Less is explained than is left for guessing. Cindy Sambueso, 50, went missing last Tuesday, but was located on Saturday by the Fresno Police Department. Sambueso was traced from a financial transaction, apparently, with a bed and breakfast inn at an unknown location. In addition, the reasons for her voluntary disappearance are unknown. It’s left up to our imagination to fathom the reasons for her actions.
Although, Cindy did tell the Fresno Police she had to get away. The story of her mysterious vanishing act were hyped in the media last week. A sharp contrast was how the media downplayed the sudden discovery of this fleeing woman, as if the solution to the mystery was inconsequential. I return to the circumstances of her impulsive departure.
Cindy Sambueso has a massage therapy business and had an appointment with an unknown (and possibly new) client at noon on Tuesday. In the morning, Cindy and Kat (Cindy’s daughter) had visited a Starbucks, since Kat had just gotten her driver’s license, and was happy for this. When Ms. Sambueso’s 3:30 PM appointment arrived she was nowhere to be found.
It’s as if she planned out what state she would leave her office in. (When investigators came on the scene) the office was locked, the lights were off, her cell phone was left; but her purse, appointment book, and car were gone. Early on in the probe, some people were suspicious that this mystery massage client had stolen the appointment book, since his name must have been logged in.
As far as the cell phone goes, this is starting to make a little more sense to me now. Cindy obviously didn’t want to take any calls from family members, since it sounds like she really needed to get away so she could give considerable thought to her precarious situation. If this is not unusual enough for you, a few other things have the appearance of loose-ends in this half-solved mystery.
A best guess is that Cindy didn’t decide to escape until near the hour of noon. One text message to her ex-husband confirmed a celebration dinner appointment for her daughter. But another one to her daughter is quite curious. Kat told KMPH: “She was just talking about how she loves me so much, how everything was so great. I was the best daughter she ever had.”
This quote makes you think she knew by this point she would do it. Take off and not tell anyone where she was going to, or why she was going there (to an undisclosed location). It must be emphasized, these curious text messages were sent at 11:15 AM, Tuesday the 19th of July. As I said before, the second text to Kat shows cognizance of her plan to take-off.
Bernard Hermann, the great motion picture composer’s centennial birthday, just came up on June 29th. This morning I had to hear some Bernard Hermann, so I purchased Psycho on iTunes. I really needed to hear the soundtrack, and I wanted to review the storyboard as well. Marion Crane’s sudden escape from Phoenix was ringing some bells in my mind.
Okay, so I’ll confess! I was making some connections between what happened with Cindy Sambueso five days ago, and the suspenseful particulars of Marion Crane, and her run in with a run-down motel entrepreneur, whose cabin lodge operation had seen better days. Just so you won’t think I have an over-active imagination, I’ll point out a few parallels I’ve made when comparing these two cases. The art of analogy is imperfect, so don’t scold me for seeing an imperfect parallel.
To begin with, Marion takes off with $40,000, which she needs since her fiancee is over his head in debt. Robert Sambueso (her ex who she moves in with) has pointed out also, that Cindy’s massage therapy business was hurting and her clientele had been shrinking. Therefore, there may have been financial reasons for why Cindy wanted to get away.
Financial pressures must have been weighing on her mind, or else she wouldn’t have moved back in with her ex. An obvious parallel is the sudden and dramatic way in which both Marion and Cindy simply split from the burden of their troubled situation. Not that Cindy purchases a used car while on the road, but she does go underground and checks into an obscure bed and breakfast.
She must have turned the news off while at this hotel, because she was all over the talk shows and local news for Fresno. Okay, I’m not suggesting this little hotel is anything like the Bates Motel, but I couldn’t help but see a connection (perhaps, an unwarranted connection). I will say, however, the mysteries of Psycho are, in the end, given a plausible explanation. For Cindy Sambueso, such a plausible explanation is yet forthcoming.
