Linda Cierzan is praying her husband, Will, comes home for Christmas, telling The Signal Friday that she’s praying for a Christmas miracle.
“I am a person who has strong faith in God and I am praying for a Christmas miracle,” she said Friday.
“Will and I first met on Christmas Eve, when we both worked at Fedco, in the valley, so this holiday is very important to us,” she said.
Every Christmas since has been magical for Will and Linda Cierzan, she said. Every Christmas except this one, which marks 11 months he vanished without a trace.
“This has been a very hard year, first with Will disappearing and then my mother passing away in June. My Mom loved Christmas so much, she used to decorate the house, go to the market and buy fresh fruits and pastries for Christmas and we would do last minute shopping until all hours the weekend before Christmas — she made the holidays very special.”
Will also shared in the holiday spirit, she added.
“Will also loves Christmas, the lights, the decorations and the tree,” she said. “He is very picky about getting the right tree (he loves the smell of a fresh tree), he puts on the lights and we cover the tree with ornaments we have gotten over the years.”
Bizarre vanishing
No one who knew 58-year-old William John Cierzan — as the hard-working long-time at Six Flags Magic Mountain employee, the faithful church-going parishioner or the loving family man who found simple pleasure in TV sports and collecting Coke bottles — would ever have believed this year would end in a Christmas without him.
Yet as 2017 winds down, with a $20,000 reward still out there for information regarding what happened, there’s been no sign of the mystery getting closer to being solved.
Only a smattering of blood — Will’s blood — found in the Cierzan home, and the quirky video image of a truck backing into the home’s driveway stand as the only two pieces of a puzzle with thousands of pieces missing.
“That’s the hardest thing,” Will’s sister, Andrea Peck, told The Signal Friday. “Is that we still don’t know anything.”
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Cierzan family gets together for their own special holiday tradition – watching the Huntington Harbor Boat Parade.
“Will was always a part of of that, he loved it,” Peck said. “The whole family used to get together and celebrate.”
“It wasn’t the same this year,” she said.
“Will also really loved how (Six Flags) Magic Mountain was decorated for Christmas,” she said. “He went to all their events.”
Homicide detectives and deputies with Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, join Will Cierzan’s wife, three sisters, brother, his brother’s son, other relatives, friends and Six Flags coworkers and parishioners in playing back the uneventful moments of the day he disappeared.
Last Minutes
In the early afternoon of thursday Jan. 26, 2017, Will Cierzan was watching golf on TV with his nephew at 1:30 p.m. inside his home on Cuatro Milpas Street, near Seco Canyon Road, said his sister Andrea Peck Cierzan
After the nephew left the home, Cierzan began making dinner, she said.
“His wife called him between 3:30 and 4 p.m. and he said, ‘I’m putting dinner on,’ and he was in great spirits,” she said.
At 5 p.m., the wife called again and he said the chicken was cooked.
But, two hours later, Cierzan’s wife, Linda, arrived home and found the chicken cooked, with the oven turned off.
Her husband’s wallet, keys and coat were in the house, with credit cards and money in the wallet. The family dog was in the house.
But, there was no sign of Cierzan. And, at 6 p.m. Friday, 24 hours later, he was still missing.
Next month, it will be one year since he’s been missing — still with no sign, no clue.
“No one can really say what has happened to Will,” his wife said Friday.
“God allows free will but in the end, he is the only one who can makes things right and he is the only one who can create miracles. So I am praying that this Christmas God will put my husband on the path back home to me and that my William will be a Christmas miracle not just for me but for so many people who have been praying for his safe return… and we could all do with a miracle.”
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