Crime Weekly - S3 Ep196: Leah Roberts: The Road Less Traveled (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Leah Roberts was five foot, three inches with short dark hair and a beauty mark above the right side of her lips. Leah’s life took a pretty standard path, starting with a happy childhood in Durham, North Carolina where she lived with her parents and two older siblings, sister Kara and brother Heath, until she began attending college at North Carolina State University in nearby Raleigh. Because of unexpected events and tragedies, Leah would change direction in her early 20’s and begin a journey of self exploration that would take her on an impromptu road trip. On March 9th, 2000, Leah Roberts left her Durham, North Carolina and began driving West. Nine days later, her white Jeep Cherokee was found wrecked and abandoned at the base of the Cascade Mountains, 80 miles north of Seattle, Washington. Leah was not inside the Jeep, and to this day she still has not been found, but a later examination of the vehicle would show the engine had been tampered with and maybe someone had targeted Leah Roberts as she was out in the world, trying to find herself.  Use code CRIMEWEEKLY at www.CrimeCon.com for a discount on your CrimeCon 2024 Nashville tickets! Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. AloMoves.com - Use code WEEKLY for a FREE 30-Day trial and 20% off an annual membership! 2. Big Mad True Crime - Check out Big Mad True Crime wherever you get your podcasts!

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freelancers that get you and can easily hire them and take your business to the next level. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to post your job for free and connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Upwork.com. Leah Roberts was 5'3", with short dark hair and a beauty mark above the right side of her lips. Leah's life took a pretty standard path, starting with a happy childhood in Durham, North Carolina, where she lived with her parents and two older siblings, Sister Kara and Brother Heath. And then she began attending college at North Carolina State University in nearby Raleigh.

Because of unexpected events and tragedies, Leah would change direction in her early 20s and begin a journey of self-exploration that would take her on an impromptu road trip. On March 9, 2000, Leah Roberts left her Durham, North Carolina home and began driving west. Nine days later, her white Jeep Cherokee was found wrecked and abandoned at the base of the Cascade Mountains, 80 miles north of Seattle, Washington. Leah was not inside the Jeep, and to this day she has still not been found, but a later examination of the vehicle would show the engine had been tampered with, and maybe someone had targeted Leah Roberts as she was out in the world trying to find herself.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into a new case. It is an unsolved case, a missing person who's still missing. But I think it's very eerie because the circumstances surrounding her disappearance makes it look like Leah Roberts should not be with us any longer. She should have been in that Jeep and the Jeep was crashed at the bottom of a mountain in a ravine. And it just seems like she should not have survived that kind of accident but there's you're gonna do this again for me huh what i mean

we we went through the daniel robinson episode not too long ago very very similar and i'm hearing the teaser as you guys are hearing it she records the teaser right with me with you guys so just so you know like as you're hearing it for the first time, so am I. And we're so, I don't usually look at the script beforehand to keep that authenticity. So I'm not seeing what's coming. I can kind of just go for the ride with you guys. And so I'm listening to the trailer as she's recording it going, here we go. Because that episode was very lively in that series, I should say, in the comments, as far as how people or what people think happened. So I feel like this is going to go down that path as well.

Oh, for sure, because there's a lot to it. There's a lot to it, right? Because at least with Daniel Robinson, you couldn't say that anybody had tampered with his vehicle. This isn't the case here. There's possibilities that she was followed, targeted, maybe purposely sort of picked out for reasons that we're going to discuss. So let's talk about Leah. Leah Roberts was a character with her blonde streaked, short, dark hair, her deep dimples, her strong Southern drawl, and her big smile and clever jokes. A lover of words, Leah delighted in learning new languages, writing poetry, and hearing clever

puns. Now, when Leah was 17, her father was diagnosed with chronic lung disease, but she had big plans for her future, and she began attending college at North Carolina State University, where she could start making those plans a reality while still remaining close enough to visit home and see her father. Sadly, during her sophomore year of college, though, Leah's mother passed away suddenly from heart disease, but the blows weren't done coming yet. Not long after this, in the fall of 1998, Leah herself was involved in a very bad car accident that put her in the hospital with a punctured lung and shattered femur. Her injuries were so extensive that she had to undergo an operation and a metal rod had to be implanted next to her femur to help it heal. But in the aftermath

of the accident, Leah told her sister Kara that she felt born again. She was grateful to be alive and recovering, and she had a new lease on life. But then in March of 1998, Leah's father was admitted to the hospital to be treated for complications with his lungs. And at that time, Leah withdrew from her classes in college so that she could spend more time with her father. But the next month, Leah's father also passed away, leaving Leah and her two siblings newly orphaned. Before her father's death, Leah had planned a trip to Costa Rica with her college because after withdrawing from classes, she'd been struggling to keep up. Now she was majoring in Spanish and anthropology and both of her siblings said Leah was amazing with Spanish

but she wanted to study anthropology in Costa Rica while also learning the Spanish language from native speakers, and she was hoping this would give her the edge when she returned to the United States and to her classes. According to siblings, Kara and Heath, after their father's death, their sister Leah seemed to not have any direction. She seemed lost, and when she left for Costa Rica, she had granted power of attorney of her finances to her sister, Cara. When the rest of the students left Costa Rica at the end of the field study program, Leah decided to stay longer. Now, by this time, Leah had gained a reputation for being independent, well-traveled, and a free spirit who would sometimes make decisions in the spur of the moment.

Leah's friend and roommate, Nicole Weeks, visited Leah in Costa Rica, and she said she was surprised because Leah didn't seem at all affected by her father's recent death, almost as if she hadn't fully processed it or felt it yet. Aside from Costa Rica, there'd been a previous semester where Leah had studied in Spain, and she and her friends took frequent trips together. When she returned from Costa Rica, Leah dropped out of college altogether just three months before she was scheduled to receive her degree. Now, her older siblings did not approve of this decision. They were like, come on, you know, like, hang in there. You've put years into this. You can give it a few more months. But Leah just wouldn't hear it. And her brother Heath said that this decision

reflected Leah's desire for more varied life experiences. And Leah's sister Kara said, quote, we've had a hard couple of years and it was just time to reflect on stuff and see where she was going to move from here. It is a little unusual. She was 22 with no parents, end quote. Kara and Heath believed that losing two such important and integral people in your life so close together would be hard for anyone, but having it happen at such a young age would be sure to shake a person to their very core and make them question things like, you know, their beliefs, their belief system, the life, the meaning of life, where their life was going. Kind of like, wow, life is short. Somebody can die unexpectedly. Leah's 22. Her sister, Kara, was I think two years older than her. Heath was a few years older than Kara.

So technically, their parents could have been pretty young, 50s, even maybe 60s. And to just pass away both of them at once, basically within the span of a few years, that would make a person feel like, damn, the Grim Reaper can be coming for me at any time. And what have I done? What have I achieved? What have I seen? What have I experienced?

