The Deck - Gina Cyphers (10 of Spades, Kansas)

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

In 1995, 24-year-old Gina Cyphers was found dead in the trailer she shared with her boyfriend and young son, just a couple of hours after dropping him off at daycare one winter morning. The viciousness of the crime shocked the Salina, Kansas, community. And after nearly three decades of grief, her family is still searching for the answers to who killed Gina, and why?If you have any information about Gina’s murder, please contact Salina police at 785-826-7210 or the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-KS-CRIME (1-800-572-7463). A Governor's Reward of $5,000 is offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for this crime. To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.orgFollow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Gina Ciphers, the 10 of spades from Kansas. In 1995, 24-year-old Gina Ciphers was found dead in the trailer she shared with her boyfriend and young son just a couple of hours after dropping her son off at daycare one winter morning. The viciousness of the crime shocked the Salina Kansas community and after nearly three decades of grief her family is still searching for the answers to who killed her and why. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is the deck. . Jimi Anderson wasn't expecting to get a phone call at work, especially in the middle of his shift at a machinery manufacturing company in Salina, Kansas.

But more surprising than the call was the caller. It was the director of his son's daycare. She told Jimmy that his girlfriend, Gina Ciphers, was supposed to pick up their toddler James at 11.30 that morning. But it was a quarter to noon, and there was no sign of her. That was totally unlike Gina, and after Jimmy called her and got no answer, he decided to go check on her. She had their car that day, so he borrowed one from work and headed straight to their mobile home in the Faith Court trailer park. He didn't even stop to get James first. As he pulled up to their

trailer a few minutes past noon, the first thing he noticed was their car parked outside. And the moment he went inside, he saw why Gina hadn't picked up their son or answered the phone. She was lying on the floor of their living room with a bag covering her face. Here's the line a detective, Ricardo Garcia. I think he tried life-saving measures and then called 911 after that.

There was no saving Gina. She was dead before he ever even arrived. This was believed to be Selina Pety's first homicide all year, although the year was almost over. It was three days after Christmas. When they arrived, they noticed that the killer or killers had likely tried to cover their tracks with a bottle of cleaning solution,

but nothing could hide the horror that Gina must have experienced. According to reporting in the Wichita Eagle, she had been strangled and stabbed multiple times with the weapon they found there in the trailer, but investigators won't say what specific weapon was used, only that it was not a knife. The other thing they would tell us is that Gina didn't have any defensive wounds. According to Sharon Montague's reporting for the Salina Journal, officers had the trailer taped off by 1230, and they knew they had their work cut out for them.

The place was a mess, and they wondered if it had been ransacked. But Jimmy told them that the mess was theirs. He and Gina had been planning to do some renovating or remodeling but hadn't gotten very far. I think it was kind of a little difficult at first to figure out what belonged there and what did not belong there, but they were able to work through that. They didn't find any signs of forced entry and it didn't look like anything had been stolen. Even the $150 Gina's parents had given her for Christmas was there, along with the contents

of her purse which were scattered throughout the living room. As crime scene techs looked for evidence, investigators took Jimmy in for questioning. They knew they'd be busy for a while, but in the meantime, James still needed to be picked up from daycare, so detectives went to break the news to Gina's sister, Maria Marcotte. They brought their police chaplain, along with his wife, who happened to be a friend of Maria's at the time. Maria wasn't home when they got there, she was actually at work, so they broke the news to her husband Gerald instead, and he had to be the one to call her at her job.

He said, you just need to come home right now. You wouldn't tell me why. The five minute drive felt like it took forever as she speculated about what might have happened and to whom. But nothing could have prepared her for what she heard when she walked through her door. Gerald made me go sit down, and then they proceeded to tell me that her boyfriend was called from daycare because the baby wasn't picked up and he found her and she was dead.

And I think at that point they didn't tell me too much as far as what they seen. Maria didn't know what to believe. She was stunned. Detectives assured her that they were working hard to figure out what happened and they'd be in touch soon. But in the meantime, they wanted her to notify the rest of the family and get James from daycare. Right before I left, I thought, I better calm mom and dad.

