Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Gorgeous Single Seeks Love on OkCupid, Disappears

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

Leslie Ben-Iesau has been missing since April 15. The Sacramento woman tells her family she is going on a date with someone that she met on the dating app, OkCupid. There has been no activity on the woman’s phone since 8:45 a.m. that morning and her family says it's not like the woman to miss contact with her family on her birthday, which just passed. On Friday, surveillance camera images appear to show Ben-Iesau near the Orchid Thai Restaurant & Bar in Sacramento. She then can be seen walking toward the University of Beer bar on 16th Street. The person Leslie was reportedly meeting went by the name Bea. Leslie was reportedly last seen in the Freemont Park area wearing ripped jeans, a t-shirt, and a brown leather backpack.   Joining Nancy Grace Today: Matthew Mangino - Attorney, Former District Attorney (Lawrence County), Former Parole Board Member, Author: "The Executioner's Toll: The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals, Final Words and Executions of 46 Persons in the United States"   Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire'  Derek Ellington - Certified Forensic Examiner, Licensed Private Investigator, Ellington Digital Forensics www.ellington.net  Rowena Shaddox - Reporter, FOX 40 KTLX (Sacramento), Twitter: @RoShaddox  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A gorgeous young woman plans a date through OKCupid. She's never seen again. Where is Leslie? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. The tick-tock, tick-tock of the clock is driving Leslie's family insane because with every hour that passes, the likelihood of her coming through this alive dwindles. Take a listen to our friends at WCRA. The family of a Sacramento woman says she's been missing for several days now and they need your

help. Take a look at your screen here. This is Leslie Benenisa. Today we spoke with her brother who says the last time the family had contact with Leslie was nine days ago back on April 15th to tell us she was supposed to go on a date with someone that she met on an app, a dating app. Her family says Leslie is currently taking classes at Sacramento State and it's out of character for her to disappear like this. Her birthday was just passed on Sunday and it's just very unlike her to not be in contact with any of us. Family did file a report with police. Officers tell us that they are investigating and right now they do not suspect foul play but if you have any information about Leslie's whereabouts please call the Sacramento police so her family won't worry. You know what?

That sounded pretty benign because this woman has never disappeared in her life. And now she's missing her own birthday and has not had any contact with her family. I don't think she just went on a walkabout. You know, which leads me to the question, Dr. Bethany Marshall is joining a psychoanalyst from Beverly Hills. Bethany, why do they always say the same thing? It almost makes me physically hurt. No suspicion of wrongdoing. The woman has been gone now for weeks.

Nancy, my heart sank. Family hasn't heard from her. Work nothing. Nancy, did you hear the tone of voice of the reporter? We don't suspect they don't suspect foul play. Of course, there's foul play. Of course there's foul play. This woman was in touch with her family. Did you see her photographs? She's beautiful. The one photograph I saw, she's actually facing a relative. I think a baby is, you know, sitting

on his shoulders and she's laughing and she seems connected. This woman loved her family. She was in school. That means she was probably reading, preparing for class assignments. There would be some sign of activity in her life if everything was okay. She went on a date in the morning, Nancy. This guy picked her up in the morning and she's never been heard from since. Something is terribly, terribly wrong. Terribly wrong. No activity on the ATM, no activity on the credit cards, nothing. I'm now hanging on to the hope that we're going to get a ping on her phone, but here you're hearing it again.

No suspicion of foul play. Take a listen to our cut four from Fox 40. Police tell Fox 40 that Leslie left on her own from her home and there was no indication of foul play. Families say their mother became worried after text messages she sent last week went unanswered. I text her back and I could see that the message wasn't going through which is not like my sister. I would she would at least turn her phone on even if she didn't always reply right away, she would have her phone on. And what they find especially disturbing is that Leslie's birthday was on Saturday.

The family always celebrates birthdays, but Leslie's phone was turned off. When her birthday came, I sent her another message. And by midday, without her turning her phone on or texting us or anything, I knew that there was something wrong. Something very, very wrong. And this beautiful young woman, Leslie Ben-Aissa, the Ben-Aissa family says that she is loving and trusting. So all the qualities that you want in a person may actually be working against her. Take a listen to our cut five, our friends at Fox 40.