What has threaded itself into the fibers of my soul that's going to make an impact on me so that that's there to make an impact on me so that that's there when I leave this earth. And that seemed to be kind of where Leah was at. I think I can't relate to what you're saying. I didn't lose my parents at a young age, but I have been through some life or death situations. And it does make you think when you're that close to it of,

it makes you realize that life really is a switch. One second it's on, the next second it's off. And that's not to be morbid. That's the reality of it. And there are times for different people, different things where it puts that in perspective and you do have a different approach. You're not promised tomorrow. So whatever you want to do in life, do it today. And I feel like what you're saying

on a much more just pragmatic level, it's she's, she's living life to the fullest when she can, and she's not waiting to do what she wants to do down the road because she's already experienced tragedy at such a young age that she realizes that you're not promised to be here next week or then, or after you finish the semester of school. And so she's living differently. And I think just on a practical level, just not having that structure with your parents around can also affect you in negative ways where you don't have those adult figures guiding you and mentoring you. And it doesn't seem like she really had those people in her life. I mean, she had individuals around her, but nothing's going to replace your parents. And

so she had two things working against her there. And I don't necessarily think living life to the fullest is against you. I should rephrase that. But it does change your perspective and your willingness to wait. Living each day like it's your last kind of thing, you know, like. Yeah. Your willingness to be patient. Yeah. And I think that there's a difference between somebody like you and me who, you know, we have jobs and we have responsibilities, we have kids and we can say something like live every day like it's your last. But we can't we can't really do that to a level that somebody like Leah could, right? Leah's 22. She dropped out of college.

Not only that, but she's got money, right, from inheritances coming from her parents. So she doesn't even have to work. Yeah, this girl can go on road trip after road trip. There's nothing keeping her there. If I was her, why the hell not? There's absolutely no reason why you wouldn't live life like that. And, I mean, finding a new direction and a new meaning in life became Leah's top priority. She started taking guitar lessons. She took up photography.

She adopted a little blonde kitten and named her Bee. She started spending a lot of time at local coffee houses, jotting down thoughts in her journal, listening to live music, writing poetry, and meeting new people who she would talk to about, you know, the meaning of life. One of the things she loved to talk about was author Jack Kerouac, American novelist and poet best known for his most famous book, On the Road, written in the 1950s. Now, the novel is based on Kerouac's travels across the United States. After the author dropped out of Columbia University, he traveled around, he eventually ended up in New York City to write, and he created this semi-fictional story about wanderlust and finding yourself. Kerouac believed that the Beat Generation was the best because they

went against routines and habits and social norms. They live life to its fullest, appreciating the small things, and they value experiences over material items. Now, that whole aesthetic was obviously right up Leah's alley, and she dove into this movement full force. Her siblings described Leah as philosophical, an old soul, someone who would have loved to have write the next great American novel. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. On March 9th, 2000, Leah talked to her sister Kara on the phone in the morning, and they discussed the same things they kind of always discussed. When Kara was talking to Leah, Leah would always talk about the future, the uncertainties of it all, like what you could do, what was going to happen that you just didn't know was around the

next bend, those kind of philosophical things. But Leah gave Kara the impression that they would be seeing each other soon. Around noon, Leah spoke to her roommate, Nicole, and they agreed that Leah would babysit the following day for a mutual friend of theirs. Nicole then went to work, and when she returned to the house later, Leah's white Jeep Cherokee was not parked in the driveway. But Nicole didn't think too much about it because since Leah had dropped out of college, her schedule had been inconsistent. No one thought too much about Leah's whereabouts at that point because she was known to be spontaneous, make plans on a whim. And since she had no classes to attend and no job to work due to an inheritance she'd received from her parents, Leah could literally be anywhere at any time. Nicole said that sometimes they wouldn't see each other for a few days at a time, and that was not unusual.

When Leah did not return home that night, though, and when she didn't show up for her babysitting job, her roommate and friends were still not overly concerned because, once again, Leah was a bit of a free spirit, and she went where her heart took her. Her roommate, Nicole, did say that she'd been a little nervous for a while because Leah had been going out to places by herself, meeting new people, and she would do this constantly and not let anyone know where she was. So when a few more days had passed and no one heard from Leah, much less seen her, her sister, Kara, became worried and reported her missing on March 13th. The following day, Kara and Nicole went into Leah's

bedroom to see if they could find some indication on where she was. And they found that not only were most of her clothes gone, but Leah's little kitten, Bea, was also missing. Leah had left behind a letter and a stack of cash giving some indication into where she had gone, but her words really only added to the mystery. The letter was addressed to Nicole, Leah's roommate, and it said, quote, Nicole, this is to cover bills for while I am gone. Remember, everyone is together in thoughts and prayers and time passes quickly. Have faith in me, yourself. Help Shep with Easter at Latter House for fun for the children. Give Peter my laptop. Give everyone my love. See you soon.

Tell Kara don't worry, even though she will. Leah, cookies in the freezer. And then in like kind of to the side, she's talking about Girl Scout cookies being in the freezer, by the way. I found that out because I was so confused and curious, like cookies in the freezer. What kind of cookies are they? Are they those little like cookies that come in like packages and they're like the sliced sugar cookies and you just bake them? Or what kind of cookies are in the freezer? Are they ice cream cookies like ice cream cookie cakes? I had to know. Can't debate it. Milano cookies. Hands down. Try it. Milano cookies. Milano cookies. The little like shortbread ones with the chocolate? In the middle.

And that chocolate in the middle is so thin, it basically becomes like one big chocolate chip. Yeah. You're welcome. Wait, really? It becomes like one big piece of chocolate chip and you just bite it with the shortbread and the shortbread doesn't like freeze to the point where you can't eat it, you're welcome. Welcome to everybody out there. You can enjoy that this week. But Milano cookies are bomb, like no matter what. And once you put them in the freezer, it's next level. I'm going to try it. I'm going to try it. It's next level. I used to do it in my college dorm all the time.

You know what's really good in the freezer that you wouldn't expect? Fruit snacks. Just saying. Fruit snacks are bomb. I just tried the fruit roll-up ice cream thing, the hack that's going around. Have you seen that? No. Yep. Take a fruit roll-up, throw a little scoop of ice cream in it

and roll it up and eat it. The fruit roll-up instantly becomes like candy, like hard candy. Yeah. But I didn't create that. That sounds absolutely disgusting, by the way. It was pretty good. What kind of ice cream?

