The Deck - Randall Leach (4 of Hearts, Idaho)

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Our card this week is Randy Leach, the 4 of Hearts from Idaho. In 1980, when Randy Leach was 20 years old, he decided to take a break from college to hitchhike through the American west. It was supposed to be a journey of self-discovery and a way for the Wisconsin man to learn about different religions and ways of life, and it was exactly that … until Leach disappeared from a dairy farm in Idaho. If you think you had any interaction with Randy Leach in the fall of 1980 during his travels in the American West, the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin urges you to call them at 920-459-3111.  To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org

Our card this week is Randy Leach, the four of hearts from Idaho. When Randy was 20 years old, he decided to take a break from college and hitchhike through the American West. What was supposed to be a journey of self-discovery turned into a mystery that 42 years later remains unsolved. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. On November 26, 1980, Marjorie and Richard Leach were at home in northern Wisconsin preparing for Thanksgiving, as they eagerly awaited a phone call from their 20-year-old son Randy, who was hitchhiking out west to visit some relatives.

The couple stayed close to the phone because it had been a few weeks since they had last heard from Randy and they had a lot of catching up to do. But Thanksgiving Eve came and went and Randy never called. Marjorie thought it was weird because, usually, her son was good about checking in at least once a week since he left home on November 1st. But the last time the leeches had heard from Randy was on November 6th. Marjorie remembered that phone call vividly because it had been her birthday. During their conversation, Randy wished her a happy birthday and told her that he had taken a job at a dairy farm in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and that he might

head toward California and Oregon soon. Randy said that he was taken a job at a dairy farm in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and that he might head toward California and Oregon soon. Randy said that he was especially excited to visit his sister Renee at her new house in Bend, Oregon, which was his eventual destination. But for most of the month of November, Renee and her husband were in the process of moving, so Randy told Marjorie that he felt it was probably best to give them a few weeks to get settled in, and then he'd start making his way to Bend through Northern California. He said there was a tow-foo farm that he was interested in, and he might try to get a job there while he killed some time on the road. During that call, Randy also assured his parents not to worry about him if

they didn't hear from him for a few days, because he would probably be on the road. So, they tried not to. They didn't love that he was thumbing it out west, but his consistent check-ins from gas station payphones put them more at ease. Not only would they get to hear his voice and know that he was okay, but he charged nearly every call to his parents. So that was another way that they'd been able

to keep track of him during his trip. Even though Randy had failed to contact them the day before Thanksgiving, Marjorie and Richard tried not to get too worried. Since Randy said had failed to contact them the day before Thanksgiving, Marjorie and Richard tried not to get too worried since Randy said that he would be on the road without immediate access to phones. They assured one another that they would probably hear from him on Thanksgiving Day. Randy always checked in on birthdays and holidays, no matter where he was. But Thanksgiving Day rolled around and by late afternoon, Randy still had not called them.

So they started making calls. They called Randy's sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, and no one else had heard from or seen Randy either. The leeches could no longer ignore their fear that something wasn't right. Richard went to the Shaboykin County Sheriff's Office, his local law enforcement agency to report his son missing. He told an on-duty deputy what he knew, which was that Randy was hitchhiking out west, and the last place they knew him to be was Idaho, where he was working on a dairy farm. He had called them from Idaho on November 6th around 5pm and said things

were going well. But since then, Richard said he and his wife had not heard from their son. The officer asked if they'd tried reaching back out to him at the dairy farm where he worked, and they had, but when they called, a person who answered the phone told him that Randy had left, and that he didn't leave any forwarding address information. Richard told the Wisconsin deputy all about Randy's plans to go to California or Oregon next, but they didn't think he was just traveling and out of touch because he should have been there by now. And there was one other big reason Richard said that he was so worried about his son. Randy didn't have his photo ID on him. Richard explained that on November 4th, so two days before his last phone call home, Randy had called the house and asked his dad to

mail his driver's license to the dairy farm in Idaho. According to Shaboykin County Sheriff's Detective Tyler Wiesenhawgan, the owner of the dairy farm had asked for his ID in order to hire him. Richard told police he dropped his son's driver's license in the mail, addressed to Reed's dairy farm in care of Randy Leach. But a few days later, someone at the farm told Richard that Randy had left before receiving his ID in the mail. When Richard heard that, he thought it was weird, but figured his son just forgot about it.