So I called and then just at the moment realized they talked about coming down to Selina to do shopping after Christmas. Her parents lived near Concordia, about 50 miles north of Selina. And when Maria called their cell phone, they told her they were about halfway between the two cities. She knew she'd have to move quickly, word traveled fast, and she didn't want her parents to overhear chatter about Gina's death while they were out shopping.

She asked them to come straight to her house, and then she called a priest to be on hand, and then she raced over to get her nephew. But her parents beat her back to the house. Here's Gina's mom Anita. The priest was trying to tell her it was like he was talking a foreign language to me. It was just like, I cannot grasp it at the time. And then I got like I just went into a deep hole. As the ciphers family tried to wrap their

minds around an unfathomable tragedy, Jimmy spoke with detectives down at the station. To police he seemed distraught and shocked. And he answered their questions, not just about finding Gina and that day, but about who they were as a couple going all the way back to when they started dating, which was a few years before. They were both from Concordia, but he ended up in Salina and Gina moved there to be with him around 1991. Jimmy said they were a normal couple, no major recent issues or arguments, they just mostly kept to themselves. They didn't really seek out friends, he kind of just wanted to be them three. When they did socialize, it was usually with his brothers and sister.

Otherwise, Gina was happy to be at home, a fact that her father would later confirm in an interview for the Salina Journal. She loved spending time with their son and reading and baking or crafting. She let a relatively quiet, happy life, and Jimmy insisted he couldn't think of anyone who would do something like this to her. And neither could police. Her hobbies didn't exactly strike them as high risk. She didn't even have any workplace drama for them to explore because she'd been a stay

at home mom since their son was born in August of 94. She had recently started taking their son to daycare, but it wasn't like an all-the-time thing. It was a free program held in a local church twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9 to 1130. Jimmy told detectives, that's why she needed the car that day. She and James dropped him off to work just before 7, and he said that was the last time he saw or spoke to her.

Between the time she got home until she left to take her child to daycare, it's really unknown what she did. Given the time that it was winter, it was cold outside of its snow, there's nothing to indicate that they were outside, so I imagine they were at home probably just as any other day. The Faith Court trailer park is less than 10 minutes from the church daycare. When police checked with the director there, they learned that Gina had dropped James off at about nine. From what police could piece together, they were pretty sure she went straight home after that because a neighbor reported seeing her car outside of her trailer

within the hour. So that left just a small window of time for the killer to attack. It was clear to investigators that Gina was almost never home by herself. She was usually always with either James or Jimmy. And so they wondered if someone had been watching her, waiting to catch her alone. But who would take that big of a risk in the middle of the morning in what KWCH described as a crowded mobile home park in the heart of the city. Detective Garcia recalls there being at least eight trailers by 2005. But he couldn't tell me if there were more or less back in 95. What he does know though is that they were all close together,

anyone could have overheard the commotion. But unfortunately, as detectives realized during the neighborhood canvas, no one had, at least no one who would admit to it. Like Gina and Jimmy, many of the residents kept to themselves. Some told officers that they worked late shifts and were sleeping at the time of the murder. Others were at work, including Jimmy, whose alibi was easy to substantiate, and two of his brothers who also lived at Faith Court.

Nobody saw anybody hanging out in the area, nobody saw anybody walking around or driving through on that date. It seemed the only people in the trailer park that morning were the people who belonged there, which meant maybe the killer did too. One of the first people detectives interviewed was the Faith Quart maintenance man, a guy we're going to call Steve. He was 41 and lived a couple of trailers down from Gina with his wife and kids. And to police, he had some major red flags. He lived just a stone throw away from Gina,

so he would have been able to track her movements, and he had a very sketchy reputation. He was known for making vulgar comments, lots of women thought he was creepy, and detectives found out Gina was one of them. Steve was apparently even supposed to go see Gina the morning she was killed. You see, Jimmy and Gina had been trying to sell a stove, I think it was part of that renovation project they tried. They had been keeping it at an onsite storage unit that Steve had access to, and that morning he had found a buyer for them. So the guy just paid Steve for the stove, and as far as we can tell, Steve planned to

go see Gina and give her the money, but he told police that he never made it over there. Now everyone detectives had talked to so far, said Gina was extremely cautious about letting people into her home. And since there were no signs of forced entry, she must have had a reason to open the door. She might have cracked the door up and think she was getting the money. If it was that one particular person, it's gotta be someone she knew to let them in.