What kind of ice cream do you use? I did vanilla with a strawberry fruit roll-up, so it was like a shortcake. Oh. You know, that doesn't sound as bad anymore, does it? A strawberry fruit roll-up? I'm glad you think that it's strawberry flavored. I mean, well, yeah, that's a whole different conversation. It's just like sweet and it's like dyed red and then says strawberry. So you think you're tasting strawberry. I see a little bit more here, but I want to talk about this. I don't want to skate over this letter. No, we can't skate over it because there's also some other stuff. So to the side, she had like larger letters, like all caps. And it said April 23 on the road and it was

circled. And then she wrote, no, I'm not suicidal. I'm the opposite. Remember Jack Kerouac? And then in a box in smaller letters, she wrote, tell Nikki I meant to come but had no choice, she'll understand. I believe that's the friend she was supposed to babysit for. And then in smaller letters, also boxed in, she wrote, tell Melissa she should come stay in my room if she wants to come to Raleigh, end quote. And then on the outside of the letter,

because it's just a piece of paper folded up into I think like thirds, Leah had drawn the Cheshire Cat Smile, which is from Alice in Wonderland. Apparently, Leah was a big fan of the movie, the book, but her sister Kara found it to be a bit creepy. Kara said, quote, I kind of wondered if it wasn't the cat that always disappears and reappears out of nowhere. I feel like it might have meant to her, here's my grin. It's here. It's gone. It'll be back. End'll be back end quote oh man right there's so much to unpack here yeah this is this is crazy so let's let's kind of go back to this first off the obvious

question does it appear is there any dispute over who wrote the letter is it is it is it lee's hand writing i i believe so no there's no dispute at least her sister her brother nothing that's come up in your research? No. It's no red flag there. They do believe that Leah left her home in Raleigh of her own accord. Yes. Okay, cool.

Then that's one box we can check out. Obviously, it's not 100%. You know, sometimes the family can think one thing and it's something else. It's why cases aren't solved. But based on what we have going into it and how the letter was written, it's a very detailed letter to have been written by someone else or to be misleading in nature. It sounds like this letter was direct to each individual person in her life that she cared about to let them know multiple times, hey, I'm coming back. This is the situation for now. By the way, as a joke,

I'm not suicidal. I don't think if someone were trying to mislead the family or maybe coercing her into writing this letter, I don't think they would have gone to that extent to say, oh, no, I'm not suicidal. I don't think. I think she was used to people kind of like- Assuming she was a little- Because she changed, right? She was like a serious student. And she always had that streak of authenticity and that streak of, they've known her for years and years. And all of a sudden, she's kind of pulling away from them and making all these new coffee shop friends, you know, and hanging out with people that none of her old friends even know. And they're worried about her. And she's changing and she's got new ideas. And she's like, just going off for days

at a time. And then she comes back and everybody's like, oh, my God, we were so worried. She's like, what are you talking about? I'm fine. So it kind of felt like people were like, is she OK? You know that. And yeah, I can see that. And I think we all have people like that in our life that you got to check in on once in a while because that's me.

I'm that person for other people. I didn't. Yeah, I didn't say anything. But that's what you meant. I saw it. I saw it in your face. You're like, yeah, we all have say anything. But that's what you meant. I saw it. I saw it in your face. You're like, yeah, we all have that person. We all have that person.

We got to make sure it hasn't gone off the deep end yet. Did I say she? Was that a Freudian slip there? No, I, so you brought it up right there. New friends that are not being, that they're not associating with. This is a different group of people so my detective brain is already going where this incident although on the surface appears to be spontaneous it appears that she knows she's going to be gone for an extended period of time leaving behind money even mentioning the date april 23rd which is more than a month out right

if that if i'm interpreting that correct correctly, April 23rd was to indicate- But we don't even know what that date means. Why would you put April 23rd? Because it's March 9th when she goes missing, right? Yeah, but she only left behind enough cash to pay for the bills and the rent for one month. One month, but that would be the month of March. And then she maybe figured she'd be back by April, the end of April. She ain't going to be back in time. I mean, I guess.

I don't know if she paid the rent for March and then she was giving that to them for April. But that means she'd be gone for two months. Possibly. Either way, it sounds like she, one, knows she's going to be gone for an extended period of time in the excess of a month. She's leaving money behind.

She's setting everyone up, doing some trivial stuff as far as the cookies in the excess of a month she's leaving money behind she's setting everyone up doing some trivial stuff like as far as the cookies in the freezer all this i think she was trying to do it to put people at ease to let them know that this was although it's something that appears on the surface to be spontaneous it was thought out in her opinion thought out but i i do have a lot of questions a lot more questions than answers and i'm we can i can bring them up now maybe we'll address them throughout the series but who are these new friends i don't think it was thought out as much as she thought a lot about doing it which are two different things by the way and well that's my point you're just you're leading me to where i

need to go because what is thought a lot about doing it consist of? This is 2000. So this isn't like the stone age. She's got a mobile phone. She's got a computer. She has the ability to look up things that she's thinking about. Was she looking up certain locations? Was she having email correspondence with specific individuals? Was she talking with individuals through text message or instant messenger or having conversations in person with individuals that we've already talked about or these other individuals that we've yet to learn about? What is the history going into this where maybe there was an indication of something she wanted to do but just was trying to muster up the courage to do? And was she suggesting that she was going to do that with someone else, anyone else for that matter? And those are the questions I have. You have to, it doesn't sound like this is

a trip that most people would do on their own, but the way you're describing Leah, maybe she's the type of person that would. Yeah, she would. That's where I am right now. And then there's all these little things that you're talking about with the April 23rd on the road, the smiley face. I try to keep it practical as far as where I'm looking at it. I'm going to take it at face value for now and just say, maybe it's her little trademark thing because she's a big fan of Alice and Wonderland. I'm not disputing what her sister's saying or her interpretation of it. I'm just going to look at it for the puzzle piece of what it is right now and leave it at that. Well, I have some more information for you, but we'll talk about it

when we get back from our next break. Okay, cool. All right. So Kara also said that Leah often talked to her about Jack Kerouac. And she said, quote, I think she kind of romanticized about that sort of lifestyle. Here he is in the 50s traveling across the country with hardly any cash. And he described this beautiful country. I feel like she was kind of itching to get out on the road and do some soul searching. End quote. Leah's explanation in her letter made some sense to the people who knew her. College friend Renee Bolton

said that Leah traveled so frequently that the impulsive nature of this particular trip didn't surprise her. Bolton said that satellite groups of their larger friend group would often go on road trips together, and she and Leah had driven to Atlanta in 1998 for New Year's Eve, like very impulsively. A few weeks before Leah took off, she'd asked her roommate, Nicole, like, hey, wouldn't it be great to just pack up and drive to California? And Nicole was like, yeah, that would be great. That would be fun. But I have a job, right? Like I have to go to work and I have to pay the bills and I can't just leave for weeks at a time. Now, Leah's sister, Kara, however, was a bit confused since, like I said, she'd spoken to Leah on the phone the day that Leah had left for this trip.

And Kara said, quote, there was no indication that she was planning a road trip. In fact, she said maybe we could do something if I was around for the weekend. And she had plans with her roommate to do something on the following day, end quote. But Kara also said that her sister's abrupt departure wasn't too startling. And she assumed that Leah just needed some space and privacy. Kara actually felt that the letter left for Nicole confirmed this, saying, quote, she wanted to get away for a while without having to explain it to anybody, and she didn't want us to worry.

