Going West: True Crime - Leah Roberts // 26

Episode Date: June 3, 2019

Most of us have thought about escaping our everyday lives in search of adventure. But after a young woman from North Carolina takes off on a road trip by herself without telling anyone her plans, her car is found wrecked on a backroad in Washington state and she's nowhere to be found. This is the disappearance of Leah Roberts. https://www.huntakiller.com 20% off with Promo Code: GOINGWEST **GOING WEST DOES NOT OWN ANY OF THE NEWS CLIPS PRESENTED** NC Missing, Channel 14 News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZDBPGRnHqY Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey true crime fans, Heath here. Are you looking for a new true crime binge? Check out our friends over at Crime Salad. It's a case by case podcast hosted by Ashley and Ricky. They have a new episode every Wednesday and they do an amazing job of discussing various murder and disappearance cases. Sometimes it's hard to find the right podcast for you, but these guys are just well-rounded. They're very clear when they talk and they have amazing production value, and they're also a couple of really awesome people, so go listen to Crime Salad. Wherever you listen to podcasts. What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Before we dive into today's case, we want to give thanks to some awesome people who wrote us some really nice reviews this week.

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fobs for you guys to check out, So head over to GoingWestPodcast.com and click on the store tab. Alright guys, this is episode 26 of Going West, so let's get into it. Lea Roberts went missing in 2004. The NC State graded disappeared while on a cross-country trip. Leah Roberts left Durham heading west never to be heard from again. She took her photography equipment guitar and her journal. She headed to Mount Baker and Desolation Peak in Washington State. When Leah Roberts was last seen, she was 23 years old, 5'6 and 130 pounds with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. She had a beauty mark on her upper lip and a surgical scar on her right hip. Today she would be 42 years old.

A little bit more about her, she had her ears pierced and she had dimples. She was also a vegetarian who smoked cigarettes frequently and she spoke Spanish fluently but had a very strong southern accent. Leah Roberts was born on July 23, 1976, and was the youngest of her family with older siblings, Heath and Kara. And they were all raised in the suburbs by their parents in Durham, North Carolina. While Leah was just 17 years old and finishing up high school, her father was diagnosed with a life-threatening lung disease. This is very hard on the entire family as they watched his health deteriorate over the years to

come. About two years after he got sick, Leah began studying Spanish and Anthropology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, which was just a 30-minute drive from her family home, and at this point she's 19 years old and it's 1995. The following year, Leah's mother suddenly died due to heart disease. So her dad is still alive, but incredibly ill, and her mother just passed away. Because of all of this hardship in her life, she decided to take time off of school. In the fall of 1998, so about a year after the death of her mother,

she started taking classes at NC State again. She had started getting her life back on track when she was suddenly involved in a serious car accident. It seems like she teaboned a transfer truck because while she was driving, a truck had pulled out in front of her and then she hit it. Although it's unlikely the other person was injured since they were in such a large truck, Leah punctured a lung and shattered a femur in one of her thighs. And Heath, you've shattered a bone before, so why don't you tell us a little bit about what that's like? Oh, Lodi, let me tell you, it is extremely painful.

I actually shattered my entire left foot one time. I was really drunk and being an idiot and I fell off a roof. For those of you who have broken bones before you understand that the recovery process like that is very long and it's really not fun. So lucky for Leah, she was able to recover from this shattered bone and they actually had to insert a metal rod next to her femur so it could heal properly and completely, which sounds really horrifying. I think my uncle got into a motorcycle accident and had to have that same thing happen. Oh yeah, getting metal pieces put into your body sucks.

So after this accident, Leah says that she felt born again. And after she recovered, she was talking to her older sister, Cara, about the accident, and she said she really thought that she was going to die when she saw the truck come out of nowhere. And the fact that she didn't die completely changed her perspective on life and the way that she wanted to live it. She no longer wanted to take her existence for granted and she wanted to live life to the absolute fullest.

