The Disappearance and Slaying of Cindy Davis Rendon

In February of 1983 23-year-old Austin mother Cindy Davis Rendon vanished from her parents’ home in Northeast Austin. It was a normal Tuesday morning — Cindy fed her baby daughter, spoke briefly with her parents before they left for work, and planned to head to her shift at the Internal Revenue Service later that afternoon. But when her estranged husband arrived to pick up the baby, he found the front door wide open, breakfast spilled on the floor, and Cindy gone without a trace.

Days passed. Then an anonymous envelope arrived in the mail containing some of Cindy’s personal belongings — but offered no explanation. Months passed. And then, in July, a camper in Pace Bend Park found a skull protruding from the earth. The remains were soon confirmed to be Cindy’s. She had been killed and buried in a shallow grave soon after she disappeared.

Investigators believed they had their suspect — Cindy’s estranged husband, Jose “Joe” Rendon. A grand jury agreed, indicting him for murder. But a legal technicality collapsed the case before it could ever reach a judge and jury, and a second grand jury refused to re-indict. No one has ever been held accountable.

Forty years later, Cindy’s family is still waiting for justice — and her killer still hasn’t been made to answer for what happened on that ordinary morning in Austin.

If you have information that could help bring justice for Cynthia “Cindy” Davis Rendon, please contact the Travis County Sheriff’s Office tip line at [phone].

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. February first, nineteen eighty three. In
a quiet neighborhood in northeast Austin, it was morning, but
the sun had already began to warm the cold air.
Inside a modest home on Brynmar Drive, a twenty three

(00:24):
year old mother moved through her morning routine. She dressed
in comfortable clothing, set breakfast out for her baby. There
wasn't much to do but enjoy being a mother and
wait for her parents to return later that day so
she could leave for work. She made a phone call.
Nothing was out of place, nothing was loud or dramatic,

(00:47):
at least not that anyone heard. But suddenly, perhaps her
morning ended. A door was left standing open, a baby
was alone, and a woman was missing. There were no
signs of a struggle, not a trace of where she went.
Hours became days, then weeks, then months. Hope was tested, lowered,

(01:12):
and finally buried. This is the story of what happened
to Cindy Davis. Rendon, Austin, Texas in nineteen eighty three,
was a city perched on the edge of transformation, not

(01:35):
yet the high gloss tech hub and music pilgrimage site
the world knows today, but no longer just a sleepy
college town wrapped around the state capitol and honky tonks.
Growth had pressed in from every direction, stretching the boundaries
of a place that had long tried to keep its
eccentricities close. Nearly four hundred thousand people called Austin home then.

(02:02):
State workers and politicians, students and professors, bikers, bartenders, musicians,
cowboys and misfits. They shared crowded sidewalks and beer sticky
bar tops, all humming to a soundtrack that was unmistakably Austin.
But for all its charm and creativity, the city in

(02:24):
the early eighties wasn't insulated from the darker tides rolling
across Texas. The oil bust had hit the lone star state.
Hard Austinites watched neighboring cities stumble under the weight of unemployment,
collapsing real estate markets, and folded businesses. Their city escaped

(02:45):
the worst of it, thanks in part to the University
of Texas and a small cluster of emerging outfits on
the horizon. But still times were lane, and when communities
struggle economically, crime had of filling the gaps the city
remembered tragedy well. The nineteen sixty six ut Tower shooting

(03:08):
was still a fresh wound for many, to a point
it had reshaped local policing and emergency response. In the
nineteen eighties, Austin's police force was undergoing modernization, trying to
keep up with growing demands, increasing drug activity, and reports
of violence that felt out of step with the city's

(03:30):
laid back reputation. Even as the live music capital identity
took shape long before anyone had coined the phrase, nighttime,
and Austin carried a certain unpredictability. Sixth Street, which was
quickly evolving into the heartbeat of downtown nightlife, drew in

(03:51):
crowds thick enough to blur strangers into shadows. A quiet
walk back to a car parked on a side street
didn't always feel secure. Texas itself was facing a frightening
trend serial predators and spree killers operating up and down highways,
slipping through jurisdictions, exploiting gaps in communication. Dallas had their killers,

(04:17):
fort Worth had their madmen, and Houston, well, Houston was Houston.
Violence certainly wasn't confined to any specific regions of the state,
but that fact often slipped Austin's mind. Daylight in the
Capitol could trick you into forgetting the things the mind
prefers to forget. The smell of barbecue drifting from local

(04:42):
joints tex mechs, staples like Mats l Rancho, and burgers
at Dirty Martin's on Guadaloupe, Students crowded the drag while
debating politics and art. Government officials huddled in downtown diners
over policy and pork chops. Austin in nineteen eighty three

(05:02):
was in a state of flux, quirky, rebellious, hopeful, and
only beginning to understand the scale of what it would become.
But beneath the music and the glow of neon on Stone,
there was always the knowledge that darkness could find its
way there too. Growth brings opportunity, Opportunity brings people, and people,