She implied that she would be back in the next month. She only left money for one month's worth of bills, end quote. Still, the fact that Leah had not reached out to anyone via phone to let them know what she was up to or to tell them that she was okay or she'd reached her destination or whatever, that was a bit out of character. So Kara took matters into her own hands. Remember earlier in the episode, I said that before going to Costa Rica the previous summer, Leah had given her power of attorney over her financials to Kara. So Kara went to the bank to see if she could track her sister via her bank purchases. Kara found out that Leah had withdrawn

several thousand dollars on the afternoon of March 9th, and her debit card had been used to pay for a motel room near Memphis, Tennessee on March 10th. There were other transactions for gas and food that suggested Leah was traveling west along Interstate 40 before she headed north on Interstate 5 after she had reached I-40's western end. Now, the last activity on Leah's bank card was a purchase for gas shortly after midnight on the morning of March 13th in Brooks, Oregon, just north of Salem. Law enforcement was able to obtain surveillance footage from this gas station, and it showed that while Leah was there, she was alone. It didn't appear she was being

followed by anybody, and she seemed to be fine, although she did peer out into the parking lot several times while she pumped her gas. It was like she was kind of looking around suspiciously, kind of just seeing what was out there. Now, there were a few things unusual about the path that Leah chose to take. Firstly, Leah had managed to make it from North Carolina to Washington state very quickly, causing law enforcement to later say that they were trying to determine why Leah seemed to have given the indication she wanted to go and explore and find herself. But then she just zipped across the country in four days, kind of like she had a destination she had to be at. That's quick. Right. Yes. From North Carolina to Washington state, four days. I almost thought you said the wrong state. I'm like, did she, is that a typo? Cause that's a lot of traveling for one person.

And I was automatically thinking multiple people had to be traveling and taking shifts. That's what I was thinking initially. Dude, and this is like where she ended up in Washington State is very close to the Canadian border. So it's like as you're going through it, surveillance video at all these locations where she stopped. Did they have anything? Very surprised to hear you say that she was alone. Very surprised. Now, as far as her peering out into the parking lot or whatever, I'm coughing that up to the fact that she's being cognizant of her surroundings. She's a young woman.

She was only 5'3", you said at the top of the show. 5'3", tiny, yeah. She's tiny. She's out there by herself. She's smart. She understands that not everyone is a good person and she's traveling alone, which could increase the likelihood of someone maybe potentially targeting her. So I think her looking around is something that even I do as a six foot one, 200 pound guy. Oh, we know. Yeah, we know. I'm looking around, my head's on a swivel. Always, man. So I'm thinking that's probably what she's doing.

But very shocked to hear you say, we got video and by the way, she's alone. Absolutely alone, yes. Every time she's seen, because there'll be another sighting of her in Bellingham, Washington, she's alone. So that's interesting. Very surprising. But it is interesting, which is leading me another way, but I'll save it. All right. You better save it. But secondly, Kara, Leah's sister, she couldn't

understand why Leah had chosen to travel to the Pacific Northwest. It didn't seem like Leah had taken a roundabout route or taken her time. You know, like it seems she had taken a very deliberate path as if this was where she was planning to go the whole time. And this was when Kara and Leah's roommate, Nicole, they decided to question some of Leah's new friends from her favorite coffee shop, Cup of Joe, on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh. One of these friends was Janine Quiller, and she was able to shed some light on why Leah may have chosen her destination. And she said, quote,

we talked a lot about Jack Kerouac because we had both read Dharma Bombs. And in the book, he had gone over to Washington State in the mountains and thought a lot about what was important to him. It kind of resonated with her. She wanted to go over there and be alone and just figure everything out

because she'd been going through a tough time, end quote. But Janine said, listen, don't get it twisted. She was going through a tough time, but a tough time is like everything I knew before was wrong or seen through the wrong lens, and I'm rediscovering myself. I'm recreating myself. Janine said Leah was not depressed. She was not sad. She wasn't unhappy with her life. But there was no doubt for Janine that Leah had gone to follow in Kerouac's footsteps, looking for answers to the enduring questions of the meaning of life and self-discovery. I will say on the surface, it does make sense based on how you've started off this episode and her love for the author, Jack, and his writing and the coincidence that he would do this. Have you ever read this book, On the Road?

Do you think I've read it? I don't know. Wasn't it required reading in some college courses? I thought it was. Not for my college reading. My college reading consisted of keg stands and playing baseball. That was it for me. You didn't have required reading in college? We did. I actually was a very good student, but I mean, that is subjective. Did you do have required reading in college? We did. I actually was a very good student. Did you do the required reading? We had required reading, but I would say that our baseball team was pretty good.

So, you know, as long as I handed in whatever I had to hand in and I was pitching that week, the teachers were the professors were very nice. They were good people. Shout out Mitchell College for that great education. That's a great endorsement you just gave them. Now it's Mitchell University, I think. Oh, they've upgraded. Yeah, they've upgraded. All those ballplayers making it happen.

Anyways. I'm like, shit, did I just get them in trouble? Yeah. I'm lying. I'm joking. He's a great reader. So clearly I'm not a great reader. Anyone who knows behind the scenes,

me trying to read a script knows teleprompters are not my thing. That's for sure. No, but it does make sense. On the surface, you know, you have people who are somewhat objective or not with her, don't know her that well, but no one is indicating that she was suicidal or depressed or in a bad state of mind. On the surface, it does sound like a person based on everything she's experienced in her life that would be the type of personality

to go out and follow in the footsteps of one of her favorite authors. And as mentioned in this book, he did the same path. So if she's reading these books and she's enamored by what he has to say and how beautiful it was, why wouldn't she want to experience it? Exactly.

It makes sense to me. Yeah. And she'd want to be alone for something like that, right? You're not going to break a body. I mean, I personally wouldn't want to be alone for that long of a drive and, you know, logistically. I love to be alone. Well, I mean, that's, you know.

I mean, I probably wouldn't just because I'm paranoid and I know like I could get killed and stuff. So I'd bring somebody along just to keep me safe, like a big strong man or something. But I'd be like, shush, okay, I'm finding myself. Yeah, I would think like, hey, listen, does someone want to make the trip with me? We can trade off shifts. I'd see you in the passenger seat and make you read Jack Kerouac to me. Yeah, that would last for about two miles.