Richard told the employee at the dairy farm that he would just arrange to have it forwarded to California once he knew where Randy would be staying. The Shaboykin County Sheriff's Office took down the information and told Richard that they would reach out to law enforcement in Idaho to see what they could find out. When they made contact someone at the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office in Eastern Idaho said that they would ask a detective to go have a chat with the owner of the farm and get the scoop on Randy's whereabouts. The next day, Detective Clyde Burgess drove out to Reed's dairy farm to visit the owner,

a guy named Larry Reed. The farm was just on the outskirts of Idaho Falls, Idaho, a small city about three hours north of Salt Lake City, Utah. During their interview with Larry, authorities in Idaho slowly started teasing together Randy's last known movements, and the last time anyone had seen him. Larry told Detective Burgess that Randy had shown up at their dairy store on November 4th asking if he could have a temporary job. Mr. Reed was overhearing Randy talking about traveling west, and they got to talking and offered him a place to stay for a couple days and some work for a couple days.

According to reports from 1980 that detectives shared with us, Randy told Larry that he was hitchhiking across the country and he couldn't stick around for very long but that he could use a job for a couple of days before hitting the road again. Larry said he agreed to give Randy some work in a handshake deal. Larry would provide lodging and meals and a little cash, and Randy would help him finish building a shed on the farm. Back then, Larry had two other farm hands working for him, and they slept in a bunk house on the property.

After taking the job, Randy was given the option to sleep on the couch in the bunk house with the other two men, and he agreed, no problem. On that first night, November 4th, Randy joined the reads for dinner at their home. The reads were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Larry said he'd also invited a couple of missionaries to dinner, so Randy could learn about their Mormon faith. There's limited information about exactly how the topic of religion first came up. Most of it came solely from Larry's interview, but according to police the missionaries got to the reads at 7 p.m And Larry, his wife Carol, Randy and the two elders all shared a meal together

Detective Burgess asked Larry what Randy's demeanor was like during his stay at the farm and Larry said he seemed like a nice smart young man During dinner Larry said Randy had talked about how he was fascinated by different cultures and religions. Larry said they all had a nice time, and Randy had asked the missionaries a lot of questions about the Mormon fate. And before everyone parted ways around 9.30pm, the men gave Randy a copy of the Book of Mormon. Little else is known about that evening beyond what Larry told Detective Burgess, because police never tracked down or interviewed the two missionaries.

It's something Detective Wieston Hoggan wishes he knew more about. Why would you have these two guys come talk to this guy that just showed up to work for a couple days like how in depth was this conversation about religion that like these guys had to come and talk and give a Bible to and it's just odd. Elders or missionaries are basically recruiters for the LDS faith. A lot of people who live in Eastern Idaho are LDS, so while talking religion at dinner and giving someone the book of Mormon might sound a little strange or even aggressive to some of us, it probably wasn't uncommon for someone like Larry Reid to invite these missionaries

over to try and convert Randy. When police pushed Larry about what happened the rest of Randy's time there, he said the next morning on November 5th, he and Randy got up early to continue building the shed. When they were working, Randy mentioned kind of off-hand that he heard snow was in the forecast, and he said he might need to hit the road sooner than he thought because of the weather, but he assured Larry that he would stay until they finished the shed. Larry said during that conversation, Randy also mentioned that he wasn't interested in seeing the missionaries again, and for Larry not to expect him for dinner because he decided to fast that day. To the reads, Randy seemed like he was really looking forward