They describe their sister as a loving and trusting person who is full of life. They want her to know this. Leslie, if you're watching this, if you see this, know that we are looking for you. We love you. We want you to come home and hopefully you're safe and we'll see you soon. And although police said that they don't suspect any foul play, the family is, of course, very worried. They said this is very out of character for her, especially because she didn't answer text messages from their mother. So if you have any information on her whereabouts, you're encouraged to contact Sacramento Police. Guys, we are talking about a beautiful young woman, Leslie Ben Ayesa. Joining me right now, special guest Rowena Shaddix, joining us from KTLX

Sacramento. Rowena, thank you so much for being with us. If we could just go through the day that she goes missing, what happened that day? Her sisters tell me that she was getting ready to meet someone that she met on a dating app. She was very excited about it. It was in the morning time of the 15th. And so they, one sister in Sacramento that I met in person with, she said that she was going to be brought up to date the details of this date from her sister, from Leslie, but she never heard back from her. And that Tuesday, I believe they, that I spoke with them, they had just gotten information from the wireless carrier that there's been absolutely no activity on her cell phone since that day. Have the police tried to

ping it, Rowena Shaddix? That is something that we were trying to find out from Sacramento police. I was communicating with them through text messages. That was one of the questions that I had asked. I didn't get an answer to it. So I got the feeling that that was maybe some holdback information. Maybe that's something that they were working on that they weren't ready to share at that time. What they did tell us that they were aware of is that they believe that she did leave from her place on her own. And that they, again, didn't suspect any foul play. But that's difficult to believe because talking with the sisters,

they said this is just very out of character for her because she always communicates with them, even though she might not text back immediately. You know, when it comes to their mother, that's someone that she always will communicate with, and she just hasn't done that. You know, we know that she was on OKCupid, and I'm looking at it right now,

and you see all these attractive people. It's very inviting. You see all these attractive people smiling, men and women, and it gives you tips about how to find the right single for you. These online dating websites are fraught with peril. I started to write about one story in my last book, Don't Be a Victim. One story, it turned into a massive chapter about online dating, what to do and what not to do. One of the things you must do is you've got to tell somebody where you're going. I don't know if she did that, but I do know that there is a restaurant in town there in Sacramento called the Orchid

Thai, Thai restaurant. What can you tell me about information from the Orchid Thai restaurant and bar, Rowena Shaddix? Honestly, I'm not familiar with that. And from what the sisters told me, I don't believe that she had told them specifics about where the date was to take place. That was one of their concerns. And that was one of the pieces of advice that they gave to our viewers is that if you are going to meet someone on a dating app for the first time, to definitely make sure that your relatives, a friend, someone knows your whereabouts, even if it's a public place that you are supposed to be meeting at to make sure and share the location wherever that may be. Always meet at a public place. Do not give the person you're dating all your info.

Like from what I'm understanding, she was picked up at her home. No, no, they don't need to know where you live or where you work until you decide they're trustworthy and you hand that information over to them. Don't post pictures that have your car with your car tag or out in front of your work that says WMAZ and you're standing under it. Don't have your address, your car, your work address, anything that identifies how you can be found. What if you

have the first date and you realize the person is a stalker freak? You don't want them to have your information and they can easily pull the wool over your eyes online. Orchid Thai has been called Sacramento's best authentic Thai food. And what I like about it is it's very open. If you look, I mean, you don't have to have been there, but if you look online, the whole front wall is glass. It's very well lit. It's in an area where other businesses are around it. That's just the kind of place you'd want to meet on a first date. But from what I'm hearing, Rowena Shaddix, the date picked her up at home. Is that correct?

From what I can recall from what the sister said is that she had communicated with this person and they were to meet somewhere. I believe, I think it was somewhere in the Midtown area, perhaps not far from where she lived. Okay. But back to him picking her up. Do we know that happened? I do not know that that happened for certain. As her sisters, that was the last information was that they were to meet. But no one knows for certain. But they're all assuming that that's, of course, what happened.

Something happened. And did they assume that he picked her up or that they met there? From what I was told from the up or that they met there? From what I was told from the sisters is that they were going to meet, not necessarily that he picked her up from her residence, but they were going to meet. Okay.

Let me ask you a couple of more questions. Did she drive a vehicle? Does she have a vehicle? That I don't know. I have no idea. Because that's the first thing I would do immediately. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Matthew Mangino joining us, former prosecutor, former parole board member and author of The Executioner's Toll, Matthew Mangino. Here's what I would do, like, in the first hour. Determine if she has the vehicle. Find out the make and model and the tag number, even the VIN. Put an alert out for that vehicle. That's the first thing. You want toll bridges. You want tag grabbers. You want, if you can get it, and it'll take a minute to turn this around, red light cams, anything you can find from local businesses near where her car would have gone. First thing. Then immediately ping the cell.