So she actually, after this, studied abroad in Spain for a semester, and then in the spring of 1999, so a good handful of months after her accident, she had planned another study abroad field program, but this time in Costa Rica. But just three weeks before her flight, her dad died. So at this point, in the past three years, her mother passed away. She got in a serious car accident and her father passed away. You can't even imagine what that would feel like and what you're saying about how she's you know living this new life. It's because she sees all this like

death and destruction happening in front of her and she's thinking wow life is short like I need to go live my life. Yeah, it really makes you, I'm sure, realize your mortality. And I totally applaud her for having this new lease on life because I think a lot of people kind of look past that and they just live their lives in a very mundane fashion. Or when something tragic like this happens, they sometimes will go the opposite direction and become sheltered individuals because they don't want to test their fate, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, both your parents die from health conditions and you get in a serious accident and these are all three separate incidents in a very short amount of time. It's like you've just got to feel so hopeless after that. So the fact that she didn't is amazing. So Leah and her siblings inherited some money from her parents once they both passed. So she granted her older sister Cara as power of attorney over her bank account.

And the benefit of this is if something ever happened to Leah, her sister would be in charge of her assets. And this seems a bit strange since she was so young, because this isn't something that young people typically worry about, but it's possible that since she had gotten into that life-threatening accident and her parents were deceased, maybe she just wanted to kind of cover her bases. And I also read that Kara became her power of attorney before Leah went to Costa Rica, specifically because she was going out

of the country so she probably just wanted to cover her bases. But it's still pretty interesting that they made that decision. So Leah actually ended up going on to Costa Rica, trying to make the most of things and not let her father's death affect her too much. Her friend and roommate Nicole even went to Costa Rica to visit her and go on vacation, and she was surprised how well Leah was doing. It's as if she hadn't had all these tragic events happen to her so recently.

Once she returned to North Carolina, she ended up dropping out of college with just six months remaining before she would earn her degree in both Spanish and anthropology. Her brother and sister tried to convince her to keep pushing through and finish her degree, but she was just not interested in doing that. So she focused more on things that she was interested in, and she decided to take up photography and learn how to play guitar. She also became much more spiritual and kind of had this revelation about living her best life. She started going out a lot by herself to different bars and meeting

new kinds of people who could shed some light on new meaning. With this, she kind of shied away from her friends and family and the ones who really loved her while she searched for a deeper meaning. She spent most of her days at a Durham, North Carolina coffee shop called Cup of Joe, where she would often write poetry and read Jack Kerawak novels. In 2000, Leah shared a place with her friend and roommate Nicole Bennett, and together, they were interested in exploring Jack Kerawak's beliefs as he was a part of the beat generation. So they wanted to emulate the beat movement of non-conformity, going on a spiritual quest, and kind of just rejecting materialism.

Leah had shared with Nicole that she wanted to go on a road trip to the West Coast and fully experience this kind of life. So Nicole wanted to do this as well, but she was in the stance of, I have a job, you know, I can't afford to go off and do that, whereas Leah had inheritance from her parents and she didn't have a job, so it was a little bit easier for her to dream about or plan to do that. Because as we know, a lot of people romanticize certain ideals without actually being interested and following through with the lifestyle in its entirety. And I think that's something so desirable about books like On the Road, is you read it and think, I want to do that, I want a life like that. Oh yeah, absolutely. I remember the first time I watched that movie, what was it called, Into the Wild or Into the Woods or something like that?

Into the Wild. Into the Wild, yeah. I remember the first time I watched that, I was like, I've got to be that guy, like I want to do that. I want to just like burn my identity card and take off into the wilderness. Of course, I never followed through with that, or else I probably wouldn't be here today. Yeah, I think lifestyles like that are just kind of living off the grid and doing your own thing can seem like a really good idea. And some people live that and they're totally happy with that way of life, which is awesome.

Absolutely. She had the means to be able to follow through with this dream, which a lot of us don't. And not only that, but I think Leo was caught in a crossroads where she had just dropped out of college. She didn't know exactly what she wanted to do. So kind of taking this journey to explore her life and figure out exactly who she is and what she wants to do was important for her. Right. And I think it's really great that she did have the means to do it. I mean, I would love to get in a car and like just go to New Orleans and just live here.