Five minutes. Pull over, I'm getting an Uber, I'm going back. But yeah, so right now, nothing to suggest otherwise. It sounds, it makes sense. Maybe she's going this direct route because one, she's trying to save money on hotels and sleeping at different locations. She's not going to pull over to the side of the road. So she's just, she's hustling. She's just going straight for it. And she's making a beeline for Washington state. I mean, she's got money. She could afford, she could afford hotels. The point is, but she's not working. So she's got to be conservative

about her money, right? She's not conservative about her money. Okay. She got a good sized inheritance from her family. How much are we talking? I don't know exactly, but it seemed like enough where she could not work. She spent have to worry about money anymore. She spent all day in coffee shops writing poetry and talking about Jack Kerouac. So I think that the whole reason why she's not, she only stayed at a hotel once is because of time. That if you asked me that, like I can drive as much as I want. I can sleep for a few hours in the car

and then just continue on. But expound upon that. What do you mean because of time? I think she she it felt like why did she go so fast? You know, you don't have a job to get back to. You don't have a college courses to get back to. You took off and didn't tell anybody. You said you'll be back in like a month or two. What's the rush? You said it earlier, but are you insinuating she was meeting someone there? I don't know. I'm not insinuating anything because honestly, it's a mystery. But to me, if I've got a month or more to do whatever I want to make this road trip, I'm not going to kill. I'm going to stop and see balls of yarn and different

museums and stuff. Those are the experiences that somebody like her would like or these cool natural features. You're going from the South to the freaking Pacific Northwest. Tell me there's not beautiful things to see on your way. I agree, but she did take a pretty direct route. Exactly. And most people who are doing that road trip would go a different route to see all those places and do the detours. We did speak earlier about her perspective on life because of her own upbringing. Maybe even though on the surface, I would think she's more of a, it's not the destination, it's the journey person. But maybe she was like, no, i need to see what jack kerouac was talking about for my own and i i can't wait another second and it was like a spur of the

moment like hey i'm going i'm gonna get back as soon as i can but i have to see this for myself one one thing so i don't forget because i'm still trying to keep the detective hat on as we're going through this even though we're talking more psychological than investigatory at this point. I do also think it's important to mention that, again, she has her phone on her. There's electronic transmissions that could be happening. If she were meeting someone there and this was a prearranged thing, you would assume there would be transmissions from her phone to this individual or individuals throughout the trip saying, hey, I'm one day away or I'm three days away or whatever. I don't know where the story is going to go. But if that were the case, I would think that law enforcement would know that. And by this point, maybe

release that information. I don't know. But that's what I would expect to see in her on her phone records. So on March 18th, Bellingham, Washington native Lionel Packett and his girlfriend were jogging along Canyon Creek Road, a side path of the Mount Baker Highway. Mount Baker is the third highest mountain in Washington state and the fifth highest in the Cascade Range. It's also an active volcano that last erupted in 1843. It's actually really cool. It's really cool. There's a lot of obviously hiking, skiing, stuff that I don't do. I hike, but not like Mount Baker hiking, okay? It's a lot of natural beauty, glaciers, like it's a beautiful place, but

it's also very natural, okay? so it's not like super settled. It's not super traversed. There's many areas of just dense forest that would be very difficult to get through. So you kind of have to know where you were going, what you were doing, what your destination was. And where these two people, Lionel Packett and his girlfriend, happened to be there was a slight curve at the top of a slope. And the couple spotted a dark piece of clothing on the left side of the road. And it was sort of suspended from a twig about a foot off the ground. And then underneath it, there was another piece of clothing.

And it kind of looked like a damp coat, like a coat had been there and it had gotten wet from the rain. Lionel and his girlfriend decided to stop and check out the area, which is when they saw a white Jeep down a steep embankment. They carefully traversed the downward slope to get closer to the vehicle, and Lionel said, quote, the car was sitting parallel to the road and it was upright, but stuff was strewn all over the place, mostly clothes. I was expecting to see something worse because the windows were a bit dark. There wasn't anyone in there, but there was a lot of clothes in there as well as hampers and baskets, end quote. So outside of the Jeep, there was clothes strewn all over the place,

as well as a checkbook and a passport with Leah Roberts' name on them. But inside the badly damaged vehicle, there was no person, alive or dead. The first police officer on the scene performed a 200 yard perimeter search, and he found a lot of downed trees and debris of the accident, along with CDs and a guitar. Inside Leah's Jeep, blankets and pillows had been hung inside the window, leading police to believe that someone had been sleeping in the car. They also found cat food and a cat carrier, which meant that Leah had brought her kitten, Bee, but there was no kitten inside of the Jeep. Left behind were some valuables.

There was jewelry. There was $2,500 in cash. There was just a bunch of stuff in this Jeep that you'd think if you had walked away from this accident alive, you'd probably want to take with you. Now, the Jeep was found upright. The keys were in the ignition, but the contents of the vehicle had been tossed around inside, and the damage to the vehicle, along with everything being tossed around inside, suggested multiple rollovers. Based on the path the Jeep had taken through the trees, as well as the amount of damage to the car, investigators from the Washington State Patrol determined that the Jeep had been traveling at nearly 40 miles per hour when it went off the road and down that slope. But there was no signs of blood or injury, no evidence of

shatter to the glass, no stretching of the seat belt. Detective Mark Joseph would later say, quote, she didn't hit the windshield or the steering wheel or damage the seat when the car hit. Theoretically, those signs should have been there if she was in the Jeep, end quote. Yeah, that's possible. I mean, she also could have been thrown from the vehicle out the side window. But she wasn't anywhere around. Well, we're going to go that. I'm just saying with that one statement, me picking it apart because I'm playing devil's advocate. She went through the window?

Yeah. So you could see rollovers. I actually just saw one two days ago with a guy who was doing some weird things on the beach with his Hummer. And he rolled it over. And so the vehicle, this is going to be tough for people. Wait, you saw it happen? Yeah.

Somebody was recording it. Oh, you weren't there. Okay. No, it's a video online. And the Hummer starts to roll multiple times. Like it's spinning. And on like the third roll, you see the driver just fly out of the car into the ocean, like right out of the car into the ocean. He goes out the side window and he actually walked away from it, which was crazy. He went out the side, like the window that

you- The driver's side window. Wow. Was it wide open? It must've been open. And I'll find you the video. It was either a Hummer or one of those Broncos. But he was acting like an idiot. Jeeps are good for rollovers. I will say that because they have a good structure to them. Just on the surface, again, I'm not disputing what he's saying, but if she wasn't wearing her seatbelt, I'm just, again, I agree with you. We can get into the weeds, but she's not wearing her seatbelt. She's falling asleep behind the wheel. She, she goes down the embankment and the car starts to roll over. She could have been thrown from the vehicle if she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, which would eliminate the stretching to the seatbelt itself and would also eliminate any damage to the, the, the front windshield.

But it, but what you said is true and we can dive into it more. If she was thrown from the vehicle, you would expect her to sustain serious injuries and you would expect to find her. Yeah, or there'd be some sign of blood or injury even outside the car. Correct. And if she wasn't injured

and she walked away from the accident, then you'd think she'd be like, let me take my $2,000 and my passport and like my checkbook. Right. Right. And her phone. Yeah. And well, hold on. Let's talk about the phone. Right. Okay. Leah's cell phone was not in the vehicle and her sprint records showed no calls had been made since Leah had left Raleigh, North Carolina. Additionally, the last two calls she had made from her phone had not been to the area she'd ended up in. Law enforcement would eventually state that they didn't know if Leah had even brought her cell phone with her when she left home. Now, that's crazy. That's crazy.