Check for her ATM, her credit cards, anything that could give you an electronic trail now i've been asking about the orchid thai restaurant and bar in sacramento apparently graphs of security footage were shared showing leslie there the same day that she went missing. That's a big deal. That's the start of the timeline, Matthew Mangino. Yeah, so I agree with you, Nancy. You know, the one issue here that's a bit problematic is I don't think law enforcement got into this case quickly. I mean, I think some time went by before her family even acknowledged that there might be something wrong. And that so that set law enforcement back a bit. But I agree with you. You know, what you want to do is immediately see, you know, is there any transactions? You know, where was she? Did she use a credit card?

So you can find out where where she might have been or where that credit card was used after the fact. Certainly, you want to know if she had a vehicle. You want to look at that cell phone and see what history you can find or if you can ping that cell phone to see where she was when that cell phone went off. Apparently, the cell phone was turned off on that day that she had this blind date through the dating service. And, of course, as you've already acknowledged, you want to go right to that dating service and see if there's some information you can gain from that area as well, particularly about the person that she was corresponding with

or communicating with who ultimately she had this blind date with and try to get that information as quickly as you can, even if you are a little bit behind the eight ball, so to speak, that you didn't get involved in this case immediately. But in a missing person, as we all know, you know, time is extremely important and you need to do those things immediately. Yeah, you know, right, Matthew Mangino, typically when someone has been abducted, they're going to be killed with, especially youth,

but they're going to be killed within the first three days if they're kept. If they're raped and left, whole other thing. But when you keep the victim with you, they very rarely come out of that alive. Another thing we know is that she was seen in orca tie

then she was observed walking up 16th street there in sacramento toward the university of beer bar she was supposed to meet a person she met on ok cupid when you look at the page, it's very benign. It's very welcoming. All these happy people that apparently have met their mate on OkCupid are pictured. The person she was supposed to meet goes by the name B. B as in brother, E-A, goes by the name B. Now, Matthew Mangino mentioned that there was a delay between the last day she was seen, which was the 15th. That was April 15th and the time she was reported. Take a listen to our cut three from Fox 40. Family says Leslie was last seen around the 15th in the area around the Capitol. Her sisters tell Fox 40 News that she was getting

ready to go out on a date with someone she'd met on a dating app. If anybody uses the site OkCupid, I would like them to reach out if they have any information on a person that goes by the name of B, that would really help me and my family, or if they have seen her, they're called the Sacramento Police Department. To Derek Ellington, just joining us, Certified Forensics Examiner, Licensed Private Investigator at Ellington Digital Forensics. That's ellington.net. Derek, thank you for being with us.

I want to follow up on this. This area is right around the capital of California and Sacramento. It has to be crawling with state officials and cops, but no one noticed anything untoward. That tells me she must have gone willingly with her perp, and that's when things went sideways. Well, and absolutely, Nancy. And one of the things I would say is that everything we know about her is that she was a very outgoing, happy, loving person. And unfortunately, that tends to be the same type of person that gets more sucked in to the people that you meet online. And I think that there's a disconnect where people think that if people are on some

type of dating site, meeting them through something that is as credible as OkCupid, that there's some type of protections in place. And unfortunately, that's not the case. There aren't protections in place. On the morning of her date, Leslie Benaissa texted her sister and told the sister of her plans to have a date. The sister, Caroline, says that Leslie's phone has been turned off ever since that day. And the sister, Caroline, can tell that Leslie has not read any of the family's texts. I mean, this is just like a wolf crawling up, sneaking up on a sheep. The phone is turned off. There's no ATM. There's no credit card activity, nothing. So, Derek Ellington, to me, the best lead we've got right now is knowing where she last was at the Orchid