If that was the case, though, the money was missing. All police found was just that Christmas cash. So none of this was a smoking gun, but Steve was the best-lead police hat. They were even more interested when they spoke with the ciphers family over the next few days, and found out that Gina had actually mentioned Steve to her parents. She said that he wanted her to give him a key to her trailer, which, of course, her parents were like, no freaking way, it's not like he's your landlord. Now that was interesting, but beyond that compelling tidbit of information, her family couldn't

give police much more detailed insight into her daily life. And they said that was because Gina and Jimmy were reclusive. Now they knew Jimmy and his family because everyone in Concordia knew each other. But they had been surprised when he and Gina got together because they didn't think he and Gina were a good fit. You see, Gina was the baby of the group, the youngest of four kids, but she'd always been ambitious and independent. Her mom Anita remembers Gina, potty training herself when she was just a toddler.

On her first day of kindergarten, she insisted on going in alone. In high school, she saved up to buy two cars and took an auto mechanics class so she knew how to fix them. As an adult, she bought the trailer that they lived in with some help from her dad and found a lot to put it on. But then there was Jimmy, who the ciphers thought was immature. He partied a lot in high school, and they said he never really grew out of it. Even though by then he was 30, 6 years older than Gina.

And they knew he was proud to be a father, but he didn't seem to help much with the heavy lifting of parenting. Overall they just didn't think Gina seemed happy with him. She made different kind of comments that led you to think that she wanted to get out but didn't know how. I wish I would have asked her why are you with them. You know, have you thought more about what's gonna happen

in the future, but you just don't think of those things at the time. Her family framed Gina's homebodyness in a different light than Jimmy had. When he said they just liked keeping to themselves, they felt that Jimmy was possessive and had isolated Gina from everyone. If she came up to visit us and Concordia, he's on the phone calling to see where she was at and who she was with. Just like he did not want to let her visit.

Maria and Gina wouldn't even let her inside the trailer when she stopped by. She just cracked the door and talked to her through the opening. That wasn't the Gina that they used to know, and they questioned if Jimmy could have had something to do with her death. I think she was in the back of all of our minds because of the way he was very controlling. But that was when detectives told them that Jimmy had a verified alibi. So everything was out the window, but they did still wonder if he could be maybe indirectly responsible. Could

someone he brought into their life have done this? Maybe he ripped someone off and Gina's death was revenge? I mean, they knew he smoked weed, maybe he was selling or manufacturing drugs out of their trailer, and that's why she didn't like opening her door. One of Gina's brothers actually confronted Jimmy about that potential angle at one point. He approached Jimmy and asked him, okay, you need to tell us what you know was Drugs and Bob. Jimmy denied it. During the search after a residence there was nothing to indicate anything might have been going on. It was a legal nature. They did find a lot of other stuff in their search though, including, quote-unquote, body fluids. According to Sharon Montague's reporting, investigators sent everything out for DNA analysis.

What fluids you might ask? Well, that's a little TBD. Now police have never confirmed this, but according to her family and a private investigator who worked for them, Gina had been sexually assaulted. So the fluids might be something related to that if that's true. Another thing investigators also never confirmed is the detail I mentioned earlier about a bad being on Gina's face. But locally, this was common knowledge.

And that's because even though police were trying to keep information under wraps, people were talking. The information about the bag might trace back to Jimmy, because even though he hadn't told Gina's family about how he found her, he apparently told his family. And I'm sure all the details that were out there didn't just come from Jimmy, but however it happened, the community was buzzing. My mother-in-law was in the Sanca-Corty campus, so everybody knows everybody. And people knew more than we did at the time.