Oh, how many of us would love to just get in a van and just travel the United States and just live off the land for a little while? Right, and then, or you, you know, I've definitely had dreams like that. There's a lot of those kinds of lifestyles where I look at it and I'm like, damn, that sounds great. But then you think about it realistically,

okay, how am I gonna make money? Then I also love going to concerts and doing these kinds of things and being involved in all of these modern situations. So it's just nice to think about. Yeah, and Nicole was in the position of where she was a little bit more mindful of that. She knew that she had a job and she had obligations that she needed to take care of. So she wasn't really in the position where she could just leave with Leah. I also don't know if she thought that Leah was serious or...

Right and it might not have started out as a serious conversation, it could have just been playful like you know what we should do right now? Get in our car and drive to the West Coast. On the morning of Thursday, March 9th, 2000, Leah and her sister Cara had a phone conversation regarding the future. Leah made no comments regarding her leaving or planning to go away on a trip. It was a very vague conversation, but Cara was under the impression that she would see her soon. She said it was a casual conversation and that Leah didn't mention anything cryptic or

dismissive in any way. That same day, Leah had planned to do a babysitting job with her roommate Nicole the next day. After this talk, Nicole went to work at her job for the day, but when she returned that night, Leah's 1993 white jeep Cherokee was gone, along with Leah. Since Leah wasn't working at the time, as she was living off of her parents' inheritance, Nicole didn't really think anything of it. The night went on and Leah never came back. When Nicole woke up the next morning, she was still alone in their house. Later that day was their scheduled babysitting job, but Leah didn't show up to that either.

Nicole just sort of figured that something had come up and that she may have forgot. So as most of us who have had roommates know, sometimes you go a couple days without seeing your roommate, so it's not that much cause of concern if you don't see them for a day. You're doing your thing, they're doing their thing. But it's unclear if Leah had a cell phone at this point and it doesn't seem like she did, because most of her family and friends had been calling the house, trying to get a hold of her over the next two days. So not only did Leah never come home for the days to follow, but she didn't call any

of her loved ones back to let them know where she was or that she was okay. And this was also the year 2000, so cell phones were just kind of becoming a thing and getting bigger. And there was still a lot of people who didn't have a cell phone. I mean, I didn't have a cell phone until about 2005. So on March 13, 2000, about three days after Nicole noticed Leah and her car were gone, Kara Roberts, who is Leah's sister, called police to report her missing.

There wasn't much the police could do since it had been pretty obvious to them that she left willingly and she was in adults so she could do so. The day after Kara went over to Lea's place and with the help of Nicole, search for Lea's room for any clues. And to their surprise, most of her clothes were gone, along with her cat named Bee. So to them it appeared that she did leave on her own free will and that she had planned to be gone for a while. Then they found a note. It read, I'm not suicidal, I'm the opposite. Remember Jack Kerwack. There's a lot of other things on this note but unfortunately we could only

find blurred out versions of it on the internet. But another legible part of the note says, versions of it on the internet. But another legible part of the note says, Tell Melissa she should come stay in my room if she wants to leave Raleigh. And Raleigh's the town where Leah had attended school. So we assume Melissa is one of her classmates or friends. She also had written, Nicole, this is to cover bills for while I'm gone, and along with it with some cash. It was enough money to cover a month's worth of bills, so they were under the impression that she would return in a few weeks.

Another excerpt on the note said, "'Time passes quickly. Have faith in me, yourself, everyone.'" She also wrote, "'On the road, randomly on the page, and the bottom of the note reads, "'PS, cookies in the freezer. So clearly this note is very confusing

and a little bit all over the place, but it doesn't appear that she's in any danger at all or that she's putting herself in harm's way. And she also even mentioned, Tell Cara not to worry. One of the strangest things about this letter was that on the back of the letter was a drawing done by Leah of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

It was just a smile of the cat with an arrow pointing to it. Nothing in the letter said anything about Alice in Wonderland, so Cara figured this was some kind of clue that Leah was leaving, that maybe she meant she was disappearing, but would reappear just like the Cheshire cat. So at this point, Leah's siblings and her friends are convinced that she just wanted to go find herself and have an adventure. But they were all upset that she hadn't at least told them so they knew she was safe. She also never mentioned in the note where exactly she was going, only saying, remember Jack Kerawak as a sort of clue. And I wonder why she did that? Why shouldn't just say, hey guys, I'm going here, see you when I get back.

