Going West: True Crime - Leigh Occhi // 62

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

In 1992, a 13-year-old girl went missing during a hurricane in Tupelo, Mississippi. When her mother returned home from work, she found a worrisome and questionable scene at the house. and immediately called police. FBI were introduced into the case and the town searched tirelessly for the girl. So what happened to her? This is the disappearance of Leigh Occhi. ________ BetterHelp is an online counseling service that connects you with professional counselors in a private online environment at an affordable cost. Going West listeners get 10% off their first month of BetterHelp using code GOINGWEST. Visit betterhelp.com/goingwest and simply fill out the questionnaire to help them assess your need and match you with your perfect counselor. Try BetterHelp today! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on through crime fans, I'm your host Heath and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Before we get into today's case, we have a few announcements for you guys. First of all, we have some awesome new designs that we're going to be putting up in the merch store very soon, so you guys got to go check that out. And if you're a $10 patron, you get 25% off in the merch store, so you guys can get some really cool threads for pretty cheap. And we also just announced this $10 tier on our Patreon. So you can go over to patreon.com slash

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new merch. Yeah, and hope everyone is saying safe, I know that there's all these quarantine happening so he and I have been locked away in our home for the past five days and we're getting over, being sick ourselves. It's just a weird ass time. Yeah, somebody that I know actually got punched in the chest and a grocery store over frozen vegetables. Yeah, it's crazy know actually got punched in the chest and a grocery store over frozen vegetables. Yeah, it's crazy.

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We really appreciate you guys supporting us over on Patreon. So for those again who want bonus episodes, Patreon.com slash going West podcast. Alright guys, that's enough of the shit. Let's get into this episode today. This is episode 62 of Going West, so let's get into it. Something happened way back in August of 1992. On the morning of the 27th, when Tupelo Mississippi was feeling the effects of Hurricane Andrew, Leo Chi vanished. Blood was found in three different locations throughout the house, the daughter's bedroom,

the hallway, and the kitchen. Of course, I would tell anybody that foul play was probably involved, but nothing indicating that there was a car in or around the area. Please go out and search your property, have your neighbors and friends go search their property so that we can find my daughter. It's just a bizarre case. The other side of the family, meaning Lee's mother and stepfather, are they going to join you all in any of these searches?

Have you heard? Not that I'm aware of. If they do, it's going to be surprised to me. The Lee Marine Ochi was born on August 21, 1979 on a military base in Honolulu, Hawaii to parents Vicki Felton and Donald Ochi. Vicki and Donald, who were both in the US Army, met in their early 20s while they were serving in Monterey, California. Two years before Lee was born, they got married, and their marriage didn't last long at all because Lee was just about two years old when they got divorced. During their relationship, they were separated a lot of the time because of work, so they

found it hard to make the marriage work anyway, and that's when they separated. Vicki became Lee's primary caregiver after Donald moved to Germany, but Lee still remained in contact with him throughout her childhood, so they weren't estranged. They just didn't see each other very often. But Lee did visit him in Germany from time to time. Vicki and Lee also picked up a move at this time, and they went to Tupelo, Mississippi, after 25-year-old Vicki left the military. And Vicki chose Mississippi because it was where her parents lived.

Mississippi is also known as the birthplace of blues music and Tupelo is actually the birthplace of Elvis. It's a city with a population of around 40,000 people and a place that has a lot of manufacturing and distribution centers, but it's also considered a cultural and commercial hub. After settling into Tupelo, Mississippi, Vicki eventually met and married a man named Barney Yarborough. And then they moved into a new home with Lee, a one-story four-bedroom ranch-style house on honey-locus drive at the end of a cul-de-sac right next to a wooded area. But after being together for a few years, the two separated in the summer of 1992. At this time, Lee was approaching 8th grade at Tupleo Middle School. She was known to be an

incredibly smart, loving, and hilarious girl. She could be a bit shy and standoffish, but she was very affectionate and passionate, and she loved animals, especially horses and dogs, and she loved to eat pizza. I mean, who doesn't? In mid-August 1992, Hurricane Andrew was wrecking havoc. It first hit the Bahamas and then moved to Florida and Louisiana, and it was the most destructive hurricane that has ever hit Florida because of all the structures that it demolished. Hurricane Andrew caused tornadoes to hit Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In Mississippi alone, 100,000 people had to evacuate, and this was mostly for people located on the coast, by the way. Tupelo is actually located in the northeast corner of Mississippi, so it wasn't hit nearly

as bad as the towns located on the very southern border, because for those who don't know US geography well, Mississippi is located between Louisiana and Alabama in the south, so it also borders the Gulf of Mexico. Not only was Mississippi hit hard with tornadoes, but also with severe thunderstorms, rainstorms, and floods, and not included Tupelo, even northern Mississippi was experiencing the effects of this hurricane. On Thursday, August 27, 1992, just six days after Lee's 13th birthday, the storm was getting worse in Tupelo, and everyone was on