Going on a road trip from North Carolina to Washington State and being like, I don't need my cell phone. We're all good. That's great. I would never. I would never. I would rather have my cell phone with me than another person. Well, I mean, listen, I may get some slack for this, but the main reason why I love Crime Weekly is we're here to prevent things like this from happening in the future and also to give some tips on how to better protect yourself, pride ourselves on doing that. And this is nothing against Leah, regardless of what happened. But my professional and personal opinion is, especially in this day and age, you should never do that. You should never. I understand wanting to disconnect from the world. And you can do that. It's called turning your phone off and sticking it in the glove box.

It's called do not disturb, man. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I be on that bitch 24-7. Right. I do not recommend disconnecting in this way if if this is what she did how does she even get there how do you get to places without gps i mean there's a map you can use a map but there is a map on your phone and it tells you where to go so you don't have to be looking at

it when you're driving which is dangerous we have to remember this is 2000 and i was we were we were we were sophomores in high school at this point do you remember the phones we had in high school they didn't have a google map or a ways or or um apple maps like they do now you're so right you know you're so right because I didn't have my first smartphone so it must have just been a flip phone I didn't have my first smartphone until probably like 2008 2009 yeah you're so right but still man i remember in college like the big thing was that sidekick that flipped open or whatever like uh the one that kind of spun up oh no they like put goes on your the garmin the garmin gps yeah you put them well i'm thinking of phone oh you're thinking about phones yeah but either way oh i had an

lg envy and it had like a little slide out keyboard and it was just like. And that was like a big deal, right? Huge. That was a big deal. So in 2000, the limitations were there as far as using the map. She was probably still using. A paper map. A paper map, yeah.

Yeah, I'd be running off the road all the time too if I had to use a paper map, honestly. Do we, I mean, I don't know where the script is going. I do want to talk, I mean, because it is a situation where I don't know what type of animal activity is out there. Again, I'm just giving all angles here. I don't necessarily believe what I'm saying here. I'm just throwing out other possibilities. But when we think about animal predation and the fact that if she was out there for a while and she was deceased and the cat was deceased, animals could come along and take her body and take the cat's body. Do you think the animals would have gone into the car and taken the cat food too? I mean, they could have gone into the car and-

But they didn't. The cat food was in there. That's what I'm saying. They could have, but they also, I could see a world where they got the cat and didn't go for the cat food. The cat's a kitten. It's like this big, man. They're going to be hungry after that. If it's a mountain lion or something, you think that little cat is going to satiate? I would like to know what type of animal activity is out there. It's a mountain, man.

It's a mountain in Washington State. Name it. Name it. It's out there, okay? Gorillas, panthers, bigfoot. It's Washington State. Bears? Probably bears, right?

Tons of bears. Black bears, brown bears. All right, so you're kind of supporting- Little bears, big bears. Panthers Bigfoot it's Washington State Bears tons of Bears Black Bears Brown Bears Little Bears Big Bears You're supporting this theory a little bit but there's so much more going on here I just want to if this is a situation

where there was no foul play Do not forget what I said to you in the teaser and at the beginning of this episode that they would later look and I mean years later I think it was 2006 when they fully examined her vehicle. For some reason, they didn't feel like they found tampering.

They found that the engine had been tampered with. So basically what they found is that the engine had been tampered with. So if you were driving and you I hope I get this right, but we'll dive into it better in part two. If you were driving and you wanted to slow down, you wouldn't be able to do that. And I'm not, I remember the trailer and I know where this is going, but I'm just looking at each block that we have. And right now with what we have, you could, you just laid out a scenario and I could show you or depict a visual where all the evidence that you've laid out could have been caused by a horrific accident. You know what annoys me? Every time we have a disappearance like this, right? Daniel

Robinson, your coons. Here we go with Leah Roberts. Anytime there's like a disappearance and it happens to be in like a wilderness area like a desert or a mountain everyone's always like animal activity and like i guess i guess it's not it's it's it's it is possible animals eat dead animals i know i know animals eat alive animals too man i know and they would be drawn to someone who was injured derrick, if you went missing in the damn mountains, okay, and then everybody was like, no, the animals got him, I'd keep fighting for you. I'd be like, no, they didn't. How do you know? It's just so easy to write it off and be like, oh, these people disappeared. Probably animals got them. And then to just not pursue it any further. I would fight for you, man. How far, because March 9th was the last time she was seen alive. How far is this mountain? No, March 9th wasn't the last time.

What's the last time that she's seen on camera? Well, we haven't talked about her last sighting yet, right? Okay. Okay. But March 9th is up to this point. That's all I know is March 9th. You're saying there's another sighting between March 9th and March 13th? No, because she spent the night at the hotel, a hotel in Memphis on the 10th.

And then she was seen getting gas on the surveillance camera on March 13th after midnight. So I want to know the window in which she was last seen, and we're going to get there. But, and also when, when the vehicle was found, how much of a time window is going on there and how far away is it? All right. Well, We'll get there. Let's talk about it. So, OK, a camera was also found amongst the items at the crash site and investigators developed the film, hoping it would give some insight into Leah's last days.

However, this turned out to be another dead end with Detective Joseph saying, quote, We developed the film and her brother and sister both looked at it. These were pictures taken last winter. There doesn't appear to be any photos taken since she left. End quote. Which is also strange to me, right? She's into photography. She brought her camera with her.

You're on a road trip. You've been gone for four or five days, but you didn't snap any pictures. She didn't make any stops, right, of anything of note or notable interest because she would have taken pictures. She drove directly there and maybe she planned to take pictures once she got there. And she was there, but she didn't have a chance to take any pictures. Now, law enforcement would also determine that in their opinion, they did not believe anyone had been in the Jeep when it crashed, which suggested the accident had been staged. But something else was found in Leah's Jeep. It was located in an ornate wooden box that was engraved

with a crocodile. And this was a ticket stub for the March 13th, 2.10 p.m. showing of American Beauty at the Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham, Washington, which is about an hour away from where Leah's car was found crashed and abandoned on a logging road. Now, the ticket time suggested that Leah may have spent a few hours in Bellingham after arriving in the morning following her five or six hour drive from where she had filled up in Oregon. This ticket stub would end up bringing police to the only lead that they would get in this case. And that's pretty much the ticket to American Beat, which is crazy, by the way. This whole case, I'm trying to think of the name. I think it was Ray Rivera, Ray R-E-Y. And I saw this case on Unsolved Mysteries, and then I covered it

on YouTube, and it was just the most bizarre case. Tell me if you remember it. He works for this company and then he's in this building and then he falls through like the roof of a parking garage outside the building as if he had jumped out the window. But he left behind this like bizarre note talking about like Kubrick films and all this like, do you remember this? It was a weird thing. They thought you really don't know. Oh, it was so interesting. All right. Check it out.