I mean, at least write it in the note so that your people know that you're good, especially if something bad were to happen. You never know, obviously. So I just think that's kind of odd that she didn't mention it at least. Well, and this kind of makes you think about that movie 127 hours with James Franco where he doesn't tell anybody that he's going like rock climbing in Utah. He doesn't tell anyone where anyone where he's going. And then he ends up getting stuck between a boulder and he's there for like days. So it's just a tip for you guys out there. If you're ever

planning on doing anything like this, make sure you tell somebody. Yeah, at least one person, like if this podcast has taught me anything, it's to keep people in the freaking loop and keep yourself safe. Yeah, inform somebody about where you're going and what you're doing. So remember when we mentioned earlier that Kara had power of attorney over Leah? So Kara got really smart here and she went to the bank to get copies of Leah's bank statements so she could see exactly where she was. She first noticed that Leah had withdrawn several thousand dollars from her account on the afternoon of March 9th, which is the same day that she talked to Kara on the phone and

discussed the babysitting job with Nicole. So unless she had known ahead of time but didn't want to tell her friends and family so they wouldn't try to talk her out of it, the other option is that maybe she just decided it on a whim to go. But most of her transactions were for gas and she appeared to have also stopped at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee early on in her trip. Then she went through Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, and then Oregon. Almost every transaction was for gas, so it's likely that she either just bought food from the gas stations or that she used the cash she had to do so. It appeared she had been driving pretty consistently because just four days after she left and the early morning of March 13th

Just after midnight she made her final purchase on her bank account She got gas and Brooks Oregon, which is very close to Salem, Oregon on the way up towards Portland And I just need to say when we started researching this case There was some pretty strange connections that I had to this case. First of all her brother's name is Heath which isn't typically a common name. She drives a white jeep Cherokee just like I do and her last bank transaction was an Oregon so that kind of was a strange connection that made me that kind of made me gravitate towards this case. So Cara and Susie Smith, who is Leah's best friend, didn't have any idea where she was going

and why, so to get a better idea, they went through some of Leah's favorite spots, specifically the coffee shop Cup of Joe and Durham, North Carolina. There they spoke with a girl named Janine Quiller, who Leah would sometimes hang out with there. Janine told them that she had spoken to Leah about Jack Kerawak and all of his ideals. That's when Janine told them about Leah's interest in the book, The Dharma Bums, which is pretty much the sequel to On the Road and is based off of Jack's own experiences with nature and falling in love with the outdoors and hitchhiking across

the west coast and seeking that adventure. Apparently, Leah was very interested in the Pacific Northwest profound beauty and wanted to have an experience that mirrored Kerawax. So up until this point, Keraw was so confused following her sister's path up to Oregon, but now it made a lot more sense. The book discusses the area of desolation peak, which is in Washington, specifically what come County, Washington, which if you've listened to our Hillside Stranglers case, that's actually where Kenneth Bianchi was caught. And it's also an important detail in this story, because Washington is the state above Oregon, and it looked like she was headed right up there. And for all of you who have never been to Oregon, it really is beautiful and the Pacific

Northwest does have this amazing green beauty that can't be found anywhere else in the United States. A few days go by and it's March 18, 2000. It's also Cara's 26th birthday. Cara is completely expecting to receive a call from Leah on this day. She hadn't heard from her in nine days since that phone call before Leah left, but she really didn't expect Leah to miss her birthday. Instead of a birthday note from her sister, Cara received a note in the mail slot of her house. It was from the

Sheriff's Department in Bellingham, Washington. The note said that there was an emergency and asked Kara to give them a phone call. What's up, two crime fans. Are you looking for something fun and interesting to do with your friends and family? What about something involving a murder? Have you ever listened to a podcast and thought, maybe I could be a detective? Then you need to get the game hunt a killer, the murder mystery box that immerses you in an ongoing experience. It's a monthly subscription box, with every delivery you will dive deeper into what it's like to become a detective. So instead of sitting by yourself staring at your phone screen all night, you'll sift through piles of documents, evidence, audio recordings,

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That is such a good deal and we know that you guys are going to love it because we love it. Happy hunting guys. Hey guys, it's Melissa and Mandy with the Moms and Murder podcast. We're a true crime podcast that's sure to make you laugh without compromising the seriousness of the content. Despite our name, we aren't just for the moms.