high alert. That morning, it was gloomy and the city of Tupelo was preparing for a bad storm. Lee was planning to go to an open house at Tupelo Middle School with her grandma that day. The school year hadn't yet started, and she was to spend the morning alone. According to Vicki, she had breakfast with Lee that morning, so she was awake before she left for work at Legit and Plat, which is a manufacturing company. At about 7.35 a.m., Vicki, Lee's mom, went to work and she arrived there at around 7.50 a.m. According to Vicki, she left Lee home alone that morning and tell Lee's grandma could

pick her up for their outing. And she was worried about leaving because of the storm, but she had to go to work and she also knew that her mom would be there with her daughter that afternoon to spend the day with her and take her for Taco Bell for dinner. She loves pizza, she loves Taco Bell, Lee is my girl. About 30 or so minutes after getting to work, Vicki called the house to check in on Lee, which was at about 8.30 a.m. But she didn't get an answer.

Vicki called again, but no answer. Lee and Vicki had this secret call technique. Since there was no caller idea in the early 90s, Vicki would call and let the phone ring twice, and then she would hang up and call again. And this was her way of letting Lee know that it was her calling into answer, because obviously kids don't like answering the home phone. Never have, never will. Right, and parents don't want their kids answering the home phone unless they know it's them. Which, I didn't have to go through because we did have caller ID, but before that time,

this was just a way for parents to get a hold of their children in a safe way. Right. And Vicki had tried this technique that morning, but least still didn't answer. So then she started to feel worried. So she drove straight home, which took around 15 minutes. And I know that there was a storm approaching, but I think at that time it wasn't high alert enough. I mean, obviously she worked only a mile and a half away. So if they were on that high of alert, she probably wouldn't be going to work. So take that into account for how serious this storm was in their area that morning. It's kind of confusing for me that it took her 15 minutes to go a mile and a half, but

I also don't really know what this town is like. I looked it up on my maps, and it's 1.5 miles from her work office to her house. And at an hour, like at night, when there's absolutely no traffic, it's about a five minute drive. So I would assume, yeah, during the storm, due to closures, or maybe with school traffic

or anything like that, it would be about 10 to 15 minutes minutes so that clears it up a little. Yeah, that makes sense. So at 8.45 am that morning she got home and she noticed that the garage door was open and the lights in the house were on. The front door was also unlocked. Vicki walked inside and saw blood on the wall so she ran through the whole house calling for Lee.

But Lee was nowhere to be found, so Vicki frantically called the police. The police arrived to the house quickly and noticed blood and hair on the door frame that led into the kitchen, along with a pool of blood, the size of a palm, outside of Lee's bedroom door. There was also a trail of blood that led from the hallway to the kitchen and then to the back door of the house. And there was blood in the master bedroom, so Vicki's room, as well as in the bathroom sink. The master bedroom sink that is. But the blood in the sink looked like someone had tried to clean it up and wipe it away with something. He didn't

you say it was like pink? Yeah, I mean, if you've ever cut your hand or your finger or something and you go to wash it off in the sink and let's say you didn't wash all the blood down into the sink, sometimes it'll turn that pinkish color. I believe it's because of the water that it does that. It turns that kind of pinkish color. So that's what was in the sink. So it was obvious to them that someone had tried to clean it up or at least a little bit.

As police continued to search the house, they discovered blood on Lee's nightgown and bra that were found in her hamper. So there was pretty much blood all over the house and it wasn't like buckets of blood, but it was everywhere, which I'm sure was very confusing and shocking to walk into just little trails of blood around the house. Yeah definitely it seemed like whatever happened to

this poor girl happened in multiple rooms in the house or the evidence was just dragged into multiple rooms of the house so yeah definitely a pretty gruesome scene. It was determined that the blood found on the doorway leading to the kitchen was about five feet tall and Lee was four foot 10. So they started thinking that she had gotten a head wound that maybe someone smashed her head against the door frame because of the hair that was found with the blood. So it was very obvious to them

that it was more than likely a head wound based on the hair and height of the blood. Also, the blood on her nightgown looked like it was more than likely a head wound based on the hair and height of the blood. Also, the blood on her nightgown looked like it was dripped down. That was the spatter pattern, meaning an injury above the neck made more sense. Since this happened in 1992, they weren't able to test the blood for a perfect match against the leaves because that type of DNA technology wasn't available at that time. Uh, strangely enough, though, nobody actually knew Lee's blood type, and there was no record the Lies because that type of DNA technology wasn't available at that time. Strangely enough, nobody actually knew Lies blood type and there was no record of it anywhere.

So police were unable to determine for sure if the blood matched even just the same type of blood as hers. She's believed to have had either type A or type O and the blood found at the scene was type O so it was potentially a match, but it can't be confirmed for sure. Police asked Vicki to see if anything was missing from her wardrobe, and Vicki noticed that a new shirt and bra that she'd given Lee for her birthday days prior were gone along with a pair of jeans, Lee's glasses, which she wore daily, and a sleeping bag.