to getting to his sister's house in Oregon. He talked fondly of his whole family, and Larry said that he seemed to call them often. The next day, November 6th, Randy helped finish the shed construction, and around 5 p.m., he borrowed the reed's phone to call his mom to wish her a happy birthday. It was on that call that Randy told his mom he might head to California before going to Oregon and not to worry about him. They said they're I love yous, and then hung up. When Randy got off the phone, Larry's wife Carol offered to do Randy's laundry before he left the farm, and Randy gave her a pair of jeans to wash, according to reports. Larry told authorities the last time he laid eyes on Randy

was between 6.30 and 7.30 am the next morning on November 7th. the next morning on November 7th. Larry had said that he was walking from his house to the dairy building and saw Randy walking down the road. Basically, there was no conversation. As far as him leaving, he just said he saw him walking away. Larry said after seeing Randy walking east toward the highway that went to town, he walked over to the bunk house and realized Randy had cleaned out all of his stuff, which he thought was weird since he didn't say goodbye, or even stranger, come to get the paycheck

he'd been working for. Larry told police he then went to the farm's business office and calculated Randy's hours from the last couple of days work and wrote him a check in case he decided to come back. Then, he said he went to his house and told his wife Carol that he believed Randy had left the farm for good. She thought his departure odd two since Randy had forgotten his genes that she just washed the night before.

Larry said he grabbed Randy's paycheck and pants and drove down the highway to see if he could maybe catch Randy walking or trying to hitchhike. But after driving a few miles, Larry said he didn't find him, so he went back home and stashed the jeans and check in case the young man came back or called. But the reads didn't hear from Randy again after that, and they didn't think much about it until law enforcement had contacted them. When the Idaho detective asked Larry if there had been any conflict while Randy was at the farm, Larry said no. But then admitted that he had, quote, landed pretty hard on Randy for his poor workmanship. According to police reports, Larry later wondered if maybe his criticism of Randy's handy skills had discouraged him, and maybe that had

something to do with why he'd taken off so abruptly. Detective Burgess' interview with Larry was the unofficial start of the investigation into Randy Leach's whereabouts, but a formal investigation didn't really take off right away. Despite Randy's parents and siblings being really worried about him, police in Wisconsin and Idaho said that the best thing the family could do was just wait it out. Law enforcement felt confident that eventually,

Randy would check in with his parents and assure them that all was well. But another week went by and the Leech family still had not heard from Randy. On December 1st, 1980, his dad Richard went back to the Shabwagon County Sheriff's Office to reiterate his concerns. Richard personally knew the deputy inspector, a guy named Robert Thurman, who oversaw investigations

there at the time. Inspector Thurman met with him, but he said there was little the department could do. If Randy didn't want to call his family, he was 20 years old and that was his right. But Inspector Thurman promised to try and keep tabs on things as a personal favor to Richard since they were friends. Richard emphasized that there was zero chance his son would willingly cut off contact with them. The Lee family was very close and Randy was bright, responsible, and had big plans for his future. In Richard's comments about Randy weren't just him being a proud dad either. Randy was exceptionally smart and mature.

When he was a senior in high school in 1978, he'd won a national scholarship contest, beating more than 350,000 other students. There's a Shaboygan press article from 1978 titled The Wiz Winds, which shows a photo of Randy smiling big and looking right at the camera with his hand on a globe. He won with an essay he wrote about the US arms race and sealed the deal by wowing the judges through an interview process where he answered questions about the United States relations with the Middle East. When he graduated, Randy told the Shaboykin press that he wanted to pursue a career in international relations and diplomacy.