Our show is for all the Diet Coke drinking, chicken loving, date line watching people in your life. Come for the murder and stay for the witty humor and pop culture references. And you never know, you may even hear from some of your favorite names in the world of true crime like date lines Josh make a wits. You have a preference on what we call you Josh make with makes or makes a lot. I don't hear sure for makes a lot.

I can make a happen for you broken homicide. It's dear call vassar. You're tearing up on me. So beautiful. Everything you're saying. Even America sweetheart, Ali Sweeney. The neighbor suggested that perhaps Kathleen had been attacked by an owl,

the owl theory that Melissa and Ali Sweeney really liked. I guess so judging. Check out Mom's and Murder, Anywhere Podcasts are found. So Cara had just received a note from the Bellingham Washington Police Department asking her to call them. When she called them, they informed her that earlier that morning they discovered Leah's jeep Cherokee on a logging road in a remote forest And it appeared to have gone off an embankment. The weirdest part is that Leah wasn't in the car and although her car was very badly damaged from the crash,

there was no sign of blood in her car. That morning a couple of people were jogging along Canyon Creek Road when they noticed clothes spread across the side of the road. They decided to take a closer look and that's when they discovered the Jeep in the woods below and it was incredibly damaged. They were originally worried that someone was in the car especially since there had been blankets covering the windows that weren't smashed open as if someone had been sleeping in there. That's when they phoned the local police department.

When police arrived on the scene, they had determined that the Jeep had been traveling about 40 miles per hour when it traveled off the embankment and that the car had rolled multiple times. That's why it was so odd to them that there wasn't even a drop of blood discovered in the vehicle. If someone had been in that kind of accident, they would have suffered serious injuries and maybe even died. Please start thinking about the possibility that no one had been in the car at all when it crashed, meaning that someone

likely staged it. Outside the car was Lea's passport, checkbook, driver's license, guitar, and clothes, including a pair of jeans with about $2,500 in the pocket. Also in the car was Leah's mother's engagement ring, which apparently she never took off, not in the shower, not to sleep, she always had it on. So for it to be amongst all of her other possessions was peculiar. Her cat's carrier and food were found in the car confirming that she did indeed bring her cat, but her cat wasn't in the car. So Leah is nowhere to be found, but it appears all of her money and belongings were in the car, so police immediately began to think foul play was involved.

When Kara heard the news, she told her brother Heath and they flew from Durham, North Carolina to Bellingham, Washington to help find their sister. When they took a deeper look in the car, they found a ticket stub for a showing of American beauty at the Theater in Bellisfair shopping mall in Bellingham. The ticket dated March 13, 2000, which is the same day that her credit card was charged for the last time in Oregon. So since they have this knowledge of Leah being in Bellingham, they went to the mall to see if anyone recognized Leah. Right near the theater is a restaurant and pub called Elephanton Castle, and when Kara and Heath saw it, they got an overwhelming feeling

that Leah had been there, because it just looked like the kind of place that she would die that. Police went into the pub and asked the staff about Leah, who mentioned that she had been sitting at the bar alone on the 13th, but that there was a man on either side of her. When police contacted the men, they both said they remembered her, but only one of them had spoken to her. The man who spoke to her at the bar mentioned that she was talking about Carolek and her travel plans. So at this point police know that it was Leah Roberts. The same man also told police that she had left with another man, who he said was named Barry.