Police also asked Vicki a little bit more about her daughter's habits and behaviors, and Vicki stated that Lee was very sweet and she was never home alone, yet she wouldn't open the door for a stranger. At 13, she knew better than that. But as neighbors were questioned, many stated that Lee was often home alone,

and they knew this because she would stop by sometimes and ask if she could bathe their dogs for $5, which is really freaking cute. Yeah, that's super sweet. But they also said, because they were all adults, that she seemed comfortable talking to adults, since she was an only child, she was raised by only being around adults, you know, so for Vicki to say that she was never home alone and that she didn't talk to strangers, just didn't really add up. So, at this time, Lee's dad Donald had moved to Virginia, by the way, from Germany, where he was stationed since he was still in the military. So now he's living in Virginia, still in the military, no longer living in Europe.

But he still wasn't super close with Lee. They didn't see each other that often, even though he was in the United States. And he didn't find out about the disappearance until a whole day after it happened. Vicki had called him and just said that Lee was missing with no other details, so she didn't even tell him all the blood that was found in the house and all those details that the police came. So Donald immediately just told her to call all leaves friends because surely she was with her friends.

But it wasn't until a couple days after this call and multiple days after Lee went missing that Vicki called him and told him about the blood. Yeah, why would you not mention that right off the bat? I'm sorry, it's just, it just seems strange to me that she wouldn't say, I think something bad has happened to Lee. I mean, there's blood all over the fucking house. Come on. Wait, it seemed like she was almost downplaying it.

Like, oh, I think Lee's missing or Lee hasn't come home or something. It's like, no, Lee's blood is all over her house. Like, this is a huge deal. And I don't know their exact relationship. I know that his relationship with Lee wasn't perfect. Donald and Lee spoke on the phone around two or so times a month, so they didn't talk too much. And Donald said that he felt like like Vicki was always listening in on the calls. So Lee didn't open up much about her life and what was new. But either way, why would you want to cover up the fact that there had been a very dramatic and ominous scene at the house involving your daughter, especially to your daughter's father? And Donald had also said that

Lee and Vicki's relationship was, quote, strained at best. So they likely didn't have a great mother-daughter relationship at all. Really quick, I also wonder why Vicki was so concerned about Lee being home alone for 45 minutes and worried enough to drive home. I mean, for all Vicki knew, Lee was listening to music and headphones or she was in the shower. There's so many reasons why she didn't answer the phone for this one time you called. The storm isn't bad enough for you to be off work and you're speeding home to make sure your daughter's okay after just 45 minutes away. I'm trying to put myself in those shoes as being a 13 year old kid and what my parents would say if they had called me from work which happened quite often my parents would call me to make sure that I got home from school, okay.

And a lot of the time I wouldn't answer the phone and my mom would just call back like an hour later. So it's strange to me that she all of a sudden had this sense that something bad had happened. And the fact that she had this sense and low and behold, something horrible did happen. And I'm not a mother, I don't know what it's like to worry about your child being a home alone. The reason I'm bringing this up is just because Lee was home alone somewhat often.

So the fact that she sped home on this very day, just an hour later, after only failing to hear from her from that one phone call, it's just a little weird to me. I just wanted to mention it, and we'll talk more about it later. I just wanted to mention it. Yeah, well, I think she did call twice, but still, I think those those calls were back to back. Well, yeah, but that was the two-time call where it's like, I'm calling the first time and I'm hanging up after two rings and I'm calling again and now you know it's mom. Not like I called her twice.

I suppose if I'm thinking about it in this sense, if they did have this special call setup between the two of them, if you had that call setup and your child didn't answer, I guess that could be the reason for concern, it's just strange that she has this sense like she needs to drive home. But anyway, back into the story. As soon as Donald heard that there was blood involved, meaning that something had definitely happened to his daughter, he flew straight to Tupelo, Mississippi. In the meantime, search parties gathered around Tupelo in the days

following Lee's disappearance, and they searched the wooded areas next to Lee's house for any trace of her, but they didn't come up with anything that could help their investigation. When Donald arrived to Tupelo, he didn't believe that he was looking for his living daughter. He felt that she had died the day she went missing, just based on the blood. He felt that someone had gone into his daughter's home and for some unknown reason, beater to death. He just couldn't imagine who would do this and why. But of course, he continued to search for her along with the rest of the community. During the search, Donald suggested that maybe his ex-wife, Vicki, knew more than she was leading on. And he wasn't the only one to feel

that way. Even some neighbors were suggesting it, and although part of Donald couldn't believe that Vicki would do something like that to her, he couldn't help but feel it could be true, which I think says a lot, because we read a lot of stories where someone says, even if the person is guilty, and at someone they knew, they're like, oh my god, that he seemed like such a good guy. So to have a feeling that they could be capable of it in at least some way, says a lot, I think. Yeah, I definitely think that says a lot.

