Mother Stabbed To Death In Her Driveway

Cynthia Jones Kirk lived with her husband, Bill, and two-year-old daughter, Suzanne, in Durham, North Carolina. The 34-year-old was a supervisor at the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. Although known as a private person, Cynthia was a laidback and well-liked woman.

On August 21, 1989, Cynthia’s sister, Beverly Sechler, received a call from the family’s babysitter. Cynthia was supposed to drop Suzanne off at the babysitter’s house so that she could go to work, but they were running unusually late. Beverly was alarmed as her sister was very punctual and decided to drive to Cynthia’s house.

She explained to WRAL what she found when she arrived,

“I pulled up behind, got out of the car and saw blood everywhere, a tremendous amount of blood. I started to go in the house, but I saw a lot of blood, I think on the stoop, and I thought, ‘wait a minute, I probably should run get help first.”

Beverly asked a neighbor for help. They went up to the house and just inside the doorway was Cynthia’s lifeless body. Suzanne was upstairs sleeping in her crib, unharmed.

Cynthia had been putting some stuff in her car around 1 PM when she was stabbed five times, two of which in the heart.

She hadn’t died immediately. Upon being attacked in the driveway, Cynthia stumbled towards the house up some wooden steps, where she seemingly fell for a moment. She then got up and opened the metal screen door. It was in the doorway of her kitchen where Cynthia died in a pool of her blood.

It had been broad daylight at the time of Cynthia’s murder. Yet, there are no eyewitnesses and authorities have very few leads in the case.

There had been a construction crew down the block and a landscaper had been mowing the lawn across the street when the attack occurred. The landscaper heard a scream but thought it was a child falling off their bike.

In the days leading up to Cynthia’s murder, a few neighbors had noticed an unfamiliar middle-aged white male in the area. The landscaper even saw this man driving a green sedan away from Cynthia’s house on the afternoon of the attack.

A mailwoman had spoken to this suspicious man a few days prior and thought he was creepy. He began by asking her where he could find a map and then proceeded to ask her a bunch of random questions about the neighborhood. The mailwoman noticed he was hiding something behind his back the whole time.

The mystery man has never been identified. He is described as being medium height and weight, clean-cut, with dark hair.

Beverly and her husband Gary Sechler have done an investigation of their own. According to the Sechlers, authorities consider Cynthia’s murder a random act of violence.

They do not agree and believe the perpetrator knew Cynthia’s routine. They also believe the murder weapon could be in the woods behind the house.

The Sechlers have given police the names of three people they consider to be of interest. One of them is Cynthia’s husband, Bill Kirk, but authorities ruled him out as a suspect because he had been at work. Nevertheless, Beverly believes it’s possible someone was hired to kill her sister. It is important to note that Bill had a motive — he stood to collect up to $400,000 after his wife’s death.

Bill sold the house and remarried shortly after. He has since made peace with Cynthia’s murder. He explained to WRAL,

“It is traumatic. You never outgrow it. You never forget it. You do the best you can to live your life.

I have accepted that if the killer is still alive he won’t be caught.”

Beverly and Gary Sechler, however, will continue to search for answers.

33 years later, Cynthia Kirk’s murder remains unsolved.