(05:27):
every single one of them, carry the potential for good
and sometimes for bad. In nineteen eighty three, Austin's story
was still being written, but like every Texas city, its
bright lights cast long shadows. That year, one of them
fell over twenty three year old Cindy Rendon. Before anything

(05:52):
else Cindy was a mother. Her baby girl, Marabelle, had
just learned to walk. She was the center of of
Cindy's world. Everyone who knew her said so. The proud
mother was working hard to build a life for both
of them. She held two jobs, a seasonal evening position

(06:12):
at the Internal Revenue Service Offices in Austin and part
time as an attendant at Four Seasons Nursing Center. Those
who worked with Cindy described her positively sweet, quiet, responsible,
the latter characteristic perhaps something she learned during her enlistment
in the United States Air Force. Cindy was someone who

(06:36):
didn't make the world revolve around her, but she kept
hers turning. She came from a blended and supportive family,
multiple siblings, and a mother and stepfather who would do
anything for her. In nineteen eighty she married jose Angel
Rendon the third, or Joe as he was better known,

(06:57):
on Christmas Day, but by early nineteen eighty three the
marriage was in trouble. Cindy moved back into her parents'
house with the baby. She and Joe were separated for
only three weeks before she vanished. This is important because
that short window when couples are physically apart. Mixing freedom

(07:18):
with conflict is statistically among the most dangerous times in
any abusive or strained relationship. Cindy never told anyone she
feared for her life, but she was building a new one.
The last confirmed sighting of Cindy Rindon alive came just

(07:39):
after seven am on Tuesday, February first, nineteen eighty three.
That morning, her parents left for work just after seeing
her wake and begin to prepare for the day. Cindy
was to stay with Marabelle until later that afternoon, when
she'd need to hand her over to her parents and
head to her irs shift, which was the usual arrangement.

(08:03):
It was a normal mourning, no alarm bells, no signs
of distress. Perhaps the only thing out of the ordinary
was a call she made not to her workplace, not
to a friend, but to Joe, her estranged husband. He
later told police that Cindy phoned and said she had

(08:24):
something very important to do and asked him to come
get the baby. He drove over immediately, Joe said when
he arrived just after eight twenty am, He continued, the
front door stood wide open, the baby was inside alone.
Cindy was nowhere. Her coat and favorite shoes were still there.

(08:48):
Her purse, however, was not the Only other clue in
the house was a baby bull overturned on the kitchen floor.
Though it looked as if something had interrupted the last
moments of her mourning routine, there were no signs that
a struggle had taken place. By the morning following the

(09:18):
disappearance of Cindy Leo Davis Rendon, after she seemingly vanished
into thin air and never checked into work, her family
called police. Officers with the Youth Services Detail, who handled
missing persons investigations began the search. It wouldn't be easy.
There were no witnesses to her departure, no sounds or

(09:42):
sights reported by neighbors, no signs of a struggle. Police
knew she'd been wearing a white and blue checked blouse, jeans,
and white socks the last time she was seen, but
ultimately the information would do them little good. Least questioned
the one person they knew had spoken with Cindy that morning,

(10:05):
a man who might have had a motive to make
her disappear, her estranged husband, Joe. Detectives had learned he
and Cindy argued the night before she disappeared. They also
learned he was the first adult known to see the
baby after Cindy was gone and the empty house. They
learned he was the last person she called, but those

(10:28):
facts weren't enough for an arrest. Not yet. The case
grew stranger on Friday, February fourth, when a plain white
envelope arrived by US mail at the house. Inside was
Cindy's old military ID, some bank deposit slips, and various
other personal papers. A wallet style ID with Cindy's name

(10:52):
and address was attached to the outside of the envelope,
with clear tape securing the card like a label, but
there wasn't a note and there was no return address.
The postmark was unreadable. If the police were able to
lift fingerprints off any of the items, they never released

(11:13):
the information publicly. Cindy's driver's license and checkbook were not included.
These were items Cindy normally kept in her back pocket.
Police checked her bank account. There had been no activity
through the local news media, which they only utilized a
couple of times. Detectives stated they needed to speak with

(11:36):
whoever mailed the items, but that person never stepped forward.
In nineteen eighty three without surveillance footage, without cell data,
and with limited forensics, these clues were all dead ends.
The waiting began every time a woman's body was found

(11:57):
in Central Texas. Cindy's mother brod for the call. Just
two weeks after Cindy vanished, a woman's body was found
in a shallow grave near Smithville. She was killed, violently,
stomped on, and strangled. Investigators quickly said it wasn't Cindy,
but the case had left her family in a state

(12:19):
of fear. That much was clear, someone it seemed, was
killing women, and that someone had not been caught. Cindy's
mother kept Hope alive barely. She imagined Cindy calling home,
walking in the door, explaining everything, but that Hope eventually

(12:40):
got too heavy to carry. After all, five months is
a long time, and that's how long it was until
the discovery. Saturday, June ninth, nineteen eighty three, within the
bends of the Colorado River lies Pace Bend Park, about
forty two moles northwest of the home Cindy Rendon shared

(13:03):
with her parents. The summer heat was heavy, thick, the
kind that makes the air in the distance shimmer. A
camper in the Marshall Cove area, a remote wooded section,
spotted what looked like a rock among weeds and cracked soil.
But it wasn't a rock, it was a human skull.