She's getting her hair fixed and be very shocked. And somebody's telling her that Gina died with a bag over her head. Now, why somebody would say that to the grandmother of a young woman who was brutally murdered is beyond me. The point is, by the time Gina's funeral was held on Tuesday, January 2nd, the ciphers had learned more through the grapevine than they had from police. But it wasn't long before investigators told them about Steve. And when they did, it completely changed how Maria viewed an interaction that she had

had with someone after her sister's murder. So remember Maria's friend, the police chaplain's wife? So she visited Maria not long after Gina was killed to pay her respects, and she brought someone else along with her. Now Maria didn't know who that woman was at the time, but after Detective's mentioned Steve's name, it all clicked. I go back to the day and realize that was his wife. Daynut the time who was being questions, I think about that and wonder why would she be there. There doesn't seem to be any connection between Maria and Steve's

wife, or Gina and Steve's wife. So yeah, it's kinda weird she tagged along to check on Maria during such a personal time. She probably did know the chaplain's wife well though, because their husbands are connected. You see, he was also the pastor of Faith Assembly of God Church, which Gina's family said actually owned and operated the trailer park, like they're right next to each other. So basically long story short, the pastor had two jobs. He oversaw the church and managed the trailer park, and it sounds like it was the pastor who hired Steve to help out in the trailer park. But at some point, the pastor must have soured on him, because even he told the detectives

he thought Steve was involved or responsible for Gina's murder, but I'm not sure why he thought that. But despite everyone's feelings, police didn't have enough to prove anything. So months passed by, and Gina's family grew frustrated by the lack of progress, and the community grew concerned that a killer was on the loose and might strike again.

And they were right to fear that. About seven months after Gina's murder on Sunday, July 21, a woman named Kathy drove to the home of her mother, 80-year-old Dolores McKim. She had plans with her mom and her sister Carol and her great nephew Christopher, who were all in town staying with Dolores. But according to an episode of On the Case of Paul Azon, Kathy hadn't been able to reach them all morning. She noticed her mom's car was gone and a door going into the house was open.

The scene felt so eerie and wrong that she didn't even go inside. She went straight to a neighbor's place who called police Inside Salina PD came face-to-face with a nightmare They found Dolores Christopher and Carol in the bedrooms and all of them had been bludgeoned to death According to that episode of on the case with Paul Azon on its face, it looked like a burglary gone terribly wrong. After all, Dolores' car was gone, along with her and Carol's handbags. But from the position of Carol's body, officers knew that she had been sexually assaulted, and they realized just how calculating the perpetrator was when they discovered that the phone lines had been cut.

Cathy also noticed that a pipe wrench was missing from her deceased father's tool collection that he had kept really organized, and that helped police determine that that was the murder weapon. Now, it was clear to everyone that the triple homicide shared some characteristics with Gina's murder. Like Gina, the three victims didn't have any known enemies. Like Gina, Carol appeared to be sexually assaulted. Purportrators in both cases seemed at least somewhat familiar with their victims and had

likely used weapons found in their homes. And of course, the timing wasn't something investigators could ignore. I mean, they went almost a full year without a single homicide, and then they had two over-the-top violent crimes within seven months. But the police chief told reporter Sharon Montagou that the MOs were different, so he thought that there was only a slim chance of a connection. And while Gina's case floundered, tips poured in about the triple

homicide. I mean, we're talking dozens every day. A big one came from Dolores' funeral. A relative of Kathie's, who was also a corrections officer at the county jail, recognized a man he knew. I guess you could say from work since the guy was in and out of jail? This guy was Alan Eugene White, and he was 25 at the time of the triple homicide. He had a record for burglary and passing bad checks, which is a far cry from murder. But the relative thought he acted strange at the funeral, and police who had videotaped it so they could analyze everyone's demeanor, agreed. They questioned Alan and learned his parents had been friends with the McKimms.