He provided police with an incredibly detailed description of this Barry, but when police asked the staff and other customers who had died there that day, if they recognized this person, none of them did. Police then told Leah's jeep Cherokee to a police garage where they investigated it further for evidence. At this point, they were sure that Leah had been a victim of foul play because of the fact that she left all of her belongings in the vehicle and that she had apparently left with an unknown man. Within a couple of days of finding Leah's car, a man called police explaining that he and his wife believed they saw Leah at a Texaco gas station in Everett, Washington, which is an hour south of Bellingham. The man said that she appeared to be disoriented and didn't know where she was. But he then became incredibly apprehensive when police questioned him further and he hung up the phone, so we'll take this sighting with a grain of salt.

Four days after their arrival, Heath and Kara went back to North Carolina. When police asked Kara what she wanted them to do with Leah's car, she decided against taking it with her. She wanted the police to keep hold of it in the hopes of getting answers with new technology in the years to come. And this would turn out to be an incredibly wise decision on Cara's part, because in 2006, so about six years after Leah disappeared, Mark Joseph, who is the original detective on the case, retired. He passed his unsolved cases onto two newer detectives,

and they made an important discovery. The men looked through Leah's case file and one of them realized that the contents of Leah's car had not all been fully processed for evidence. contents of Leah's car had not all been fully processed for evidence. Since they were stumped by her case and years had gone by without any signs, they took it into their own hands to finish the job. When they started going through the car's evidence, they realized that no one had ever looked under the hood of Leah's car. The detectives pride opened the hood and discovered that a wire to the starter relay had been cut, which is a primary function since it connects the car's battery to the starter motor.

By cutting this wire, the car would be able to accelerate without someone sitting in the car and pushing on the gas pedal. The detectives also found a fingerprint underneath the hood, along with some male DNA on some of Leah's clothing. So the fact that all these years went by, and these key details weren't discovered is pretty crazy. This was a huge break in the case, and investigators went looking for the man from the restaurant who had claimed he saw Leah leave with a man named Barry. Weirdly enough, the man had previously been in the military and had experience working as a mechanic.

This discovery really poked the detectives' ears. Unfortunately, the man had moved to Canada sometime after Leah's disappearance. So getting his fingerprint took a while. A lot of people think it's incredibly suspicious that he moved to Canada, but I read that he's originally from Canada, and Bellingham, Washington is just a few miles away from the Canadian border, so it's really not that strange.

But in 2011, detectives got their answer regarding the fingerprint, and it was not a match. Heath made a good point to me earlier that mechanics don't usually work on cars without gloves on, and not to mention if you're rigging someone's car, someone you murdered, or you did something with, you're most likely going to wear gloves so your DNA isn't on the car. So I think it's pretty clear if somebody else that wasn't Leah did this, they probably weren't trying to get rid of evidence, or else you would assume they would have burned the car, and as we know there really wasn't Leah did this. They probably weren't trying to get rid of evidence or else you would assume they would have burned the car and as we know there really wasn't any evidence in the car anyway. So I think that they were probably trying to either hide her car, they thought that driving it off that

embankment was going to make the car disappear and no one was gonna find it which didn't work because somebody found it within a couple days. Or the other reason is they wanted to make it look like she got into an accident, and then she was delirious and ran off on her own. But I think if that was the case, they should have taken her necessary belongings like money, driver's license, passport, because no one in the right mind would have left those things behind. Yeah, in my opinion, I believe that putting that car off of the embankment and not taking any of Leah's items seems to me like if a perpetrator was responsible for this, that

he probably wanted to make it appear that Leah had been in a crash and had walked away from the crash on her own will. But I don't think that he thought about the fact that there was no blood in the car. I mean, that's a pretty crucial piece of it, because even when people get into minor car accidents, they cut themselves. I mean, when Leah was in probably a less serious accident than this would have been, she punctured a lung and shattered her femur. So, there definitely would have been some blood blood and I'm surprised that they didn't really think about that. And if this person had been an experienced mechanic, it would be pretty easy to stage that for

them. Like you said, they didn't find any fingerprints underneath the hood, but we also mentioned that mechanics wear gloves, so there might not have been that. But the other part to this is that they did find male DNA on her clothing in the car. And I mean, that could have been from anything, that could have been from somebody touching her shoulder who was walking past her or something. It didn't have to be from the perpetrator per se.