And especially, I mean, I know that they're divorced, but at the same time, I mean, this is the mother of your daughter. And you have this feeling that she could be involved. I think you're right about that feeling. Well, and even not hatred aside, I don't, again, I don't know what their relationship was, it didn't seem like it was all that good at all, but it didn't seem like they were really enemies either, necessarily. So I feel like even if you dislike your ex, you're not going to say they're capable of

murder if you don't think they kind of are. Yeah, and so let's get it a little bit into who Vicki is. When Donald and Vicki met, she was studying Korean as well as interrogation techniques. So she was a trained interrogator with the US Army. She was incredibly intelligent. So Donald believes that Vicki knew how to act while being questioned, but he also didn't think that the police had ever dealt with anyone of Vicki's caliber. But at the same time, Vicki failed three polygraph tests regarding Lee's disappearance, one

done by the police, and two done by the FBI. So there are a lot of suspicions regarding Vicki. And something that's kind of weird to me is that he mentions that she was an interrogator so she knew how to be questioned, but then she fails through polygraphs. So those don't really coincide. Yeah, I don't know how those work out together. And but also at the same time we've talked about polygraphs and everybody has their feelings on them and you know we have our feelings on them as well. And we will get into that too. So we're not gonna weigh too much on that right now. And I do want to say it's really tough because we don't want

to be the assholes who points fingers at the grieving parent who very well could have had their child taken away from them with absolutely no involvement on their part but it can be difficult to avoid asking the hard questions was the involved? That's the toughest question in any investigation, whether you're dealing with, you know, the husband of a murdered wife or the parent of a murdered child. I mean, the toughest thing I think for police to do is to say, hey, I know you're the family member, but I have to look at you. Well, those are the first people you ask anyway, is the people closest to the victim. And that's why it's so hard in this case, because obviously we are talking a little bit about Vicki as many other podcasts and TV shows and articles and Reddit posts, etc.

We'll say. So it's just part of the protocol. Yeah, of course. And we're also talking about a missing slash disappearance case. So with these kind of cases, there's going to be theories out there. So let's have a look at the timeline. Vicki told police that she left the house around 7.35 a.m. There are no witnesses to confirm this, but she arrived at work at 7.50 a.m.

Which was confirmed. So we know she at least got to work at 7.50am and she told police that she got back to the house at around 8.45am. Just one hour after leaving. That means within that hour that she was gone, someone would have had to have gone into the house, assaulted and or killed Lee, attempted to clean up part of it since we know it looked like someone was trying to wipe up the blood and then someone got away and brought daylight in a suburban neighborhood without anyone seeing. Hey guys, are the stresses of life getting you down, or is there anything holding you back from achieving your full potential? You need to check out BetterHelp.

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You can download best fiends for free on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That's friends without the R, best fiends. Before that quick break, we were talking about the timeline of the morning that lead disappeared, and how there was only an hour window. First question is, why did this person try to clean it up? I was thinking maybe they bled a little. I mean, there was a ton of blood throughout the house, so starting to clean up doesn't really make sense because obviously there's blood on the freaking floor, on the walls, there's blood in so many places, it would be incredibly hard to just clean all this up and what would be your real motivation to clean up the crime scene anyway.

Right, so in response to that first question, I just want to say that if somebody had come into the home and was trying to abduct or kill Lee, they're not really going to give a shit about the house or trying to clean it up because like we said, this is before DNA, so they're not really worried about DNA testing or anything like that. So there's no reason for them to want to clean up the house. That's not their house. And it wasn't really like they cleaned up a lot of it. Like we said, there was blood in the sink and it looked like some of it had been wiped away. so obviously someone had gone to the sink I don't know who it was, but what's most shocking to me is how this person would have gotten away without being noticed

Like we've said there was a terrible storm approaching so it was rainy and dark and gloomy, but it was still around 8 a.m In August, so there was some light in the sky for sure Definitely not dark enough to cover something like this up. Especially since the house was out in the open at the end of a cold attack. There wasn't a ton of trees in the yard or anything that could disguise this crime, and we know that it wasn't the grandmother since she had not gotten to the house yet. You know, she didn't plan to go there until very much later on, kind of early evening late afternoon, to go to the open house. So Lee was scheduled to be home alone all day long.

In an interview with Donald, he stated that Vicki had a very bad temper, and he felt like she could have done something to Lee in a fit of rage, even if it was by accident, and then she tried to cover it up. He also thinks that the time frame was off that morning. He doesn't see how someone could have committed the crime and that perfectly small window. He started speculating that Vicki could have killed Lee the night before and then used the next morning to cover it up and tell the story of how she stumbled upon the scene. He says that Vicki was a serious neat freak and the night before Lee disappeared, which was August 26, 1992, someone who knew Vicki had seen her at a

car wash getting her car completely cleaned out. And also, days after Lee's disappearance, someone also came forward stating that they saw Vicki throwing something away in the dumpster near her work on the morning of Lee's disappearance. And when they did search these dumpsters, since it was days later, they didn't find anything relevant, but they did find blood. And these results got lost for a while somehow, but were then eventually found, and it turned out to be dog blood.

