It’s been six months since Sidney Cranston seemingly vanished after meeting with a friend near his home in Kingman, Arizona. By all accounts he was living an enviable life. He owned a successful real estate business and was looking forward to starting a family with his fiancee Luna. Sid was an avid traveller and had met Luna during his time in Mexico. He planned to move her soon from Mexico to Kingman. Things were falling into place for Sid. He had found the fulfillment he had been searching for. June 16, 2015 started as any other ordinary day for Sid. He headed to his office and completed some paperwork before showing a property to a prospective buyer. He let a colleague know he would be meeting a friend of his for lunch. That friend, Al Blanco, had known Sid several years. He was completing work on a house where he and Sid met up around noon. That house didn't belong to Sid although he did often hire Al to work on his own properties. They went to the In-&-Out where Sid purchased lunch for Al and Al’s two kids. Sid was close to Al’s family. He had just celebrated Al’s youngest kid’s graduation from high school with Al’s family a few weeks earlier. What happened next is a mystery that has devastated a family and conflicted a community. Sid left the home after lunch to meet up with a potential buyer at one of his properties, according to Al. That unknown person picked Sid up from the house to go out for a viewing. The property, north of town, was searched by helicopters for 2 days. Nobody knows the identity of the mystery client Sid met up with. This lead, provided by Al, would not be the only evidence to come out in the case. Sid’s brother Chris came to Arizona from North Carolina, where he operates a flooring company, to find out what happened. He was close to his brother and they often spoke on the phone. He had last talked to his brother the morning he went missing. Al invited Chris to stay at his home in Kingman while he searched for his brother. Chris met Al’s wife and kids. The Blanco family was very involved in the community. Al was a handyman and ran his own contracting company. His wife taught at a local school and his children had graduated from an illustrious private high school. They were friends with many people in the community. Chris felt comforted by the kindness this welcoming family had shown him. One of the first steps that Chris took was hiring a private investigator to help him in his search for his brother. The private investigator began interviewing everyone that knew Sid. He planned to conduct polygraph tests to help clear potential suspects. More than twenty people were requested to undergo the tests and all of them agreed, including Al Blanco. There wasn’t much information for investigators to go on and it looked like the case was going nowhere. That is until a prominent local jewelry store owner contacted police about a suspicious sale at his shop. A man had come in to sell a couple of rings the day Sid went missing. The man had come in just before the store was closing so the owner told him to come back the following day. The man did return promptly the next day when the store opened at 9am. He sold the rings and collected the money just like like any typical transaction in the store. However this sale was anything but typical. The man who sold the rings was Al Blanco. It didn’t take long for investigators to discover the rings belonged to Sid. When confronted about the rings Al said that Sid had removed them and left them at the house before he went to meet the mystery client. It’s a questionable story but the rings had not been reported stolen so the police had no legal reason to pursue it. Investigators turned to cell phone records to better help pinpoint Sid’s potential whereabouts. His last outgoing call was at 1:30pm when he contacted a financial company about one of his properties. His cell would later ping a tower east of town at 4:45pm. The ping was from a call he missed from Al Blanco. Al told investigators he called Sid because they were both supposed to attend a public hearing that afternoon about one of Sid’s properties. Investigators were able to narrow down a potential crime scene based on that data. Al backed out of the polygraph and stopped cooperating with investigators a few weeks after Sid’s disappearance. More questions arose when Al’s cell phone records revealed he wasn’t at the location he had first told police following his lunch with Sid. In fact he was in the same area as Sid at a remote location more than 20 miles from town when he called Sid’s phone. Several searches have been conducted and no new evidence has turned up. The investigation has stalled. Al continues to walk the streets of Kingman and denies any involvement in Sid’s disappearance. Meanwhile the Cranston family awaits answers and the community demands justice for Sid. UPDATE: Al Blanco was found unconscious in his home on December 16, 2015.
3 Comments
Marianne
12/16/2015 02:01:52 pm
Wow ...something needs to be done...something happened ...and the cops need to figure it out ...my opinion
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Christy
12/28/2015 11:16:25 pm
Where did you get your information that Al Blanco was deceased?
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Rocky
6/26/2016 02:36:09 am
Inquiring minds want to know: What is the significance if any to the flag backdrop in the thumbnail photo on this webpage identified as Al Blanco? Where is that flag from? Is that really Al Blanco in the photo? What is the siginificane of the ribbon & medalions around the man's neck? When & Where was this photo taken? How was it obtained ie the source of photo? Why was it used on this webpage instead of choosing one of the more recent images of Al Blanco that are more relevant to this on going investigation into the disapearance and whereabouts of Sidney Cranston, Jr? Inquiring Minds Want To Know!
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