Thai restaurant, walking up the street away and OKCupid. I mean, when you sign up for OKCupid, you have to put in, unless you lie about it, your DOB, your email. I mean, can't they track the Internet provider, the IPN, of who was texting on, writing on OKCupid? Well, what we hope, Nancy, is that law enforcement is following those leads. And there is a lot of information that they could glean from OkCupid, even if the profile was completely fake. They'll know where that person connected from, where the account was set up from. I think the more concerning is the absence of cell phone data. I think it's important to note that if the cell phone is active, law enforcement's ability, like we talked about pinging the phone, there's a very,

very high accuracy of locating a person, maybe even looking at other phones that were active at the same time in the same area. The problem is... Oh, you mean like a stingray, a data dump. A stingray is... Go ahead. Well, exactly. We've had other crimes where law enforcement can look for other phones that were in the area and maybe even traveled the same path from tower to tower. Now, in real time, our ability to do that while the phones are on is highly accurate. Unfortunately, and we know law enforcement, if they are looking, they didn't start looking until days later. The information we can glean after the fact is not as accurate and not as reliable. What he's talking about, anybody can jump in, is a stingray.

It's almost like, well, it is like a portable cell tower and it gets data as it is in a location. I believe it's harder to get that information retroactively. Correct. And so when we're talking about stingray, we're talking about Stingray, we're talking about technology that allows us to basically go into an area, pretend to be a cell tower, and then track everybody that connects to it. At that moment. At that moment. But see, because she wasn't reported missing, all of that would have been at the time. Correct. And we're not going to know.

Correct. So what we're working from is going to be historical information. Now, what we would start with is let's start with all of the people who were connected to that same tower. She was connected with the last time the phone, you know, talked to the tower. Now, that could be a dozen people. It could be hundreds of hundreds of people. You know, we're going to be thousands. It's going to be thousands because they're in the state capital. Well, sort of. But cell towers are actually directional, and they actually have multiple transponders. So in some cases, we can limit it to like 256 people, for example. Now, again, that sounds like way too much.

But if we're also working the OKCupid angle, exactly, then, you know, we're narrowing that. Plus, we want to look for people who may have traveled, like if she traveled with him, then her tower usage and her travel pattern would match his travel pattern or our suspect's travel pattern. So there are tools that law enforcement can use. Unfortunately, the longer law enforcement waits to get involved, the less we have to work with. I've got another clue, guys. Rowena Shaddock from 40 KTLX and I were talking about it. I do know this about whether she was picked up or not. It's both. Both. She went to location near Orchid Tie and it was there, quote, somebody was on their way to come pick her up. She was not picked up at her home, but she was in fact picked

up at that location, wherever the two of them had agreed to meet. She's not picked up at home. Caroline, the sister, tells Fox 40, quote, she told me there was somebody on the way to come pick her up. Nancy, I have a question about this. She apparently had arranged to meet her date near the Capitol building in Sacramento. Okay, Dr. Bethany, jump in. Well, I'm wondering if she was picked up from a familiar place, did she know the bartenders there? Did she know the bouncer? Did she know the waiters, waitresses? You know, it was super smart that she did not have the perp pick her up at her home, right? She had to pick? Was this a familiar place to her? Did she know the waitresses, the bartender, maybe the parking attendant? Who was in that public environment that might have known her who could have ID'd the perp or at least had a conversation with her? You know, when you are going out on a date with someone you've met, you're going to be super excited,

right? Finding a mate is such an important developmental task. You start telling everybody all around you, hey, I'm going on a date. Hey, do you like my new dress? Was she talking to someone there who maybe is going to recollect who she was with and who she left with? And what about it, Derek? Well, and that's exactly right. We always tell people, you know, you want the public place, you want it to be on your terms. But the perpetrator's goal is going to be to create that sense of comfort, that sense of connection, but then probably get her to go to a different location, get her to go somewhere else where they're more comfortable and they're more in control. Now, that's unfortunate. But as we talked earlier, the more time that we can have the two of them together while her phone was still active, the more possibilities we have. Guys, we are talking about a beautiful young woman now missing.

We know that she had connected for a date that day, the last day she was seen alive. As each day passes, the likelihood of bringing her home alive decreases drastically. I noticed another very, very odd thing. To Matthew Mangino, former prosecutor and now author, the last time her phone was connected to the network was 8.45 a.m. the morning she went missing. That's very odd because typically violent crimes such as kidnap don't occur first thing in the morning. Have you ever noticed that? I mean, I know it's anecdotal, not statistical, but have you ever noticed that? Well, yeah, and it's unusual that, you know, she would be having a date. You know, I mean, I can see, you know, you're meeting for coffee or something like that. But