He joked that he, quote, wouldn't mind being Secretary of State." After graduating high school, Randy enrolled in a local community college in Wisconsin and then transferred to a college in East Africa where he studied social justice issues and volunteered with refugee camps. His dad later told the Shabuigan Press that when Randy got home from studying abroad in December of 1979, he seemed disillusioned, shaken, not himself, and also showed signs of being malnourished. Here's a voice actor reading Richard's statement about his son. Culture shock, perhaps. The play to Ethiopian refugees was especially distressing to him,

and he had tried to aid them, not as a well-fed outsider watching their suffering, but as one of them, hungry too. After he'd returned to Wisconsin, Randy had decided to press pause on his college studies. In the summer of 1980, Randy took a job at a dairy farm near home, but that gig didn't last for long. After seeing the Carson and Barnes circus perform, he decided to take a job with the performers. People who knew Randy later said that the subculture of the circus life appealed to him.

He got very involved in the community surrounding his work and had attended prayer meetings with a Native American man known as Chief, who also worked at the circus. Reportedly, through those prayer meetings, Randy became what he referred to as a born-again Christian. meetings, Randy became what he referred to as a born-again Christian. By the end of October 1980, Randy had left the circus, and a few weeks after that, set out on his cross-country hitchhike journey. To appease Richard, Shabbwagon County deputies contacted the Sheriff's Office in Idaho again in December, and they said as far as they could tell, Randy Leach left their jurisdiction on November 7th unharmed.

They based their assumption off their earlier interview with Larry Reed. Meanwhile, Randy's parents were calling any one they could think of who might be able to help them locate their son, including the Oregon State Police since Randy's eventual destination was Bend, Oregon. They also contacted law enforcement agencies in Northern California since Randy had mentioned that he might stop at a farm there. They even called farms in Northern California, but none of them were tofu farms. They said they didn't know of any tofu farms in the area.

Ultimately, not much came from any of those efforts. Though Oregon State Police did agree to file a missing persons report for Randy to keep his face on local police agencies radars. They listed him as a 20-year-old man with a slim build and brown bushy hair and the blue eyes. So, I mean, they were, I think, really involved in trying to do all they could, but kept running into these problems of who's problem is he. You know, like these chaboygens is he,

organs is he, Idaho's, I think they were just going to everyone to try and get what they could get done. By Christmas day, 1980, the leeches had no luck in finding their son or making contact with him. Please urge them to stay hopeful, but also said that since Randy was traveling in the mountains at the start of winter, there might have been some kind of accident and he could be dead. If that was the case, they said his body might not be discovered until spring when the snow melted.

The Leech family tried to keep their minds from going there, and they had a big reason not to believe that their son was dead. And that's because they told police in Wisconsin that someone had been calling them over and over again. And they thought that that someone was Randy. Not long after they reported Randy missing in November 1980, the Leech family started receiving mysterious phone calls, but every time they would answer, the caller didn't say anything. Richard told police, quote, we know it's an open-ended lie, but no one speaks, just silence.

End quote. Marjorie and Richard were getting these calls at their Wisconsin house, and Randy's sisters were getting them at their houses, too, even Renee, who lived in Oregon. They all told authorities this same thing that they could tell someone was on the other end of the line, but whoever it was never said anything. Here's a voice actor reading exactly what the officer wrote in his report after interviewing Randy's sister Michelle about the bizarre calls. Michelle explained that two or three times a week for several months they would receive

this type of hang-up call. No one would be on the line in terms of talking or having any conversation, but they could also tell someone else was there. Michelle's mother thought it was Randy calling so she would talk to him as if they were a Randy, even though no one was speaking Eventually the other children would do the same Michelle explained the reason they suspected it was Randy was because there were times in high school when they would use a pay phone to let them Know that they could be picked up after an activity

Michelle explained at that time if you put five or ten cents into the phone You could speak on the phone But if you did not put money in the pay phone you simply dialed the number and you would be able to make the call, but not be heard when you spoke. Marjorie and Richard tried to have the calls traced, but the effort didn't result in much. One of the calls that went to Renee in Bend, Oregon was traced to Southwest, Oregon. But the calls to the Leech family home in Wisconsin could only be categorized as long distance. It was pretty much a dead end. After months of these bizarre calls, the family couldn't do it anymore.