So they didn't think it was relevant, but that is just a little suspicious to me that the results were lost and then later found. This whole case is so like messy. And I also wanted to note that Donald wasn't being super vocal saying that Vicki did it. He was kind of nonchalant about it. He mentioned it as a possibility because he saw how it could be true.

He stayed in the area for about a month helping find Lee with his new wife Kathy. He wasn't just some asshole who was going around pointing fingers, he just wanted justice for his daughter and he really didn't know who did it, but the fact that he did know Vicki, he wanted to at least tell police, hey, this could be a possibility. But he wasn't, you know, starting a witch hunt for her and going to her door kind of thing. It wasn't that dramatic. Right. This wasn't like a, I hate you because you're my ex and I want to do something malicious, like pen our daughter's murder on you. Right. I just wanted to bring that up because we have stated that he was at least somewhat vocal about Vicky potentially being innocent,

but he did that in interviews years later, as well as just to the police. One other thing that we feel like we should mention is that the crime scene was botched. After Lee's disappearance was reported, Vicki was seen cleaning the front door of the house. Police didn't seal off the inside of the house right away, and although they looked outside, they didn't take any swabs or collect any evidence outside. And then Vicki cleans up, wiping away any potential evidence. And it wasn't until 10 days later that investigators collected any evidence at all.

And during these 10 days, Vicki was living inside the house. And she wasn't considered a suspect, but many had their suspicions about her. And she was just living in the house potentially doing away with any evidence because investigators didn't collect anything immediately like they should have. Police also brought in canines, but they weren't able to create a scent trail because of the storms. And I know this is probably likely in a lot of cases if it's stormy or raining, that could potentially wash away some of the evidence and that could throw off the bloodhounds as well.

The other interesting thing to me is that they allowed Vicki to continue to live in the house. Even though I know that she wasn't considered a suspect at this point, still, it's a crime scene. She should have either been put in a motel or been able to state her parents house or what have you. I read that they didn't want to make her leave her own home, but and I understand that. But at the same time, if you're not going to collect the evidence, then you need to seal off the crime scene and nobody is allowed there. If they had collected the evidence day up and cleaned up and they were done with it, that's totally different. But to not really take any evidence, just to kind of take note of what you're seeing and not swab for DNA on the door knob or anything else, and then just let her live there where she's obviously going to clean up. What?

And also I think the hard part about this is the fact that Vicki lives in that house. So maybe in some weird way in the police mind, they were thinking, well, we're going to find Vicki's DNA all over this house. So there's really no point in us swapping for DNA or any other things like that. But they were looking for an outsider. They were looking for a potential intruder, a killer, a stranger, an unknown assailant. So they should have absolutely swabbed everything to try and get somebody else's DNA, and that's how they would have determined if somebody else could have been in that house. Sure. Because obviously Vicki's DNA, and I know that's what you mean, is that obviously her DNA is in the house, it's her freaking house.

But you still need to get other persons DNA to determine who could have done this crime. The weirdest part to me is that it's not like she was here this morning and now she's gone. There was blood everywhere. Something bad happened. It's very obvious. Take your evidence. Well, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. I guess what I'm trying to get across is that if it was an outsider or an intruder, regardless, regardless, it's a crime scene. You still need to collect the evidence, whatever it may be. And I know that they didn't have the foresight to think about DNA testing because this was

92, and maybe this was coming on, but still collect the evidence every single time. That's also a good point. These were different times, but still, guys. There was one reported sighting of Lee, and it was in Boone'sville, Mississippi, which is just 32 miles or 52 kilometers north of Tupelo about eight days after Lee went missing. A McDonald's employee said that they had spotted a girl who they believed was Lee in their drive-through, and police went and investigated this possible lead, but it turned out not to be her. I read that they determined it wasn't her, but I could not find any more details on that unfortunately. And by the way,

Lee was Caucasian, fair-skinned, four-foot, ten inches tall, and 95 pounds. She had blonde hair, hazel eyes, and her left eye was slightly lazy. She had a strawberry birthmark at the base of her skull, and some small scratch scars on her right leg. Both her ears were pierced and she wore eye glasses. Police brought in Barney Yarborough for questioning. He was given a polygraph test which he passed and he had a solid alibi which checked out for the morning that Lee disappeared. There was a rumor going round that he was abusive towards Lee but those accusations were never proved.

