For more than 30 years, the answer to who killed Cindy Wanner remained much of a mystery to loved ones and law enforcement after she vanished from a Northern California home, leaving everything but her purse behind, including her baby.
Her sudden disappearance in 1991 rattled residents of Granite Bay, a suburb of Sacramento where the 35-year-old mother of two had gone to clean her sister’s home, investigators said. Wanner’s 11-month-old baby was buckled into a high chair and crying, without her mom, when her husband arrived at the home that day.
An extensive search ended three weeks later when Wanner’s body was found in a remote area about 40 miles from her sister’s home, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. An autopsy determined she had been strangled, officials said.
But many questions remained about who was behind Wanner’s death – and why.
Over the years, law enforcement continued testing evidence without any sufficient results until newer DNA testing technology gave them new hope in finding Wanner’s killer.
