had a fetish for 9-year-old to 15-year-old girls, that he got away with a lot of it, and that was really surprising. by the end of 2007, mac and jen also had the stories from cindy s girlfriends that cindy had planned to meet art ream at the dairy queen the sunday that she disappeared. they had the old have you seen me picture of cindy recovered from the box in his carpet warehouse. but what they didn t have was significant. no body, and no hard evidence. ream was locked up in a prison in muskegon ten years into a 12-year sentence for the raping of a young girl. mac thought with his suspect on ice, he d have time to develop the circumstantial evidence the d.a. said he needed. but the detective got a jolt when he discovered that ream was going to be getting out in the next few weeks on pa
a law enforcement consulting firm in chicago where mac had taken courses on how to interrogate criminals. immediately, the young intern was fascinated by cindy s case file. she picked it off her boss desk when he wasn t looking. i ve since admitted it to my boss, i read the file, and it really was contagious. i took that file home with me almost every single night and just kept rereading it. jen leibow, was at the time, an undergrad studying for a communications degree. she quickly became obsessed with suburban detroit teenager who disappeared when she herself was only 4. and then i brought it up to my bosses and they allowed me to call mac and see if, you know, i can be an extra set of hands for him. anything he needed. you know, as a new investigator, i could learn from him, but i could also help him out. and the phone relationship would remain for the next 2 1/2 years. mac welcome, back in eastpointe, doing the shoe-leather investigating, as he had time
lackadaisical. seriously flawed and botched from the get-go. now two decades later, mac asked theresa to come down to the eastpointe p.d. and go over her story yet again. this time it was a different experience. i knew right away walking in there that he was listening to what i was saying. very intently. the story that the two friends told had for some reason never made it into the police files. it had to do with a surprise birthday party for scott and a planned meeting at the dairy queen. cindy had been over at kathy s house that saturday evening. cindy said she was going to hook up with scott s father in the morning. and she had mentioned that she was going to go to this belaid birthday party. she was supposed to meet art at the dairy queen the next day, sunday.
harder edge. you ve got information that will tell me where this girl is, and you re not saying nothing. and i just think that s bull [ bleep ]. he just sits there, doesn t deny it, doesn t refute it, doesn t do anything but sit there and nod his head saying, well, you got that right. a suspect, but no body, no witnesses, no forensics. the d.a. s office was going to need more before moving ahead on art ream. if the d.a. was demanding better evidence, then mac wanted to get into this place and have a look around. it used to be the warehouse where art ream had his carpet business. 1997, when he was arrested, he was hustled off to prison so quickly that he never got a chance to return to the warehouse to tidy up. it had been virtually locked up for the last ten years. the d.a. gave mac a green light to search the place. we re nearing the end of our looking around and this bucket in the corner was this my partner, kelly, she reached out and pulled out this watch box.
commemorating cindy s 21st birthday, the zarzyckis held a candlelight vigil in front of the family home. 13-year-old cindy zarzycki the media picked it up and interest in the fate of the missing teen was revived, with cindy s face popping up on have you seen me mailings like this one. connie, there was a message to the police here, wasn t it? we re still here, we haven t gone away? right. and you need to get this going again. right. and i had written a poem, i actually had that poem published. do you remember a few lines of it? cindy jo, where did you go? and it talked about looking for her. my poem was mostly that she s out there and i ll find her. that s when the family recalled one of cindy s favorite songs from the old mix tapes. cyndi lauper s time after time. the chorus spoke to them. if you look, you will find me, time after time. and if cindy came looking for