The body of Ray Rivera was found on May 24th, 2006, inside the historic Belvedere Hotel in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Although the event was ruled a probable suicide by the Baltimore Police Department, the circumstances of Rivera's death are mysterious and disputed. He went missing from his home on May 16, 2006, shortly after receiving a phone call from the Agora Publishing switchboard, according to a guest staying at the Rivera residence at the time. After several days of searching for clues on his whereabouts, Rivera's in-laws found his car located in the parking lot off of St. Paul Street in Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood near his workplace.

Rivera's co-workers went to the top of the parking structure near where the car was discovered and noticed a hole in the roof of the south wing of the Belvedere Hotel next door. Police soon discovered Rivera's partially decomposed body inside the conference room under the hotel. Now, as police began to analyze the case, numerous aspects seemed odd about Rivera jumping off of the main roof of the Belvedere Hotel, partly due to the hotel's mansard roof. There was a considerable horizontal distance between the hotel and the location of the hole in the lower roof. The vertical fall of approximately 177 feet would have taken approximately 3.3 seconds. This suggests that Rivera, if he did come from the roof, the vertical fall of approximately 177 feet would have taken approximately 3.3 seconds. This

suggests that Rivera, if he did come from the roof and traveled a horizontal distance of 43 feet before impact, would have had to have had a horizontal speed of 10 miles per hour, which is the speed between a fast run and a sprint for an average fit male wearing sports shoes. Ray was wearing flip-flops or barefoot and would have had a maximum run of up to just over 15 feet or five meters, 2.5 seconds. He left a bunch of crazy notes too, like talking about films, talking about the Matrix, talking about the Illuminati. It was kind of crazy. So the note, I'm sorry, I'm getting into this. Maybe we should cover it. The note was small. It was cut into three different parts,

right? A lot of people even wonder if he wrote it at all. And his wife, Allison, says she knows he wrote the note the day he disappeared because there were scraps found in her trash can. And apparently the scraps from cutting the note the day he disappeared because there were scraps found in her trash can. And apparently the scraps from cutting the note into three shapes were not in the trash before she left for her business trip. Now, the note was weird. Like I said, he mentions, I believe he mentions American Beauty in this note. American Beauty is one of those movies that gets wrapped up in conspiracy theories a lot. So Ray really was talking about like the Freemasons, secret societies. He said, brothers and sisters right now around the world, volcanoes are erupting. What an awesome sight. He's saying all this stuff.

He's talking about different movies. Who was the guy who did Eyes Wide Shut? Do you know what I'm talking about? I feel like we're so alike, but then when it comes to cool stuff, we're not. Because you don't like cool stuff, like conspiracies. No, yeah, that's it. I just don't like cool stuff. But does this sound like a crazy, like it's a cool, a really cool case. We should cover it.

Let us know in the comments section. I'm still trying to figure out how it relates back to Leah. What are you talking? Okay, you'll see. Okay. I guess I have to know the full story. It's kind of like a parallel thing, but let us know in the comment section if you would like us to cover. Well, I mean, at this point, you just gave them a trailer.

I'm sure they're going to feel that way, which is I'm all for it. I mean, you just told them half the story. Okay, good. I'm so excited. Back to Leah for a second. Yeah, let's go back to Leah. If you don't mind. Of course.

For a second. Don't be rude. Don't be rude. No, no, no. I have ADHD. It's bad. But I'm leaving this episode, I think, like a lot of people right now without knowing the other wrinkle as far as what's going to happen in Bellingham, Washington.

I'm looking at it, two scenarios here. One, the one that's just obvious, which not always the case. She's driving. She's not sleeping a lot because she's trying to get there fast, which we've indicated throughout this episode. And unfortunately, she goes off the side of the embankment. She's thrown from the vehicle and an animal takes her body along with the cat. And that's why we haven't found her or any indication that she was injured. That's the easy one, right? That's the easy route. Well, you can't just automatically assume that. And so the other scenario based on what you've said is that maybe she wasn't sleeping. She was trying to get there fast. So instead of sleeping at a hotel all the time, she was doing periodic naps inside rest stops, gas stations along the side of the road. And she was stopping in some public areas where we know she might've went and saw a movie, right? Maybe somebody there sees her alone again,

tiny young girl by herself and follows her unbeknownst to her. She pulls over somewhere to take a nap. She puts the pillows and blankets in the window. Something happens. She's attacked and to throw law enforcement off the trail, the offender throws her truck off the side of the road to make it look exactly like what I just described. But there could be other things. Takes her kind of, you know, lets the car go. And so it looks like, ah, she had an accident. By the way, the cat could have been in the car. I hate that because I'm an animal lover, but the cat could have been in the car, been perfectly fine and just ran off because it's

an animal and it would just run off naturally. So the cat could be perfectly fine somewhere out there, but, or the cat was taken as well. I don't know why you would, but cat could have been left in the Jeep. We just wouldn't, we wouldn't know that for sure. You know, I was just thinking like to be Leah's brother and sister right now has happened in 2000, you know, the year 2000, it's 2024. It's been 24 years. It's got to be the worst. Like it would be one thing if the Jeep had gone off and Leah's body was found inside and they're like, this is so sad, you know, you know, she, but at least she was pursuing her adventures and et cetera. Not literally to have 24 years have

passed and not to know what happened to her, that she could have been kidnapped and still held in some dude's basement right now, that is a terrible lack of closure or just lack of answers that I don't know how you really kind of, I have a sister. I'm very close to her. Leah and Kara are very close. I don't know how you would kind of reconcile that every single day. I think we hear that with a lot of families. Yeah. In the cases, one of the best things that I had happened to me-

Like we did Sarah Turney and Alyssa Turney, right? Sarah Turney, absolutely. But one of the most profound things that I had happen on Breaking Homicide, because I didn't have a lot of unsolved cases of that magnitude as a police officer in Central Falls. We're a smaller department. But getting to travel and work with these families directly in a lot of their cases, just the unknown. That was the worst part. At this point, they had resigned themselves to the idea that their loved one was no longer with us.

But they just wanted to know the why and how. But then you also feel like because you don't have the proof, the evidence, the body, I feel like as a family member, it would to not have that. And then to just be like, OK, I've resigned myself to the fact that they're no longer alive. I almost feel like a betrayal. Right. I almost feel like what if they are alive and I'm over here like, well, they're not. And so I'm not looking for them anymore. And they're out there still waiting for me to look for them. And I'm their family.

Like, I would be terrible. We talked about Daniel Robinson in the top of the show, his father, David Robinson. Guess what? That man, without a doubt, will be doing this until the day he dies. Until he finds out what happens to Daniel. As I would too. As you would too, right? A hundred percent. And there's a chance, and he knows this, that he may never find out.