(13:25):
The camper quickly made their way to a phone and
called the Travis County Sheriff's Office. Deputies secured the area
and searched further. Under a shallow grave about twenty inches deep,
they found skeletal remains wrapped in a sheet. That was
the first clue a sheet had gone missing from Cindy's

(13:47):
parents' house the same time she vanished. Medical examiner doctor
Robert Bayardo estimated the body had been there four to
six months. The death was ruled a homicide, though the
pathologist would not reveal the cause of death if he
knew it. The remains were completely decomposed, skeletal. There was

(14:09):
no indication she'd been sexually assaulted. Travis County Sheriff's deputies
learned fast who they needed to contact if this was
Cindy Rendon. She was killed not long after she disappeared.
Her parents were asked for dental records. Her mother said,
we still have hope, but after six months, it makes

(14:31):
you wonder. She told reporters she just wanted her daughter
back alive, but now she had to switch hope for certainty.
That hope had already been tested plenty. The last time
was when her missing daughter's purse was discovered in a
trash dumpster in southwest Austin on July eleventh. That truth

(14:54):
was confirmed. The remains belonged to Cindy. Her sheet wrapped
body hidden quickly and crudely in the dirt spoke to urgency.
But whoever did this didn't take her away forever by
trying to cover up what they'd done, Perhaps they thought
they had. After Cindy's remains were found, detectives reviewed every

(15:19):
interview from the disappearance. One name, one connection stood out.
Jose Angel Joe Rendon the third, the victim's estranged husband.
He had told police he argued with Cindy the night
before she vanished, suggesting a potential motive, and had received

(15:39):
the last call from her. He was also the first
to discover she was gone. He had a prior felony conviction,
a nineteen seventy eight robbery, and he began parole in
nineteen eighty. Detectives said he denied involvement, but they believed
they had evidence to the contrary. On July twenty seventh,

(16:01):
nineteen eighty three, a grand jury agreed Joe was indicted
for Cindy's murder. He turned himself in hours later. Bail
was set at seventy five thousand dollars. For a moment,
Cindy's family felt the gears of justice begin to move.
But those gears were not well oiled, and, depending on

(16:25):
Joe's guilt or innocence, didn't turn the way they should have.
In December nineteen eighty three, the indictment was thrown out,
not because of evidence, but because of a technical error
in the wording. A single phrase was missing, a legal
formality about whether the grand jury had exercised reasonable diligence

(16:48):
in determining how the murder was committed. Instead, they simply
listed the cause as unknown. That one mistake invalidated everything.
Prosecutors promised a correction, they delivered one. The case returned
to a grand jury in early nineteen eighty four. This

(17:10):
time they refused to indict. Joe walked free, and the
grand jury's decision is probably reflective of the weak case
against him. The investigation into Cindy's murder stalled and then
simply faded. There was never a trial, no arrest, no conviction.

(17:33):
The justice system closed its book before the story was finished,
and with that, the local media's attention span was directed
toward the latest news. The case of the murder of
Cindy Davis Rindon was and remains cold. When Cindy's obituary

(17:53):
was printed. It did not include details of how she
disappeared and how she was found. It didn't mention any
forthcoming indictments or even arrests. It didn't talk about evidence
or envelopes or shallow graves. The obit was simple, like most,
and listed the services to come, the rosary and the mass.

(18:17):
It listed the family she left behind, her baby daughter
who would grow up without her. It told the truth
that mattered most. Cindy was loved. She deserved a future,
but didn't get one. When she was missing, her family said,
it hurts inside and the waiting kills you. They waited

(18:39):
for her to return. They waited for answers, then they
waited for justice. They are still waiting more than four
decades later. Cindy's case sits in a file in it
is grand jury testimony. The location of a shallow grave
and a family's heartbreak. A missing woman's belongings mailed anonymously

(19:05):
remain one of the most chilling elements. Someone took the
time to gather her things. Someone stood in a post office,
paid postage and sent a message without words. Was it
simply a good samaritan returning the items to their rightful
owner after stumbling upon them accidentally, or was it someone

(19:27):
who knew exactly what they were doing? And how did
Cindy's purse end up in a dumpster on the other
side of town. This case still needs to be solved.
Cindy still deserves the truth. If you have any information
about the murder of Cindy Davis Rendon, please contact the

(19:50):
Travis County Sheriff's Office tip line at five to one
two eight five four one four four four. Like to
join gon Coold's mission to shine a light on unsolved
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(20:11):
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