Here's Detective Weiston Hoggan again. Eventually they all felt foolish of speaking to nothing, and they knew he'd been able to make phone calls previously by charging him. So, he's got the ability to make phone calls. You know, why would he be doing this? When in the past they've never been a problem. So I think they kind of just gave up on it. When the new year rolled around, Randy's family couldn't take it anymore. They had to do something to make progress in the case with or without law enforcement's help. In January of 1981, two of his uncles headed out west to look for Randy.

They carried posters with his photo on them, taping them up in Idaho, California, Oregon, and Nevada. They wrote letters to Native American reservations, national parks, and colleges along roots that they thought Randy might have taken. Some people even responded to their letters, suggesting that the family check with everyone from psychics to cults to immigration authorities to see if Randy had used his passport. One letter suggested that maybe he'd returned to Africa

without telling anyone. The Leech family got Randy's name and turned into the national database for missing people. They also allowed an insurance investigator to do some digging in case his social security number was used somewhere, but nothing came up. Marjorie and Richard were desperate in doing everything they felt police should have been doing. They even widened their search and called law enforcement

and coroner's offices in Utah, Washington, Nevada, California, and Oregon, just to see if any unclaimed bodies had shown up. Randy's family members took turns taking trips out west looking for him. Winter turned to spring and by April of 1981, Marjorie and Richard again went to Idaho. They wanted to see for themselves the part of the country where their son had been living. Detectives aren't sure what exactly the leeches did while in Idaho. They just know that they were desperate to find out more and going out there felt better than sitting at home and doing nothing, but their trip ended in disappointment. They found out that the deputies with the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office had never actually

filed a Missing Persons report for Randy. The couple went home brokenhearted. They couldn't wrap their minds around the oversight. I mean, their son had vanished from Idaho. Why had he never been listed as a missing person there?" On May 3, 1981, the leeches sent a letter to the Bonneville County Sheriff. They wrote that, at the very least, detectives with the department should be able to answer some questions about the last known sighting of their son since he'd vanished in their

jurisdiction. Questions like, what time did Randy actually leave the Reed dairy farm? How did farmer Larry Reed know it was Randy that he saw leaving? When did it first occur to Larry that Randy left without his wages? How much money was owed to him? And what was done with the check? What was done with the jeans that Randy had left behind? Did Randy make any comments to the owners of the farm? Were there any cults in the area that law enforcement knew of?

Marjorie and Richard said in that letter that they were not implying that anyone at the farm did anything to Randy, but they wanted to know more about their son's last known contact before he vanished. Here's an excerpt from the letter read by an actor. Our son disappeared on a hitchhiking trip from South Dakota to Bend, Oregon, where he intended to visit his sister and stop to work at the redairy farm for a couple days. We had regular communication with him via telephone and letter until that time. We reported him missing to our Shaboykin County Sheriff when he did not contact us at Thanksgiving as planned. It is vital to establish Idaho Falls as a reference point for the investigation.

We are again enclosing all pertinent information and again respectfully request an official missing persons report be filed in your office. A few weeks later on May 19, 1981, the Bonneville County Sheriff responded to the leeches letter. It is apparent that he left this area of his own free will and in no danger. The reads who are very good members of our community state that the only problem Randall had was his uncertain thoughts on religion. We do not have any religious cults in this area. Michelle Michelle

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Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle

Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle Michelle O'Connor Michelle Michelle but he basically said that the case wasn't their problem. With reports on file in Shaboygan, Boise, Bend, and Sacramento besides our office, it appears that the situation is well covered, and if any leads or information is developed, you will be notified immediately.