He told them that he had gone to their house a few times, but he denied any involvement with the murders. He said he wasn't even in the area when it happened, but when detectives checked his alibi, they found out that he was lying. Problem was, by the time they realized this, he had skipped town. With or without him though, they could still prove if he did it or not, because they had recovered unknown DNA

during Carol's autopsy. And Alan's parents volunteered blood samples for comparison. I mean, they volunteered so readily because they thought the effort would clear their son's name, but instead, it confirmed his guilt. So that's when an all-out manhunt began. Literally, to the point where they got America's most wanted to feature Alan on their show. And the power of John Walsh, man, literally within minutes of his case airing,

an employee at a homeless shelter in Boston turned him in. Once an arrest was made, the people of Salina started talking. And according to Gordon D. Feedler, Jr.'s reporting for the Salina Journal, that was when the cipher's family started hearing about a potential connection between Alan and Gina. They both had worked at a popular local eatery called Russell's Restaurant, but not at the same time. Allen was there for just a few months in 1989 as a dishwasher and in the bakery, and Gina

was there in 92 and 93 as a cook. So it wasn't the strongest lead, but it was better than nothing. And when you've got nothing else to go on, in a case that is stalled, why not at least look? Investigators searched for any direct link from Alan to Gina, but they couldn't find one. He even had an alibi, and I'm pretty sure this one was legit. Alan's sister claimed that he was in Georgia with her and their family for the holidays when Gina was killed.

She said he flew there on Christmas Eve and didn't go back to Kansas until after the New Year, actually the day of Gina's funeral. But the evidence that he killed Dolores, Carol, and Little Christopher was overwhelming. Alan didn't want to go to trial and risk getting the death penalty, so he agreed to give a full confession and pled guilty to the three murders and raping Carol in exchange for life in prison without the chance of parole. And that's where he is to this day. He was ultimately ruled out in Gina's case,

although Detective Garcia wasn't sure when or how. Maybe it was the alibi. But even though detectives no longer linked the cases, it's hard not to talk about one without the other. Not just because of their similarities, but because of their differences or linked the cases, it's hard not to talk about one without the other. Not just because of their similarities, but because of their differences and how those differences might have played into the outcome, or in Gina's case, the lack of an outcome. Dolores lived in an affluent area, the same neighborhood as the Kansas governor's parents,

and Gina lived in a low-income trailer park. There were noticeable differences in how the investigations were handled. For instance, in both cases, the governor authorized a $5,000 reward for information leading to a conviction. Those rewards have to be requested by law enforcement, and in the triple homicide, that happened within 10 days, but for Gina, it took nearly two years. She also didn't get any national TV coverage on America's most wanted, but police also never asked,

It doesn't make a difference for you to die, and there were people commenting like, why doesn't she matter? They didn't think it would help in Gina's case. With the dribble homicide, they had a suspect identified and were seeking a warrant for his arrest. But America's most wanted did come into play for Gina's case in kind of a unique way. While watching the show one day, Maria saw a segment that profiled a private investigator from Texas, named Charlie Parker.

He ran a nonprofit which worked on cold cases, and it gave her an idea to reach out and ask for his help. In January 1998, Maria wrote Charlie a letter explaining the situation, and he was touched by her plea, and the photo she sent him of Gina. He wanted to lend a hand, so by May he was on a flight to Kansas. Now, Charlie is kind of famous in the true crime world, and he had worked with police agencies across the country, but he didn't have much luck with Salina PD. They had a policy against discussing open cases with civilians. I was soon learned that the police department went answers, calls, went, do anything with them.

Charlie thought more transparency would help the investigation, and he was candid with reporters. He theorized to Sharon Montague that the killer was a quote, impulse type person, a sexual predator, a deviant, end quote. He believed that whoever killed her went in with the intent of sexually assaulting her, but she resisted, which likely wasn't part of that guy's plan. So he sexually assaulted her, strangled her, and then using a weapon from her home stabbed her in the abdomen, possibly after she died.

