47 years since she vanished, Pawhuska teen is now a possible BTK victim

But what the school photo of Cindy Kinney would ultimately be used for, Markita Hall-Gumble could not have imagined at the time.

“They said Cindy was missing. And they needed the photo for a flier for the searchers,” said Hall-Gumble, recalling how she first heard the news about her 16-year-old schoolmate one summer day 47 years ago.

“I don’t remember who it was,” she added. “I was at the medical clinic where I worked and they came running in and asked for a photo. They knew I’d have one. And I did.”

Hall-Gumble, whose job was just around the corner from where Kinney had last been seen a short time earlier, recalls the sick feeling that came over her as she handed over the picture of her friend.

“I knew something was really wrong,” she said.

“Things like that didn’t happen in Pawhuska. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody waved at everybody. Everybody was family.”

For the residents of Pawhuska, what happened to 16-year-old Cynthia Dawn Kinney on June 23, 1976, has remained a mystery to this day.

While authorities strongly suspect that Kinney, who went by Cindy, was abducted and killed, her body has never been found and they’ve never been able to prove their suspicions.

But they might’ve taken a big step closer recently, when they named the person they believe was responsible.

Osage County authorities in August announced that Dennis Rader, the infamous BTK serial killer of Wichita, Kansas, is now being looked at as the “prime suspect” in Kinney’s case.

Rader, who is serving multiple life sentences in a Kansas state prison, confessed to 10 murders, all of which were in the Wichita area.

However, authorities say there’s reason to believe he might have killed elsewhere, including in Oklahoma and other states.

Prompted by the Kinney case, a wider investigation is now underway, with several other missing persons cases being looked at for possible ties to the serial killer.

Confirmation of Rader’s part in these and other potentially connected cases will take time.

But one thing is certain already.

Investigators say they wouldn’t be where they are — potentially on the verge of revealing the true range of a monster’s hunting grounds — if not for Kinney.

Half a century since she vanished without a trace, her memory is influencing current events.

‘Everybody loved her’

It was hard to go anywhere in town those first few months of 1976 and not see the preparations.

Pawhuska, like most other communities across the country, had been bitten by the bicentennial bug — splashes of red, white and blue were visible almost everywhere.

Local businesses and organizations were gearing up for the nation’s 200th birthday on July 4.

And everyone, it seemed, had a part to play.

That included Cindy Kinney, who as a Pawhuska High School art student pitched in to help decorate for the school’s Colonial Ball celebration.

Town leaders weren’t necessarily seeking one for their bicentennial promotions, but it would’ve been hard to find a more representative “All-American girl” type than Kinney.

The pixie-like sophomore with the slight build and short brown hair was adored by pretty much everybody.

Pawhuska High graduate Brenda Blythe, who was editor of the 1976 school yearbook, said: “It sounds hyperbolic, but it’s true. Cindy was like this angelic, wide-eyed kewpie doll.

“She was soft-spoken and quiet, yet with a bubbly spirit. She just exuded sweetness.”

A native of Kansas, Kinney had made an impression on her Pawhuska peers since moving to the area.

“Everybody loved her. How could you not?” Blythe said, recalling how Kinney seemed to radiate light and joy wherever she went.

“She would’ve been homecoming queen in one of the sports.”

Blythe, now of Tulsa, knew Kinney from school, but also through Blythe’s family’s drive-in restaurant, Jo’s Dairyland, a popular hangout for teens and where Kinney often helped out.

Blythe said Kinney’s small, thin frame could give the impression that she was fragile.

But if small in stature, she was game for a challenge. That spring, Kinney had gone out for the high school cheerleading squad and made it.

Hall-Gumble recalls how much the achievement meant to her friend.

“She wanted to be a cheerleader more than anything, and she’d been so worried on the day of tryouts,” she said. “I remember that most of all — how excited she was to find out she’d made it.”

So, while most of the town was focused on the Fourth of July and Bicentennial, Kinney was looking further ahead.

“She couldn’t wait till fall,” Hall-Gumble said.

But that fall — and the chance to cheer for real at Pawhuska Huskie football games — was an experience that Kinney, sadly, would never come to know.

And it wouldn’t be the same for the town, either.

Kinney’s disappearance that summer of 1976 shook Pawhuska from top to bottom, baffling authorities and leaving residents fearful.

It happened on June 23, just a week and a half before the bicentennial celebration.

Kinney reported early that day to her job at Osage Laundry, which was owned by her uncle in downtown Pawhuska.

She had cheerleading practice later in the morning and planned to go straight from work.

But what had started out like a normal day changed just before 10 a.m. that Wednesday, when, according to witnesses, Kinney walked out the laundromat’s front door and got into a car that had pulled up out front.

Described as a beige 1965 Plymouth, witnesses reported seeing up to four other individuals inside it, including the driver, a male, and possibly two females.

That car, with Kinney on board, then vanished from the scene — all within sight of the town’s main commercial district and even the county courthouse, which looked down from atop an adjacent hill.

That anyone could be kidnapped off the streets of their town was unthinkable to locals. But deeming it unlikely that Kinney, who left behind her purse and a half-eaten doughnut, left voluntarily, authorities treated it like an abduction from the beginning.

And as word spread quickly, the community responded en masse.

Searches for the missing teen were mounted, and every lead and rumor tracked down.

Pawhuska High students helped, too. Piling into the beds of pickups, they headed outside of town, where, forming lines, they walked the fields side by side.

It was hard not to feel torn: They hoped to find some sign of their classmate, but at the same time, were afraid of what they might find.

Meanwhile, the community rallied behind Kinney’s family.

Thousands of dollars poured into a reward fund.

But ultimately, the efforts went for nothing. As the days turned into weeks, no sign of Kinney turned up.

Hopes of a happy ending — or at least of an answer — dwindled.

Evil in the world

No one has hoped harder — only to have their hopes repeatedly dashed — than the Kinney family.

Don and Margaret Kinney, Cindy’s parents, have seen their daughter’s case revisited various times over the years as new leads have arisen. But each time has ended the same way: with nothing to show for it.

“We’ve been living with it for 50 years,” Don Kinney said.

Although the couple have largely avoided interviews, Don offered a few thoughts about their daughter, in light of the possible break in the case.

“We never had any trouble out of her,” he told the Tulsa World. “Cindy was just starting to blossom. She had boyfriends. She’d just started driving. All the things you are supposed to do when you’re 16. And it was taken away from her.

“We lost a beautiful person.”

He doesn’t believe his daughter had given much thought to the future or what she wanted to do with her life. She was enjoying just being 16. That kept her occupied enough.

As for the case status, Don Kinney believes Rader is a strong suspect.

However, the family and their supporters have learned to be cautious about expecting closure, given the history of the case.

And if it turns out Rader was responsible, that’s not necessarily the kind of closure anyone would want.

“In some ways, knowing that makes it worse than living with the thought that she’s missing,” Blythe said. “Because it’s well known what he did to women. ‘Bind, torture, kill.’ It’s not something I like to think about.”

Rather, when they do think about Kinney, friends prefer to dwell on happier times.

“Being a cheerleader in a small town is such a big thing,” Hall-Gumble said. “If you could only have seen how excited she was about making cheerleader.”

After it was used to aid the search, the photo of Kinney was returned to her, Hall-Gumble added. She still has it tucked away somewhere.

But it’s not the image of her friend she treasures the most.

The picture Hall-Gumble always comes back to is the one that exists only as a memory — that of “a happy, sweet teenager who had just reached her goal of becoming a cheerleader.”

“That’s how I hope she will be remembered,” she added. “Happy in the moment, totally innocent of the evil in the world.”

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