Investigators search for clues in Spokane Valley woman’s death
Investigators are trying to determine whether the live-in boyfriend of a Spokane Valley woman found dead in North Idaho two weeks ago had anything to do with her death.
The family of Cindy Lou Zeppenfeld Bergan reported her missing Jan. 18 and said she had not been in contact with family or friends since Jan. 6. The time frame included Bergan missing her daughter’s birthday.
Before her disappearance, Bergan filed for a restraining order against her boyfriend, according to court documents. He had been arrested for domestic violence assault a month earlier, and court records show that the couple had a history of violence toward one another.
Bergan applied for the restraining order Jan. 5 after her boyfriend was released from jail.
“I am fearful of more harm as (he) is getting madder by the day,” she wrote in the application. “He has taken my phone, wallet and house key to remove me from our home.”
The next day Spokane Valley Sheriff’s deputies responded to their home in the 400 block of South Chronicle on a domestic violence call. That was the last time Bergan was seen alive.
Neither she nor her boyfriend appeared for a Jan. 19 court hearing regarding the restraining order, so the matter was dropped.
Her body was found wrapped in clear plastic and bound with duct tape on Canyon Loop Road near Cataldo, Idaho, on Jan. 23.
Her boyfriend’s car passed by a vehicle license plate scanner heading eastbound on Interstate 90 in Kootenai County just after 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, according to court documents. Now investigators want access to Bergan’s mobile phone records.
The day after recovering her body, investigators found the boyfriend at the couple’s home on Chronicle. He told detectives he returned to the home when he learned the no contact order was no longer in place, according to court documents.
The man said that he didn’t know where Bergan was but “was glad to just be rid of her,” according to court documents. Detectives wrote that none of Bergan’s belongings were visible inside the home.
No one had been arrested in connection with Bergan’s death as of Friday afternoon.