All we read to confirm any kind of negativity regarding Barney and a relation to Lee was on one account when Lee called her boyfriend crying saying that Barney had locked her out of the house. Please had also apparently told Donald Lee's dad that Barney had locked her out of the house. Police had also apparently told Donald, Lee's dad, that Barney had admitted to abusing Lee at some point. On top of that, Lee was a part of an on-campus group that involved kids who had an unstable home life. A teacher even told police that Lee seemed to have a tough life at home

and that sometimes she was afraid to go home from school because she didn't want to get a spanking. Barney helped search for Lee along with the rest of the family, so please let him go basically. Donald, Lee's father, who also passed a polygraph and had a confirmed alibi, believes that Barney could have possibly known what happened to Lee. He had met Barney on one occasion and wasn't the biggest fan of him, so that biased could factor into his beliefs. And I forgot to mention earlier that Lee had a boyfriend, so I don't know much about him. I could not find anything about him online other than the fact that she had a boyfriend, but there's just a couple of kids, you know, so it wasn't anything really serious. On September 9, 1992, so 13 days after Lee went missing, Lee's glasses were shipped through the mail to her home.

The package was addressed to B. Yarborough, and strangely enough, postmarked from Boonsville, which was where that sighting of her at McDonald's was. And, remember, B. Yarborough is Barney Yarborough, Lee's stepfather and the man who her mom Vicki had recently separated from. This was huge because this made police feel like whoever took her was playing some sort of game maybe. On the package, their street name was spelled wrong. They lived on Honey Locust Drive and the person just wrote Honey Locust, but spelled Honey, H-O-N-Y, so they were missing the letter E. Also, the envelope had six stamps when in reality it only needed about three stamps. And I think the reason that they over-stamped was to ensure the package would send. Since there was obviously no return address, if they didn't put enough stamps, the package would not be delivered.

So this I think was their way of making sure the package arrived at the home. And if I remember correctly, the zodiac killer did the same thing with his letters to San Francisco, Chronicle, etc. The reasoning behind this makes the most sense to me since the envelope was dropped in a mailbox and not taken properly into the post office to be weighed. There was nothing else inside the envelope, just the glasses. So this is a very, very eerie thing to show up at your doorstep. No ransom note or cryptic messages, so please wondered what the point of sending them was

at all. Because this wasn't the killer saying, hey, I have Lee, do as I say. So what did it mean? The FBI actually got involved in this and had the forensic testing done, but didn't find anything of use. Even the stamp had been adhered using water, not saliva. Meaning this person was thinking ahead. They didn't want to be caught.

The handwriting was tested as well, and They didn't want to be caught. The handwriting was tested as well, and they didn't find any relevant matches. I haven't seen this handwriting analysis. I don't know what the package looked like, so I wish I knew a little bit more about this because I think handwriting analysis is important, but at the same time, you got two hands, you know. Yeah, I mean, it is a tool, definitely, but I think that there's people out there who can beat that.

It can be fibbed. And this kind of has to make you wonder, though, if the sighting of Lee was really her at the McDonald's drive-thru in Boonsville, even though it was a nearby town, it just seems like a really odd coincidence. Also, I'm not sure again how they determined that it would have been someone else because I doubt that in 1992 drive-thrues had cameras, but I'm not entirely sure, I don't know.

I looked it up, couldn't find anything. It's possible that the McDonald's employee got the license plate and police checked it out and realized that it wasn't Lee. Yeah, details like that I don't know, I couldn't find that in any of my research, so if somebody else knows out there, let me know. So over a year passed, and the case went cold. The police didn't have any more leads to follow, and they didn't have any real suspects in the case at all.

But on November 9, 1993, a human skull was found in a soybean field in Monroe County, which is the county that neighboured where Lee lived. The skull was found in a ditch by a farmer who called the police to report it. After comparing dental records, police determined that the skull belonged to Lee Ochi. But this was another thing that was botched by police. Because after further investigation, it was determined that the skull didn't belong to Lee. But instead, to a 27-year-old woman named Pollyanna Sue Keith,

who had been reported missing about four months earlier in March 1993. Yes, so they really messed that up by claiming that that was Lee's skull. How does that even happen? And I don't know if it was police who made the wrong call or if it was the forensic analysis or whomever did that testing. But how do you mess that up? Like a 13 year old girl versus a 27 year old girl

in a different county? It's so weird. What? Yeah, I think that it's possible that police just really wanted something. and so they're like, oh, we found a school, it's gotta be Lee's, and maybe they just came out with it before even getting it tested. The thing is, the thing is here, is that you shouldn't mention that something is a fact if it's not a fact.

Well, it makes you wonder if something got mixed up, and maybe it really wasn't. They're fault completely because those kinds of things happen happen I'm sure, but I don't know. It's weird. Unfortunately, this case is still unsolved. And no one is more frustrated about that than Lee's family and friends who just want to see justice served. There are no official suspects in this case, but there is definitely more to discuss. Lee's mom, Vicki, firmly believes that a man named Oscar, known as Mike, Kerns, is responsible for the abduction and death of her daughter.

