Cindy Monkman met a charming German man in a bar one night and the two began dating but when his visa was about to expire and he suggested a green card of marriage Cindy thought she was helping him out which she didn't know was that this was part of a plot that started before they even met.

I'm Charlie and welcome to Crime Lines. We are in December. I can hardly believe it. I do want to send a quick shout out to my good friend Haley Gray who

researched this episode. I have people reach out to me all the time to see how

they can get into the field of researching for true crime

podcasts and I actually finally have a decent answer for you.

Haley hasn't just researched for top true crime shows like Southern

fried true crime, my favorite murder, already gone, big mad true crime shows like Southern Fried True Crime, My Favorite Murder, Already

Gone, Big Mad True Crime, and so many others. She has a course now designed to

help people learn how to do what she does. I'm going to leave a link in the show

notes to her website if you're interested in it. Definitely check it out because I

do think it's probably the best way to get into researching for true crime podcasts without having already

been a podcaster yourself. But for now let's go ahead and get into today's case and it

starts with Cynthia Estelle Monkman who was born in Pensacola, Florida in 1958.

Cindy did not stay an only child for long though.

Her sister Kathy came less than a year and a half later,

and then about two years after that, their brother

John Jr. was born.

The family moved to the Chicago area where their mother Dorothy was from in 1965. Within months of moving there the family

suffered a major loss when Dorothy died of cancer at the age of 36,

leaving behind three children who were only seven, five, and three at the time.

Now I'm not saying that I fully buy into birth order theory, but if you look up the traits of a firstborn child

you'll read a description of Cindy and probably even more so after her mother's death.

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