I mean, it definitely could have been, and I feel like it's very likely that it was too, but DNA can get on clothing in so many different ways. I think it's pretty clear that this was not a robbery considering all of her money that was still in her car and the ring and all of her belongings. So I think that is very obviously not on the table. But let's get into the main theories in this case. One of the main theories regarding this case is that Leo was experiencing a manic episode. No one in her family ever mentioned any history of mental illness, but this theory is based around the effect of her potential trauma regarding her parents' death and her accident.

It's possible that this trauma could have triggered some kind of disorder. I'm not sure if I believe this theory, but I think it could be true, but mostly because of that man citing the guy who saw her in Everett Washington and said that she was disoriented. I just think it's strange that he hung up the phone before identifying himself, so that kind of takes away the credibility for me that he kind of like got scared.

But neither of us are psychologists, so we can't really put this on the table or take it off the table, but I work with psychologists every day for my job. And I was talking to my coworker about this case because she works with victims of intense trauma. And she said it's very likely that Leah was experiencing disassociation, which is common with extreme trauma. But to me, the fact that she left that note and then she drove across the country, it doesn't seem to me like she was having a manic episode.

She genuinely seemed like she was going off to find herself. Absolutely, and this could have just been like we had mentioned all along. She had an epiphany, she needed to do this with her life, and some people just do that, you know? It's like someone saying, I want to move to a different country. That doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me. So just because it's out of the ordinary basically doesn't mean that they're having a mental episode. And some people point out the length of driving she did on her road trip across country because on average she drove 14 hours a day and for anyone who's been on a road trip

that's an incredibly intense amount of driving for one person. A lot of people discuss this in the manic theory because they say, oh it's so weird for anyone to drive for that length of time alone and multiple days in a row, which I agree I I mean, I couldn't personally do that, I don't think. But some people can, I don't think that's proof of a manic episode just because she drove for a long time and randomly decided to go on a trip when she had no obligations anyway.

But this theory also doesn't explain her car crash. If she was able to drive for 14 hours a day for 48 straight and then she all the sudden has a manic episode in crashes her car. I don't know if that's really a clear theory. I'm not going to rule it out, but I'm also not going to put a lot of weight in it. I think that from what we know about her car and the fact that someone had rigged it to be able to drive itself pretty much. That to me just points very far away from a manic episode. That to me is like this is definitely foul play.

Yeah, there's a very clear sign here. And that actually brings us to our next theory, which I think is most is the most likely scenario. and that is murder. I'm not saying for sure that the man who Leah was talking to at the restaurant murdered her, but I think it's very strange that he was the only one to see this berry person and that he was able to give such a descriptive image of a man he apparently didn't know. I think it sounds like he was trying to get the police off his tail so he made up a situation. Unfortunately, we don't know anything about this man, like how old he was or what he was like as a person. We actually don't even know his name because it's not public information, likely because

this case is unsolved so police didn't want to release it. I definitely agree that a lot of his actions were very sketchy and odd. I also think that the mystery associated with this man could be bad in the sense that he could be innocent and because we have very little information, we're just assuming it's him. And here are actually some interesting statements made by him. I have asked for a letter stating that my DNA and prints be destroyed as per the court order. This was to be done as soon as they tested me against their evidence.

This was in 2007. The Whatcom County Sheriff's Department have been narrow-sighted and not very honest in their dealings. They continue to play games and the level of their incompetence is overwhelming. Detective Jamie Collins has not even had the guts to return any of my calls, yet he will go on TV and tell his version of how they had to wait for two years to get my DNA.

The truth is that I was never even asked to provide it. They got a judge in Canada to sign a warrant for this and it was obtained at gunpoint. He also made a statement regarding the night he met Leah. He says, when statement regarding the night he met Leah. He says, when I was at the bar and Leah was sitting next to me, I was eating and a man called her and I turned and saw this fellow walking by the door. Leah called his name and I thought nothing of it.

