Cindy Lee Mellin -- Missing During Tire Change in January 1970

Details from NamUs**: 

"Mellin was employed by the Broadway Department Store in the Buenaventura Shopping Center. She left work shortly after closing on the night of January 20, 1970. She was last seen standing next to her car in the shopping center parking lot while an unidentified male changed her tire. When she failed to return home that night, her father (Leonard Alfred Mellin) went to the shopping center looking for her and found her car still up on a jack with the flat tire still attached"

   

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Missing Person: Cindy Lee Mellin (may go by Cynthia in some databases of records)
Last-contact date: January 20th, 1970 at about 9:45pm
The area where the MP was last seen: Ventura, California in the parking lot of Buenaventura Shopping Center which was probably close to 34.26974109569808, -119.24888050781114 on Google Maps
Link to government source: NamUs MP#6849 

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VITAL DETAILS

Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 19 years old

Birthdate: December 3rd, 1950
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Scar: None listed at NamUs
Height/weight: 5-foot-6 and 105 pounds
BMI*: In this case, the missing person was underweight by BMI at the time of the disappearance.

• BMI is body mass index. It relates to an individual's height and weight. I include it believing it can help picture a missing person or describe one.

Tattoos: Cindy Lee Mellin did not have any tattoos associated with her profiles. If you know that the missing person did have tattoos, then please post a remark at the end of this blog post on the matter.

Cindy Lee Mellin, a missing person, was last heard from on January 20th, 1970 when she was 19 years old. This individual has now been missing for 51 years as of the original publication date of this blog post. Her ancestry page lists her date of death as the date of her disappearance which suggests that family members consider her dead.

What stands out with this case is that she may have been a victim of the so-called "Good Samaritan's Ruse." This is when someone offers help to an individual but actually has sinister intentions. 

Someone using this modus operandi may cause damage to an individual's vehicle and then show up pretending to be of help for the problem when the vehicle operator discovers the damage. The phony Good Samaritan then earns the trust of the victim and disappears her.

There are many cases where this ruse is known to have happened and probably more where it should be part of the debate. I covered many cases of missing people and car troubles in another blog post a few years back in an article called "Women With Car Troubles Go Missing."

Cindy Lee Mellin's tire had been punctured. There was someone on the scene to assist her, this much was witnessed. It's possible that whoever punctured the tire was this same individual that attempted to help her change the tire. After all, the evidence suggests that she did disappear during the tire change.

Tue, Jun 30, 1970 – 2 · The Napa Valley Register (Napa, California) · Newspapers.com

Cindy worked at the Broadway Department Store. I think the mall has changed names since the time of her employment there. I did go into the newspaper database to find the following plans that dated from the time of construction. It could help pinpoint the scene of the abduction if you are interested in that. If you can't read the legend then the store she worked at is marked with a "1." I'm guessing that she likely parked near there.

Fri, Apr 5, 1963 – 17 · Ventura County Star-Free Press (Ventura, California) · Newspapers.com

Finding Cindy Lee Mellin could involve searching the Jane Doe databases for unidentified women found in relation to clothing that Mellin had. She was thought to have had the following articles when she disappeared: a navy blue dress (might be size 9) with red buttons, a brown corduroy coat (she was a size 10), size-7 blue shoes (medium heels) with gold buckles, and a gold ring with a single pearl. If you find a Jane Doe with one or more of these items, then cross-reference the other particulars between the missing person and the Jane Doe, especially the timeline.

The man seen in Mellin's company was thought to be 30-40 years old, tall, and slim.

Fri, Jan 23, 1970 – 2 · Valley Times (North Hollywood, California) · Newspapers.com

Please share this article to social media using hashtags that are related to where the missing person went missing from, which is Ventura, California.

Author: S.K. Lambert (Blogger Hobbyist and Freelance Writer)

All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

S.K. Lambert (Blogger Hobbyist and Freelance Writer) is not a Private Investigator, however, he is currently studying to be one as of March 2021.

Website hashtag: #MPCSL

*For BMI values, I use the UPPER or HIGHER ranges that are given for height and weight.
**Text might be paraphrased. If taken verbatim, then grammar or spelling errors are not necessarily corrected from original sources.
Disclaimer: Whenever possible, government sources are preferred for getting the details of a missing person's case. However, any source that the article writer deems reputable may be used.