But I think he would rather do what he's doing right now for the rest of his life. I think he's actually going for U.S. Congress right now as well, because he wants to change some of these laws. That's awesome. But he, which is brilliant by him. If you can't change the system from the parent level, become the system, right? Brilliant. I hope he gets elected. But it's one of those things where I think for him- That was Arizona, right? Arizona, yep. The fact that he's never going to stop, I think he can at least live with the idea of, I may not be successful, but I will die trying and that I can live with. And so that's what we're talking about right here

is the unknown is so much worse than having to grieve over what had happened regardless of how horrific it may be. I know as a parent, that's how I would feel, you know, a hundred percent. I mean, yeah, he'll die trying because the alternative is not be trying. And that's just not, it's not an option for him. Right. So yeah. No, exactly. Not an option for a lot of people, including Leah's family and a lot of the other families out there that we have spoken with in the past. And on detective perspective, I cover, it sucks in a way on detective perspective because in some of the cases we cover here, they're solved, right? Like they're not good. They're never a happy ending, but there's some closure for the family at the end, not complete closure, but some answers. With detective perspective, it almost gets like

depressing because every week I'm covering a case where I'm like, well, we don't know what happened. Here's the information. If you can contact them, it's tough, which I think is a big reason why a lot of true crime outlets and platforms don't want to cover them because they're so depressing. And I think as humans, even if we haven't personally experienced a loss like this, it's so hard for our brains to just let it go because we've been so programmed with movies and TV shows to have that resolution at the end, right? There's this arc and then you get the payoff at the end where you find out the curtains pulled back and you find out the answer to the mystery where in real life, you don't always get that. And so it's hard.

I mean, I kind of feel like I like unsolved cases because there's a chance that you could still save or help somebody. It's a small chance, right? Leah Roberts, yes, it's been 24 years. It's more than likely she's no longer alive. There's a small, slim chance that she is. Correct. So instead of just telling a story about somebody's life and unfortunate death, we're telling a story about somebody who technically is still missing and she could be out there still. Small, slim chance, kind of like Amy Lynn Bradley from the cruise ship when she disappeared. Small chance Amy Lynn Bradley's still alive out there. Small chance that Leah Roberts is still alive out there. So if we play this and 100,000 people watch it, that's 100,000 people who remember her cute

little face and her dimples and they might see it, her, you know, older and wiser out there somewhere. Maybe she just decided to start new and wanted to start a new life. Who knows? But the thing is, there might be somebody who might spot her. Whereas in the solved cases, we're telling a story that has a foregone conclusion already. There may be an ending to this story with Leah that isn't already planned out and already kind of just assumed. And that's why I like them. I will tell you, and you just reminded me of it, the two things that I've kind of excluded, not 100 percent, but highly likely.

This isn't a suicide and this isn't a situation where. I agree. Not a suicide. I agree. What you just alluded to where she wanted to start a new life. I feel like there was so much detail and thought put into her goodbyes, quote unquote goodbyes, that she did have a plan on returning at some point. I don't think she maybe knew when that was. She probably had an idea of how long, but I don't think she had put a deadline on it. And it just sounds like whatever happened to her was unplanned and unexpected. Yeah, I agree. That's where I'm at, whether it's an

accident or, you know, it wasn't on the itinerary. Because what you're going to find is this area of the Cascade Mountains, Jack Kerouac wrote about it often, right? So this is where she was headed. This was her destination. That's why she went to Bellingham, so that we're going to find out she had talked to a few people before she went out into the mountains, and that is where she was headed. So what happened between her leaving Bellingham and her getting to the Cascade Mountains that caused her to end up in the position that she ended up in, which, I mean, we don't know where she is. If I had the opportunity to speak to Leah's family, the one question I would ask them is, based on what they know about her, is she the type of person, the free-spirited type of person that would maybe against her better judgment? I don't know.

If someone was a hiker along the side of the road and was in need of help, would she be someone who would say, I'll give you a ride to the next stop, but that's it? So I can ask because- Oh, you know them. Well, I don't know them, but there's a Facebook page they have where you can reach out and ask questions. But I would say absolutely. I mean, it's a question because we talk about her being the drop on her while she's sleeping.

She's making new friends all the time. She's making new friends and then she meets them within a few days. So there she's hanging out with them for days and no one knows where she is. So yes. We talk about Cup of Joe and could there be someone out there, another free spirited person who's hitchhiking by themselves and could be male or female. But the reality is that person may have some malicious intentions that she's unaware of. It could be a collaborative effort amongst multiple people that she's unaware of. But she picks someone up and something goes wrong. Something goes wrong.

But remember, it would be their nefarious intent would be to get her. Because they're leaving over $2,000, jewels, all this stuff in her car. No, no, no. This is definitely, yeah. This is something that's- Well, you said maybe even a woman. And I'm like, well, no. This is definitely, yeah. This is something that's- Well, you said maybe even a woman and I'm like, well, no. Well, I say woman because here's the thing.

There have been, I haven't personally worked a case like this, but I have researched and studied cases where the woman is the decoy and there are male counterparts involved where the female is put out there to lower the guard of the victim. And once that they gain that,

you know, they do that in human trafficking all the time, don't they? Exactly. And so you have a situation where maybe she sees a female on the side of the road, not realizing that she he's with two buddies. And maybe there's even a world and I'm going really off the path here, but maybe it's a world where initially the buddies that are involved don't have a nefarious intent, but things go south for whatever reason or another. There's so many things without having the variables that the directions this could go. And if we had a crystal ball where we could go back and see what happened, it may be something that surprises all of us, including the law enforcement officers who've investigated this case over the last 24 years. No doubt, honestly. You just don't know. You just. including the law enforcement officers who've investigated this case over the last 24 years. No doubt, honestly. You just don't know.

You just, and I mean, they've looked into all these other avenues. So I would have to say that if we found out what happened to Leah, it would probably be something that we did not expect. Yeah, we have still a lot to cover. I'm assuming, what are you thinking, two, three parts? What are you thinking for this one? I'm thinking two parts, honestly. Okay, two parts.

This was a little bit of a shorter episode tonight. We're switching up. We're trying to keep you guys, keep it not stagnant. Some episodes will be longer, some are shorter, but please let us know what you think. I've actually gone through the last couple of weeks and was reading a lot of the comments on the audio version. For all our audio listeners out there, sometimes I feel like we neglect you when we're talking like this because we're visually seeing each other. But if you're an audio listener, we really do appreciate you. There's a lot of people who listen solely on audio, hundreds of thousands of people who listen just on audio. So if you're someone who's enjoying the content, please take a second, whether you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, go over there, leave a review.

We get a lot of positive reviews. Sometimes we get a negative review here and there. But you can offset that by leaving your five stars and letting us know what you think of positive reviews. Sometimes we get a negative review here and there, but you can offset that by leaving your five stars and letting us know what you think of the content. I was just reading a couple of reviews before we popped on here today and they were really great, just really complimentary. And it's great to see those comments.

Two, three, we're in our third year now. Third year into it because- That's crazy. You can get stagnant. You can get kind of complacent. And I love that the fact that there are new people still coming over, still getting something

out of the way we're covering it. And we're just very, very fortunate to have you guys. So thank you both on YouTube and on audio. We love you. We do. We do love you guys.

Everyone stay safe out there. We will see you next week. Bye.