Something that didn't sit right with the leeches was that the sheriff said Randy left Idaho Falls on his own, and in no danger, like it was a proven fact, when in reality, Bonneville County actually had no proof that Randy had left safely. And by calling the reads quote, very good members of the community, the sheriff basically admits that his agency just had taken the reads word for it that Randy left their farm unharmed. I imagine the leech family was disappointed in receiving such a dismissive letter from the

sheriff of the county where their son was last seen. I mean, I know I would be. The Leeches continued to conduct their own investigation and tried to think of all the possibilities regarding what could have happened to Randy. Like, maybe he became wrapped up in his spiritual journey and joined a commune. It seemed far-fetched, but they were desperate to hang on to hope that Randy was still alive. So in July 1981, Marjorie and Randy's sister Michelle

went back out west to see if they could find Randy with a group known as the Christ Family. The Christ Family was active in the 70s and early 80s in the Western US. According 80s in the Western US. According to reporting in the Muncie Star from June 1980, the Christ family was a religious cult scattered all around the country that preached against violence, sex, materialism, and eating meat. Another 1980 story in the Chico Enterprise Records stated that the Christ family was known to teach its members not to acknowledge their birth parents. And there's a ton of news stories from back then about parents from all over who were

trying to save their teenage or twenty-something children from the Christ family. Marjorie and Michelle stopped in various cities connecting with groups who were working to identify and save Christ family members. Because members took Christ as their last name and sometimes changed their first names, they thought maybe Randy had been brainwashed and forgotten who he was. But the leeches didn't find him, and they had to go back home once again with more questions than answers. When Marjorie's birthday came in November 1981, it was a grim reminder of the last time

she'd heard from her son. It had been an agonizing year for the family, and in an effort to express their pain and grief, they talked with a local Wisconsin newspaper. They had tried everything else up until that point, so they figured it couldn't hurt to get Randy's case some attention in the press. On November 6, 1981, a story with the headline, Where Is Randy Leach? Ran Across the Front Page of the Shabwagon Press. The article detailed Randy's success as a high school student,

his work in studies in Africa, and how he wanted to work for the United Nations someday. The piece talked about how he was a critical thinker, and not exactly the type to be brainwashed by a cult. The underlying question for everyone who read it was, how did a smart young man seemingly just disappear from a dairy farm in Idaho? But this blast of press didn't do much to advance the case.

Months passed with no new information. Only theories swirled as to what happened to Randy. In the summer of 1982, the Leech family set out on their third trip out west since Randy's disappearance. Richard spent 16 days driving over 4,000 miles trying to track down anyone who might have come in contact with his son the week that he went missing. This drummed up more press this time in Idaho. The Times News Out of Twin Falls interviewed Richard. The newspaper described him as a soft-spoken man turned private investigator on a quest

to find his son. Richard told the newspaper he was heading to Boise to meet with members of a communal living society known as the Rainbow Family to see if anyone with that group recognized Randy as having been at their gatherings. The Rainbow Family is a group that travels around and holds gatherings on US Forest Service Land. They aren't associated with a religion or anything, but Richard knew that they might be able to convince his son

to join their movement, just based on the fact that Randy was impressionable when it came to philosophical and spiritual beliefs. Here's a voice actor reading what Richard told the Times News. The frustration is that law enforcement agencies will do very little without evidence of foul play or mental problems. If you don't have the resources for a private investigator, you have to do it yourself. Randy was having a difficult time with our culture's materialism, and he empathized with those in poverty. We know cults appeal to that kind of idealism, and they can brainwash quickly. You fluctuate between open despair. There are times you do

a lot of crying, and it's especially hard on my wife. One of the things that keeps us going is that we have a lot of prayers. We will keep looking until we find him, dead or alive." Richard told reporters that Randy wasn't just kind of anti-materialistic. He was extreme in that sense. He idolized St. Francis of a C.C., the monk who took a vow of poverty. Randy had actually dropped out of his college in Africa because the scholarship that he'd won to send him there was funded by the Shell Oil Corporation. He said he objected to the exploitation of third-world nations by massive corporations.

