Friend of missing Okla. teen speaks out after Dennis Rader named prime suspect in disappearance

PAWHUSKA, Okla. (KWCH) – Approaching a week after an Oklahoma sheriff named Dennis Rader as the prime suspect in the 1976 disappearance of a 16-year-old girl, 12 News spoke with a friend of the teen who is speaking out, hopeful that new evidence can put an end to a near-50-year search.

The last known whereabouts of then 16-year-old Cynthia Kinney was in 1976 at a laundromat in downtown Pawhuska, Okla. There hadn’t been much development in the decades-long cold case until last week when an Oklahoma sheriff in Osage County called Rader, the serial killer known as “BTK,” the prime suspect in Kinney’s disappearance. Kinney’s friend, Tjuana Boulanger spent years searching for Kinney. She recalled time spent driving the back roads of Osage County, hoping to find a clue.

“My friends and I drove around for years and years and years after that, every back road, every lake road, every oil lease, trying to find her, trying to find anything out of the ordinary,” Boulanger said. “We just wanted to find Cindy and we just never had any luck.”

But with new evidence in the hands of the sheriff, like everyone that knew Kinney, Boulanger hopes for justice and closure for Kinney’s family.

“People don’t just disappear like that, don’t just disappear,” Boulanger said.

For now, all Boulanger has is a photo of her friend and fond memories of Kinney in school.

“I can still see that little girl be-bopping down them hallways and she’s just so outgoing and always laughing and kidding. And at games she was just fire. She’d get out there and get cheering. She was just so cute,” Boulanger said.

When it comes to Rader being the prime suspect, she said she believes his connection to the case is possible.

“I really do now think it’s a possibility after I’ve heard a little more about it and it could be a possibility. But that man’s not ever going to admit it,” Boulanger said.

She shared a message for whoever is responsible for her friend’s disappearance.

“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” Boulanger said. “You’ve already got your thrills of what you did to her. We wanna bring her home. Please let us bring her home, you know, and Jesus will forgive you.”

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