Cynthia Louise Putnam

This query posted posted online in 2009 caught our eye when we were searching for missing New England girls.

Hi. I am looking for my aunt Cynthia Louise Putnam who has been missing, to our family, since about 1974. She may be going by a different name but... she was born on March 17, 1957... she was last heard from when she was attending the Weeks School in Vergennes, VT, and she is greatly missed by her family... The picture below was taken when cindy was 14. I hope it rings some bells.

Wondering if Cynthia could possibly be the woman in Allenstown, we reached out to authorities and to her family. We put them in contact with NAMUS so that she could be listed as missing in that database. Not long afterward, I (Ronda) was searching through indexes of the deceased and found these entries: 

It was obvious that little was known about the background of this girl with the same full name as the girl who disappeared from Vermont. I then searched through the Greensboro NC newspapers for mention of this death and located the following articles:

 

So... the NC authorities had this girl's full name and knew she was born in Massachusetts. ONE phone call to Vital Records would have given them her DOB and parents' names. When they realized that she died just two days past her 17th birthday (if this is indeed the Cynthia from VT) and was living with a 28 year old boyfriend (Stephen Schnair), one would think that the police in NC would have made a couple more phone calls to find her parents. No, they assumed she "had no relatives" and buried her. And for 42 YEARS her family has wondered what happened to her. IF this is indeed the Cynthia from VT, then it certainly paints the Greensboro NC authorities in a very bad light. Shame on them.

I notified Cynthia's family in VT about this development as I knew that their Cynthia was also born in MA. Hopefully the authorities and NAMUS will find a way to confirm (or rule-out) the NC Cynthia as being the VT Cynthia for the sake of the Putnam family.