she had discussed with her sister that she was meeting somebody that she had met on this dating service. And that does seem unusual. And she said she was going to meet him at the at the Capitol in Sacramento. I would just think that there would be much more video available if you were if investigators could go back. I mean, the Capitol's got to have a lot of cameras on the streets and outside of the building. You know, the restaurants in that whole area are going to have cameras. And all we really know right now is that she was in the one restaurant and then she was walking up to the other bar area. It's curious that there hasn't been more video of her,

which could help fill in some of the blanks in terms of who she met and how she was lured from that area in the morning. You know, a lot of focus has gone on to who is online dating. I can answer that in one word, everybody. It's looked down upon in certain circles, but I can tell you my nephew met a wonderful lady. They got married, and now they're expecting their second child. They've been married, I don't know, eight years, I guess, five years. So, Dr. Bethany Marshall, the shunning of people who meet online or go online to get dates, I think it's way misplaced. Yes, it's way misplaced. Yes, it's so misplaced. As I said earlier, finding an appropriate mate is such an important and vital developmental task.

Your marriage or the relationship with that special someone you'll end up with, hopefully for the rest of your life, it is the most powerful relationship you'll ever have. It's also the most difficult relationship you'll ever have. The statistics show that people who are actually able to find a good partner, it increases their happiness over the lifespan, their ability to connect with other family members. It increases their ability to earn a living. I mean, it helps in multiple areas

of their life. So these dating sites actually increase the opportunity for dating. They increase your chances that you will find the right person if you make a good choice because you don't just have to walk down the block in your small town and date the gas station attendant. You can choose from multiple people. But as we're talking about on this show, you have to be wise. You have to protect yourself because there's so much anonymity. You know, think about when I started dating before there was all these dating services. And, you know, so in my dating life, whoever I dated, everybody in my social circle knew them. You know, the minister, the Sunday school teacher, the professor in the college, there's so much anonymity on these sites, Nancy, and that's why these crimes occur. It's such a,

it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? So much good and so much bad can happen. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. this haunting surveillance video shows this young woman leslie ben aisa walking away from the orchid restaurant headed up to meet a date in the morning right there in broad daylight at the capital of california in sacramento and i find that very odd we do know this person had access to a cell phone access to a computer be it an ipad or a laptop that he was active on the okcupid website and that he had the vehicle to go pick her up so So where do we go from here? I think I heard you jumping in. Was that you, Derek Ellington? It was Matt. Go ahead, Matt. And I know we touched on this briefly, but I was looking at some statistics with regard to the predators, unfortunately, that use these dating services. Certainly, these apps can be very helpful to people and they do start relationships as you mentioned, Nancy, but you know about 25% of rapists

use dating apps to try to find their victims and they go through a grooming process with these people, you know, to make them think that they're getting involved in the perfect relationship, and it's a serious long-term relationship, and then, boom, they attack. And so, while it does some good things for people, it also, you know, puts people in danger who are vulnerable to this type of activity. And Nancy. Oh, yeah, go ahead, Derek Ellington. Nancy, and as you covered in your book, we all know or we all discuss the things that you're supposed to do, you know, the meeting in a public place, the telling your friends, you know, where you're going

to be. There's other things like, you know, making sure you video chat with a person before you meet them so that they are who they are, Being wary of requests for money or financial assistance. You know, anyone who is on a dating site has probably got an actual real world social media footprint. Facebook, Instagram, you know, you want to check them out there. And I think the problem that we run into is that we can tell people these things and we all know these are the things to do. But then we're still fighting with that. This is different. This won't happen to me

because the problem is the predators are really good at being who you want them to be. Well, I've got you, Derry Ellington, a forensics examiner. What about the cloud? We say, okay, we don't have her cell phone. She cut it off at 8.45 a.m. in the morning. But what about what's in the cloud?

Can't we get texts between her and the person unless they communicated exclusively on OkCupid? And that's what we're hoping. Again, we talked earlier. We're hoping that law enforcement is doing that. You know, they'll have access to the profiles. They'll know who she talked to. They'll have access to the profiles. They'll know who she talked to. They'll have access to her text messages. The concern is, you know, at the very beginning of this, we talked about how law enforcement didn't want to use words foul play.