The bag over her face was an effort to depersonalize her. The PI had more than just a profile. He said that he had a suspect in mind, too. One of Gina's neighbors. Now, the man wasn't named in any media coverage, but we know through our reporting that Charlie was referring to Steve, the maintenance guy. Steve was still very much on detectives radar, and he knew it. He even said as much to Charlie when he interviewed him. But here's the tidbit that felt brand new. Charlie didn't believe that Steve had acted alone. He thought Steve had an accomplice who helped

him clean up because even though the murder was totally disorganized, there were no fingerprints to be found. But I'm cautious about the details like that that Charlie gives. Again, the PD isn't working with him, so I don't know how he found that out. And there are certain things that he said which contradict what we heard from Detective Garcia. For instance, Charlie told reporters that photos of Gina in her casket showed signs of bruising on her arms,

and indications that she had struggled with her attacker. But Detective Garcia told us otherwise. I don't recall anything about bruising from what I have seen. Charlie also said that Steve had prior convictions for sexual offenses, but we ran a background check on him, and the only convictions we found were disorderly conduct in 1986 and passing a bad check in 1990.

Although the background check only shows convictions, so it is possible Steve was arrested or suspected of something that we are unaware of. Despite Charlie's theory, police don't think Gina's killer had an accomplice during or after the murder. We believe it's just one person who was involved in this. For more than a decade, it was evident police thought that person was probably Steve. But at some point, that changed.

Detective Garcia was kind of vague about why and when, but their waning interest in Steve seemed to go hand in hand with a newly that popped up years later. In 2012, Selina PD got a call from investigators in Nebraska who wanted to let them know about an arrest that was finally made to close out a decades-old cold case in their jurisdiction. This guy, who we're going to call Oscar, because he's never been publicly linked to Gina, was 45 by the time he was charged with beating and stabbing a woman to death back in the late 1980s. He ended up going to trial where he was found guilty and sentenced to life in a Nebraska prison. So investigators there wanted to put him on Salina PD's radar in Gina's case because

he might have lived or spent time in the area at some point. Kansas detectives tried to find a link between him and Gina. I mean, he was the most promising lead that they had gotten in ages, but they didn't even know if he was in their neck of the woods in December of 1995, let alone had ever crossed paths with Gina, and for years they didn't make much headway. You run into some roblox that you can't go over, literally. You can't make people talk to you. There's only so much you can do.

But finally, earlier this year, Detective Garcia interviewed someone close to Oscar and was able to establish a timeline. It turns out he was in Salina at times, but it was years before Gina moved there. As far as police could tell, Oscar wasn't around at all in 1995. Detective Garcia was disappointed, but glad to cross it off the to-do list after all this time. He doesn't consider Oscar a viable lead anymore, unless DNA or forensic testing shows otherwise. And speaking of DNA, so far investigators haven't identified any DNA profiles on the evidence they tested,

but they recently sent some key pieces of evidence off for more testing. When we last spoke with them, they were waiting for the results and hoping that advanced technology would finally reveal Genus Killer once and for all. They're also taking a fresh look at people who came up in the early stages of the investigation. Now, if you Google this case, you'll see that there was also another name that gets mentioned side by side with Gina's, a woman named Catherine Adams. They got linked because Catherine went missing a couple of years before Gina was killed, and her van was found in the Russell's restaurant parking lot.

The only suspect ever identified in Catherine's case that we know of was her estranged husband. As far as police know, her disappearance had nothing to do with Gina, so they weren't connected for a very long time. All these years later, it is still just Gina's case. Singular, stand out, and unsolved. For better or worse, a lot has changed since that fateful day in December 1995. The little boy Gina kissed goodbye at daycare is all grown up with

kids of his own, one of whom is named after his mom. Gina's dad, grandma, and aunt have passed on, and so did Steve, and Jimmy, whose obituary in 2022 listed Gina as his pre-deceased fiance. Through it all, one thing did stay the same. Gina's loved ones want justice, and they're not going to stop pushing until they get it. If you have any information about Gina's murder, please contact Salina Police at 785-826-7210 or the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-KS crime. A Governor's Reward of $5,000 is offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for this crime.

The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis to learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?