He was a man who lived in the area who knew Lee through church. Just nine months after Lee disappeared, Mike Kerns actually abducted a 15-year-old girl from her home in Memphis, Tennessee, just about a two-hour drive from Tupelo, and then he sexually assaulted her and released her, and he had met his victim through church as well. Mike Currens pleaded guilty to rape and was sentenced to eight years in prison for this crime, but he only ended up serving four years. Once he was released in 1998, he offended yet again. This time, he kidnapped a married couple and raped the wife. He was once again caught for this crime and was sent back to prison in 1999. So it's believed by Vicki and speculated by others that Mike was watching the house that morning, knowing that Lee was in there by herself. And as soon as he saw Vicki drive away, he went watching the house that morning, knowing that Lee was in there by herself.

And as soon as he saw Vicki drive away, he went into the house, hurt Lee, and took her with him. Clearly, this guy is a repeat offender, but it's kind of weird to me that the two crimes that he committed after Lee's disappearance, he was caught for them because he didn't kill them. He assaulted them and then he let them go. So why go into Lee's house and immediately hurt her?

It could have been an accident as he or someone else was trying to abduct her, maybe it went wrong, she ended up getting hurt and then he had to take her out of the house. It just doesn't make them much sense to me. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. I think that if a pedophile was going into the house with the sole intention of abducting this young child, he would have abducted her and probably sexually assaulted her in a different place because he obviously doesn't know when the mom's gonna be home if anybody else was scheduled to come by the house. So he's not gonna risk getting caught in the act. I feel like if he was gonna do something, he would have grabbed her, snatched her up, and took her somewhere else. Along with the Mike Kern's theory, it's also believed that this was possibly done by a stranger who had been watching the house for some time,

taking notes on the family's schedule to know exactly when to make their move. We know that Vicki failed three polygraph tests, but we also know that you can't really rely much on polygraph tests anyway. We know that Vicki failed three polygraph tests, but we also know that we can't rely much on polygraph tests anyways because they're admissible in court, especially when they involve someone who's very emotionally involved in the case. Going back to the crime scene, why would the killer leave the nightgown in the hamper? Because it seems like the killer would have had to have changed Lee out of her clothes.

The blood found on the nightgown was clearly what she was wearing when she was attacked or injured. But that was in the hamper and some of her new clothes were missing. It's also weird that a sleeping bag was missing. Why didn't the killer just wrap Lee in a sheet or a blanket and tail out of there instead of going to look for a sleeping bag? And again, the timeline just seemed so tight. A big thing for me in this case is the motive and the risk. If this crime did in fact take place that morning between 7.45 AM and 8.45 AM, that would be a massive risk for the person involved.

Unless it was someone who knew specifically that Lee was home alone, there could have been a dad in the kitchen getting ready for work and a living room full of kids putting their shoes on for school or having breakfast with their parents. This was a four bedroom house in a cul-de-sac, a family neighborhood. And it was at that early time in the morning when people are still getting ready, they're still in the house. This wasn't 10 or 11 a.m. you know, like a more obvious time in the morning when people are still getting ready, they're still in the house. This wasn't 10 or 11 a.m. you know, like a more obvious time when the house could be empty. And nothing was taken from the home.

So this wasn't a case of a guy trying to rob a house and it went wrong. That wasn't the motive here, but then what was it? Why would someone go into the house, kill Lee, change her clothes, wrap her up in a sleeping bag, and leave all within 45 minutes to an hour? And with no one seeing anything suspicious, especially since the injury is heavily believed to have been a head injury, why would a guy go in there, throw Lee against a wall, and leave with her? I have never read a murder case like that, which doesn't mean it's not possible, but still.

And when little girls are involved, like Heath said, it's usually sexually motivated, unfortunately, and that didn't seem like the situation here because of the head injury idea, to me at least. If it was sexually motivated, you'd assume the guy would just go in and abduct her, like Heath said, and high-tail out of there. Not give her a potentially fatal wound and try to clean up the scene and then leave, and then mail her glasses to her mom. It just makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense to me as much as I hate to say it is that she and her mom got in a fight and Vicki took it too far

completely by accident and then she covered it up. Or possibly not by accident as well. I mean we also have to think about the fact that Barney and Lee's relationship wasn't all that great and I think it was pretty well known that they didn't really like each other all that much and it's also possible that when Barney and Vicki split up, maybe Vicki felt like it was because of Lee. So maybe she was taking her anger out on Lee and we know that she has a short temper, so that's very plausible. Absolutely agree with you there, that's a really good point to bring up.

