The Cindy Song disappearance remains unsolved more than two decades after the 23-year-old Penn State student vanished from State College, Pennsylvania, in the early hours of November 1, 2001. No body has ever been found, no one has been charged, and the strongest lead in the case, a tip pointing to convicted murderer Hugo Selenski, was never backed by physical evidence.1Unsolved.com. Cindy Song
Who Cindy Song Was
Hyun Jong “Cindy” Song was born on February 25, 1980. She grew up in South Korea and moved to Virginia in 1995 to live with her aunt and uncle. By the fall of 2001 she was an art major at Penn State’s University Park campus, working two jobs to support herself. Friends described her as independent, and she thought nothing of walking alone late at night to a nearby 24-hour market.1Unsolved.com. Cindy Song
The Night She Vanished
On Halloween night, October 31, 2001, Song went out with two friends, Stacy Paik and Lisa Kim, dressed as a Playboy Bunny. The three spent the night at Player’s Night Club, a dance venue near campus that has since been renamed the Basement Nightspot. Surveillance footage caught Song entering the club smiling and full of energy.2Death by Misadventure. Cindy Song’s Haunting Halloween Disappearance
When the club closed around 2:00 a.m. on November 1, the three friends went back to a friend’s apartment in the Park Hill complex and played video games for roughly an hour and a half. Between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m., Paik drove Song home to her apartment on Clinton Avenue. Paik watched Song walk toward the building but did not see her go inside before driving away. That was the last confirmed sighting of Cindy Song.3Onward State. The Disappearance of Cindy Song
What Police Found in Her Apartment
Song was reported missing on November 4, 2001. When officers entered her apartment, the door was locked and there were no signs of a struggle. Her false eyelashes and contact lenses sat on the counter, and her backpack and cell phone were in her room, all pointing to her having made it inside and started her nightly routine. Missing were her bunny costume, her purse with her driver’s license and credit cards, and her keys.1Unsolved.com. Cindy Song Investigators theorized she may have left the apartment voluntarily, possibly to walk to the 24-hour market she was known to frequent.
The Investigation and Its Dead Ends
Because Song’s apartment sat outside the State College borough’s jurisdiction, the Ferguson Township Police Department led the case, with Detective Brian Sprinkle as lead investigator.4WNEP. The Unsolved: Cindy Song Vanishes From State College
Volunteers and police searched wooded areas near campus and found nothing. Sprinkle pulled Song’s phone records, email accounts, and credit card activity and found zero post-disappearance use of any of them. Two of her ex-boyfriends, Richard Chae and a man identified only as Patrick, were questioned and cleared.5WTAJ. Have You Seen Me – Case 2: Cindy Song Sprinkle called the case “very frustrating,” saying Song had “vanished in thin air.” There was no body, no crime scene, and no proof a crime had even occurred.1Unsolved.com. Cindy Song
In December 2001, a witness reported seeing a young woman matching Song’s description being forced into a car in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, roughly 200 miles from State College. The woman was reportedly crying and yelling for help. Police released a composite sketch of a man seen with her but eventually determined the tip was not connected to Song’s case.3Onward State. The Disappearance of Cindy Song
By August 2002, with the investigation stalled, psychic profiler Carla Baron visited State College at the request of the Penn State Paranormal Research Society, filmed by a crew for the TruTV show Psychic Detectives. Baron said she saw Song being loaded into a vehicle by three or four men and believed the case involved a sexual abduction. Sprinkle later said, “She’s good at what she does, but just unfortunately with us, the information she provided just didn’t turn into any credible leads.”5WTAJ. Have You Seen Me – Case 2: Cindy Song
The Hugo Selenski Lead
The strongest lead came in 2003 from Paul Weakley, a criminal associate of Hugo Selenski, a Luzerne County man later convicted of double murder. Weakley told authorities that Selenski and another accomplice, Michael Kerkowski, had kidnapped a young Asian woman around the time Song disappeared and held her against her will in a basement vault until she died.6StateCollege.com. The Night Cindy Song Vanished
Sprinkle called it the case’s “best lead” at the time. Ferguson Township officers traveled to Luzerne County, and authorities searched Selenski’s property on Mount Olivet Road in Kingston Township. They discovered the burned and buried remains of at least five people. Four were eventually identified as Michael Kerkowski, his girlfriend Tammy Fassett, and two suspected drug dealers, Frank James and Adeiye Keiler. A fifth set of remains was never identified.7Citizens’ Voice. Set of Remains in Selenski Yard Still a Mystery Cindy Song was not among them.4WNEP. The Unsolved: Cindy Song Vanishes From State College
Investigators were never able to produce physical evidence tying Selenski to Song’s disappearance. He was not charged in her case, though he has never been formally ruled out as a person of interest. In February 2015, a jury convicted Selenski of the first-degree murders of Kerkowski and Fassett, who had been strangled with plastic flex ties during a robbery in May 2002. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.8CBS News. Man Convicted of Double Murder Avoids Death Penalty Weakley, the informant, pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in the Kerkowski and Fassett murders and is serving a life sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.9Times Leader. Appellate Court Denies Relief for Convicted Double Murderer Selenski
Where the Case Stands Now
The Ferguson Township Police Department has kept the case open. In 2013, DNA samples from Song’s parents were added to national law enforcement databases so that unidentified remains recovered anywhere in the country could be compared against her profile.10StateCollege.com. Discovery of Bodies Raises New Questions in Disappearance of Penn State Student Her NamUs case number is MP3088.11NamUs. NamUs Case MP3088
Selenski remains incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Fayette. Anyone with information about Cindy Song’s disappearance can contact the Ferguson Township Police Department at (814) 237-1172.3Onward State. The Disappearance of Cindy Song