They didn't want to, you know, categorize this as something, you know, predatorial. But the problem is the sooner they make that decision and the sooner they take it serious, the sooner they can have access to the things you're talking about. Okay, well, this is what I don't understand. Let me rephrase my question to you, Derek Ellington. If she had communicated with the PERC via cell phone, wouldn't that be in the cloud? The text messages and or emails? Yes, no. No, absolutely. Including text messages, yes? Absolutely, including text messages yes absolutely and it's yes and it is our hope that law enforcement has that right now absolutely and that's we want law enforcement to take it they may have communicated strictly through the dating app like a lot of times um when i'm waiting through my twin cell phones it's just just like i look and look and

i catch them being good. So after a while, I quit looking. But when I do look, you know, it's very easy to communicate in ways other than texting. There's Snapchat, there's WhatsApp, there's this, there's that. Communicating through OkCupid where you send each other messages in real time, I don't know how traceable that is. Would that be in the cloud as well, Derek Ellington? I think any communication you have from your cell phone would be, yes? Well, absolutely. And the OKCupid communications should include the location information. Law enforcement should have access. So when she was talking to the suspect, they should know where

that suspect was communicating to her from. So if the suspect had lied or falsified the rest of their information, their actual physical location when they were making these communications, even what cell provider and the cell carrier, you know, their account information, all that stuff law enforcement will have. Here's something about OkCupid to everybody on the panel. To get ready for today, I went to OkCupid to everybody on the panel. To get ready for today, I went to OkCupid and I was looking at it. To even get on, you have to put, of course, you can lie. I just put in, I don't even know what I put in. Female looking for male. I put in the quickest DOB 0101 something. And it wanted a zip code. I gave it a real zip code, but then it asked for my email.

And I'm just wondering if this guy would put in his real email or fabricate an email. I don't think you can fabricate because then the OkCupid app would go back to your email that you give and verify it. So I just don't understand what's taking the cops so long on this. You mentioned the grooming process online. What would that be, Dr. Bethany Marshall, grooming somebody so you can then kidnap them, rape and kill them? Well, I think, firstly, when you're grooming, you make the victims feel that there's something special and unique about them. Always. You're

beautiful. I love your picture. You're so smart. Always, always, always. Then you try to... Like the Tinder swindler? Exactly. Then you try to tell the victim that you have a unique and special life and that you try to seduce them into feeling that you can offer them something special that nobody else has offered them. So what that might be is that the perpetrator could say that they're super wealthy. Or I hear this from my female patients. Oh, I just met this guy online. Do you know he's a CEO of a Fortune 500 company? That one always comes up. And usually I say, well, can you Google it and just show me the pictures of him? And often

there are pictures. It's very strange. These men will claim to have published books. They have private planes. They have wealth. Often, of course, their wealth is overseas. Then they start telling the victim that, oh, you know, I'm busy. I can't talk today. I can't talk tomorrow. They kind of selectively disappear and pop in and out of the victim's life. Translation, married. Exactly. And there's always a reason for that. And then the money bids comes, you know, I don't have enough money for this, or could you just please, you know, loan me something for that? And often they create some special business enterprise.

You know, if you just gave me $5,000, we could start this business together. So the money bid comes in a very seductive form of telling the victim that they could start a whole new life together. It's ingenious. Nancy, I went to my gynecologist the other day. I won't tell you why I went to my gynecologist, single woman in her middle fifties. She starts telling me that she fell in love with a guy online, communicated with him for about three months. Then he started asking for money. She was proud of herself for being able to detach from the perpetrator. She'd already had feelings of love and then detachment.

And this is a highly educated woman, an MD, but women of all ages, women. You know what? Are you talking about rich people problem? I'm talking about this girl may be dead right now. I know, Nancy. Okay. She's worried she didn't invest $25K into his bogus business. You know, but everything you said was correct, as is so often the case. Hey, Rowena Shaddix joining me, special guest from Fox

40, KTLX. Rowena Shaddix, we've heard this mentioned a couple of times during our program, the delay. So she goes missing April 15. She goes on her date April 15. When did the family finally report her missing? Yeah, it was right around the following week, I believe, because this is a family like many that celebrate birthdays.