And something we failed to mention earlier that's really important here is the blood was still fresh and wet when the police arrived, meaning this crime had to have taken place that morning at some point, potentially in the window when Vicki was gone, or right before she left, depending on who you think did it. Earlier on in this case, you know, I originally, when I was doing the research, I originally thought that maybe Vicki did it the night before, and that's why she was at the car wash that night, but the blood would have been dry by the next day,

so that wouldn't make any sense. That's a huge piece of evidence in this case is the blood. Yeah, and to me, I just, I have to wonder how long it takes for blood to coagulate and to become that, like, kind of dry consistency. Well, I'm thinking about it like, if I cut my leg, like shaving or something, you know? I, it bleeds, I'm thinking about it like if I cut my leg like shaving or something, you know,

I, it bleeds, I was thinking about this a lot, I was researching this. I, it will bleed for a while or at least won't be healed and then I would say probably within a couple hours it starts to slightly dry up and like coagulate. I think we both said coagulate and we meant congeal. Yeah, sometimes we get shit mixed up on this podcast so don't hate us. slightly dry up and like coagulate. I think we both said coagulate and we meant congeal. Yeah, sometimes we get shit mixed up on this podcast, so don't hate us. So yeah, I think it takes at least a couple hours

for the blood to congeal, at least congeal, but there's a difference between congeal blood and dry blood because congeal blood is still somewhat wet. Yeah, it's kind of like that sticky gooey consistency. Right, so I don't know the exact details of if it was slightly congealed or if it was like fresh wet dripping, you know what I mean? But I just read that it was fresh. It's also very, very hard for us to speculate on this when we haven't seen photos of the crime scene. I mean, the photos of the crime scene, that's not a public record, that's not something that you get to see. We're basically just going

on the information that we have. So if you guys think something else, you know, you can always let us know. Also, there was no sign of forced entry. It's unlikely that Vicki would have left the door unlocked that morning if she were so worried about leaving Lee. But if Vicki was in fact guilty, if she was so worried about leaving Lee. But if Vicki was in fact guilty, wouldn't she want to leave the front door unlocked so that it seems like someone came in and abducted her daughter? Right, because otherwise she would have had to have staged a break in. Because if she came home and the door was unlocked

or told the police the door was locked, they'd be like, how? Right, and then it makes it even more fishy for her if she's trying to cover up a Murder just they're rising here guys. Yeah, and I know that there's some listeners out there and some people have mentioned in the past that They don't like when we speculate on these cases, but you know, give us a fucking break This is a missing person's case. There's gonna be theories. I mean, there's theories all over the place about this case. And I feel like it's so important

to discuss missing persons cases that are unsolved because hopefully they could be solved or at least give people more information about a missing person. And that's why I love talking about unsolved cases. So obviously we have to speculate or else what's the freaking point. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I got a lot of respect for people that are out there that have their own

theories or things that Daphne and I haven't even thought of. Going back to the glasses that were sent, so the person mispelled their address and they used multiple stamps of course because I'm sure they just didn't want it to fail to be sent. This town is only about a 30 minute drive away from where Lee lived. So what I'm thinking is that it's very possible that I since we're on the topic of Vicki, I'm just gonna say it. It's possible that she wrote the address wrong on purpose so that it could kind of throw the police off, I'm not really sure. Right, like, oh well, she couldn't have written this because she knows her own address.

Right. And to me, if the killer was trying to taunt the police by sending this, why were they so careful about making sure that there was no trace? Again, I'm going back to the zodiac killer. He sent in ciphers and just like just so much shit to the police, just are the police and the newspapers and everything just over and over and over again, because so much shit to the police, just the police and the newspapers and everything just over and over and over again because he wanted attention. But he, and he was very careful with not leaving DNA either.

Obviously, those were even earlier times. He still was like, oh, figure this side for out and you'll find my name. This wasn't like that. It was just like, here's the glasses, like nothing else. So at that point, why risk it at all by sending the package? What is the purpose?

Unless you're just a very sadistic person and you want to taunt the family of the victim, I just don't see really why, I guess. And in this point, you'd think, oh, well, this person's just looking for ransom. Here's the glasses so that you know that I have your daughter. I want a million dollars or what have you But this just seems too odd and that's why I think that it's very likely that this had been a distraction to throw the police off and Police thought that as well. They believe that it was a distraction because of the fact that there wasn't a ransom note Again, we hate to point the blame towards Lee's mom, Vicki, because if she wasn't involved, it's absolutely horrible that she's being looked at, but it's not impossible that she was involved, and it's important to discuss all the possibilities to find justice for Lee Ochi.

About two years after Lee's disappearance, Vicki and Barney officially divorced. Vicki now lives in Michigan and in December 1996, so about four years after Lee's disappearance, Barney died of lupus. Today, Lee would be 40 years old and turning 41 this fall. If you know anything about what happened to Lee Ochi, please call the Tupelo Police Department at 622-841-6491. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everybody and if you have any thoughts or theories on this case, make sure you head over to our Instagram at Going West Podcast.

Leave us a comment or you can visit us over at Twitter at Going West Pod. Let us know what you think. Also, if you need more quarantine content, head on over to patreon.com slash Going West Podcast. We have 11 bonus episodes up right now to go check them out. And don't forget to go check out our new merch. We're super excited about the new designs. Our buddy Nick, who is an incredible designer, made these designs for us and you guys are

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