This is the man that I told the police about and I spent 12 hours in that place. Two light detectors and everything you can imagine they finally released the photo. You have to remember this was three weeks after she disappeared. They came to my place and had tracked me by my credit card receipt from the restaurant. So that's really interesting to hear his account of how everything went down. And apparently he's even afraid to enter the United States because he's scared that they're gonna pin this on him and arrest him, but two of his sons live in Bellingham, Washington. So that's gotta be a pretty frustrating situation if he is in fact innocent.

I think if Leo was murdered and someone tried to get rid of her car, they would have to know at least a little something about cars because I'd say cutting the starter relay isn't a thing most people know to do, but just because this man was a mechanic doesn't mean that he did it. I mean, he very well could have just been a man eating a meal by himself and a girl sat near him and he went on with his day afterwards and then gets all these questions about it. And also, the bartender that was on schedule the day Leah was at the restaurant said that she left alone, so it's very possible that she was met with foul play by someone else. I found a really interesting theory on Reddit.

In 2014, a mummified body was found in Watcombe County, Washington, which is the same county Leia's car was found in. The body was completely unrecognizable, but it was classified between 33 and 55 years old. The body was 55 and had a metal rod in the right femur. And remember, Leia Roberts was 56. While attempting to identify the body, they traced the rod's lot number and discovered it had been shipped in the fall of 1998, which is exactly when Leah had gotten into her accident and had the metal rod implanted. The only thing though is that after

testing the DNA, it was determined to be a male. There's a good point made within this thread on Reddit that it's entirely possible that the DNA testing could have been botched or that Leah was intersex. I hope that's proper terminology or had complete and drawjane insensitivity syndrome, meaning that she would have XY chromosomes, but a female appearance. But this is apparently extremely uncommon. My bet would be on them potentially botching the DNA testing because that kind of thing happens all the time. Although the body was supposedly between the ages of 33 to 55, in 2014,

Leah would have been 38 years old. And for all we know, Leah didn't die in 2000, but maybe she was held captive and later murdered. I just wish we knew when Corners determined this mummified body's time and date of death, because I think that would really help us determine whether or not this could have been her. I just think it's so strange that someone who had a metal rod in their femur just like Leah, who is about the same height as her, was found dead in that same area and that their metal rod had been

put in their femur at the same time as Leah like what are the odds of that? That is quite a strange coincidence. I'll tell you what my theory is for this whole case and this is just my opinion so you guys are more than welcome to dig through the evidence and and feel out this case and see what you guys think. And we would love to welcome your opinion as well. But what I think happened is that Leah ended up in a weird situation where she was talking to a male in Belium, Washington at the restaurant or at the bar or maybe in a different spot and the male had found out that Leah was by herself on a road trip so it's not like there was really anybody around.

And she seemed to be pretty open about that. She seemed to be telling everybody about what she was doing. Right, which may have not been the best idea in hindsight, but I think that that could have got her into trouble. I think that someone had killed her and maybe dumped her body in a different area and then had staged the car accident. And also one thing that I thought was pretty interesting was this man who called from the Texaco station, saying that him and his wife had seen Leah, I was thinking that possibly could that have been the killer trying to make it seem even more so like Leah had walked away from the crash.

That's a really good point because we know that killers like to involve themselves in crimes or like to be manipulative. And so I think that's definitely possible. And it makes sense because he got really freaked out at the end of the call, never stated his name, and then hung up. And the police weren't sketched out by that. They actually still thought that it was credible information. So I think that's a really interesting angle because maybe he is trying to involve himself

in the crime. But while simultaneously saying, oh yeah, I saw her and she was delirious so then the cops are veering away from the thought of it being foul play. Right, and also the fact that this man had stated that he was with his wife almost kind of inherently makes that phone call seem credible.

Like, oh, I was with my wife, instead of him saying oh well I was by myself and I saw her, that makes you look a little bit more suspicious in a sense. So it's possible that the killer did call from that Texaco. The unfortunate part about this is that they were not able to trace the call because it wasn't long enough. this is that they were not able to trace the call because it wasn't long enough. So unfortunately this case is not yet solved, but if anybody has any information about this case at all or anything about Leah, call the Bellingham Washington Police Department at 360-778-6600. Let's bring Leah Roberts and her family the justice they all deserve. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going Last.

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