And they knew that she was turning 42 the following Saturday. So when mom started trying to communicate with her, that's when the sister Caroline got involved and saw that text messages to her sister's phone were not even read. We're talking about the disappearance of a beautiful young brunette woman who goes to meet an OkCupid date and is never seen alive again. Her cell phone cut off almost immediately at 8.45 a.m. that morning. Her name is Leslie Ben-Aisa. She is not the first to go missing after meeting someone online. Take a listen to Our Cut 21, our friends at WJLA. And breaking right now, 7 News is on your side with the latest on a body found in D.C. that investigators believe could be the fifth victim of the so-called shopping cart killer. Tonight, they have released the identity

of that victim. Investigators say the victim is Sonia Champ. Her body was found in a shopping cart near Union Station back in September. Fairfax police say they just found out about her death, which is being investigated by D.C. police. As that continues, Fairfax investigators have confirmed the identity of two women they believe were killed by 35-year-old Anthony Robinson. And now they are hoping any potential survivors will come forward and help them learn more about Robinson. In particular, missing females who may fit the victimology profile of our four victims. What we really need is information about previous contacts. Now investigators believe Robinson used dating apps like Plenty of Fish

and Tagged to meet his victims. He is currently in jail, charged in the deaths of two women in Harrisonburg. Four young women dead at the hands of the so-called shopping cart killer, bodies found just callously put in a shopping cart and pushed away toward woods, one even near the street. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Women going missing after having dates online. The name Lauren Smith Fields may not ring a bell to you, but I will never forget it. Take a listen to Hour Cut 6 from our friends at 12 News Westchester.

It's Lauren. Hi, guys. Welcome back to my channel. Lauren was a familiar face to YouTube audiences. Her family says she had been a track star at Stanford High School and was now studying physical therapy at Norwalk Community College. A sweet child, they say, who had blossomed into a beautiful young woman who had the whole world at her feet. They say Lauren had met, quote, an older white man on the dating app Bumble, and it was he who alerted police to Lauren's death.

The family says they are not satisfied with answers they got from an investigator. I asked him about the guy. He just made it seem like the guy was a nice guy. It was nothing to investigate. The only contact that we have had was from a very insensitive, condescending and arrogant detective. Lauren's dad reading a scathing statement saying police failed to extend up the following morning beside her and she was dead with blood coming out of her nostril. Well, what about Madeline Allen? Take a listen to our cut 11, our friends at Fox 13. This is the place Madeline Allen was last seen on Monday night. The college says it's been all hands on deck ever since her roommate reported her missing.

Local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies are involved interviewing people, looking through phone records, doing everything they can to bring Maddie home. The snow-hauled dorm security cameras capture Madeline Allen leaving at 9.22 Monday heading out into the cold carrying a plastic bag dressed in a white jacket and skirt. Freshman Ariana Mastin has spent the last two days worrying about her friend's whereabouts. I had theater today actually and it was just so different like without her being there because it's like she should be here she should be sitting with us. She says it's not in Maddie's character to just leave overnight like that, especially during finals week. She would not just take off like that.

Like that's not Maddie at all. Snow College's Public Safety and Police Department is taking the lead on the investigation. It's also working with several county sheriff departments, state troopers, and even the FBI. And according to court documents, we know why Maddie went missing. She had met someone in an online chat room, and much like the case we're describing for you today, she went willingly and then never came back. So at this juncture, let me go straight back out to Rowena Shaddix, joining us from Fox 40 KTLX.

Where does the investigation stand now? We've given so many ideas to local police. I don't know if they're following up or not. Where does it stand? Yeah, that is the frustration that I face too as well. I've only communicated with Sacramento police through text messages. And when I've asked them since doing the story a week ago, they said there's nothing new to report. There may be a lot

to report, but I'm not privy to that. I did receive, though, a text message from Caroline, the sister, just since we've all been chatting this morning. And she says that there is some new information regarding her sister's case that they're trying to confirm. She wouldn't share what that is. But, you know, I'm hoping, of course, that it's some good news. But it's, you know, it's very scary. And there's not a lot of hope that they're holding out that it's going to have a good ending. Speaking of the family and how they're taking the disappearance of their sister, their daughter, Leslie, listen to our cut to our friends at Fox 40.

We do know that Leslie was seen in this general area back on the 15th. That's also when that was the last time that they logged any activity on her phone. When they call it, it goes directly to voicemail. Every day it feels like there's another moment that something could be happening to her. You know, our family, we're just breaking down. We can't, we can't eat. We can't, you know, it's hard to sleep every second. I feel like, you know, she could be, who knows where she could be. It's just so scary. The tip line, if you have any information or think you have information about this missing woman, Leslie Benaissa, the tip line 916-808-5471. Repeat, 916-808-5471.

We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.