His family held on to hope that maybe Randy's vanishing was just the result of him having taken a vow of silence and poverty, with a group who had similar beliefs as him like the Christ family or the Rainbow family. But the years continued to pass, and their hope that he was still alive but just living off the grid somewhere faded. According to documents in the police case file, Marjorie Leach died in 1989. She passed away not knowing what happened to her son. Then, a few years later, in 1993, a former detective in Wisconsin took matters into his own hands,

and he flew to Idaho to conduct the first-ever actual investigation into Randy Leach's disappearance, and what he found was eye-opening. 13 years after Randy vanished, former deputy inspector Robert Thurman from Shabwagon County, Wisconsin, the investigator who took Richard's original report in 1980 decided to go to Idaho and investigate. There had been no official investigation up until that point. And according to the research material we collected, no police had ever seriously looked for Randy.

Robert Thurman had retired from the Shaboykin County Sheriff's office years before, but he felt he owed it to the Leach family to at least try. So on his own dime, he flew to Salt Lake City and drove up to Idaho Falls. Looking at the map, Robert realized that if Randy had left Idaho, there were only a few routes that would have made sense for him to take in order to get to Northern California or Oregon. Robert kept a detailed log of his investigation while he was out west, and he wrote in reports that when he first arrived, he went on a few off-road excursions that took him to uninhabited areas that hugged the Snake River, on the off-chance

that he would find Randy's remains. He described seeing nothing but grain farms and potato fields. The next morning, on September 27, 1993, Robert called Larry Reed, who still ran the dairy farm. Larry invited him to the house, and by 8 a.m. the detective was seated at Larry's kitchen table where Randy Leach had sat 13 years before. In Robert's reports, he said Larry was relaxed. Here's a voice actor reading the investigator's notes. We talked in general about Randy, his disappearance and the layout of the property. His current version is generally consistent with what he'd said in previous reports.

After some discussion of a couple discrepancies, I was satisfied. The main problem was differences in the time Randy was reported to have left. Larry said he always gets up at 5 or 5.30 and does a little paperwork. When he went to the kitchen sink, he saw Randy walking across the road, east, toward town. I'm not sure if Robert caught the discrepancy in Larry's story, but in 1980, Larry told police that he was walking outside when he happened to glance over and see Randy leaving. But, in his 1993 statement to Robert, Larry said he saw the 20-year-old leaving while standing over his kitchen sink.

Anyway, Larry told Robert that he remembered being worried when he went looking for Randy and couldn't find him. And the detective asked why. Here's Detective Weiston Hogg and again. He wasn't a very large man, and he was a nice-looking boy. Very peaceful, loving type, and they just didn't think he belonged out there alone. Larry's wife Carol came home while Robert was still there. She reiterated that she'd washed Randy's jeans, but he never came back for them. Detectives today wish they knew more about the

pants, but it seems that no one ever collected the jeans as evidence. In fact, nowhere in the case file does it say what happened to Randy's jeans at all. Investigators now are only left to speculate. I'm thinking of us, I had just two parents. One parent was wearing in this other parent. I don't know why you would leave your pants behind, that seems kind of odd. From the Rees house, Robert went to the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office to get any records that they kept on Randy's disappearance, to make sure he had all of the information that was available.

He also wanted to do criminal background searches on the reads, you know, just in case. He wrote that his searches turned up zero information about the reads ever having any trouble with law enforcement. The next day, Robert tracked down and interviewed one of the old farm hands, a guy named Don, who saw Randy in the bunkhouse the morning he went missing. Don had left the read dairy farm two weeks after Randy disappeared, because he said that he needed a better paying job. He said that he remembered Randy, but didn't have any memories beyond seeing him in the

early morning of November 7, 1980 in the bunkhouse. Robert also met with the old sheriff in Idaho Falls, who was in office at the time of Randy's disappearance. But he said that his term as Sheriff ended in January 1981, and he'd moved away so he didn't have much to add. Robert wasn't able to track down Clyde Burgess, the detective who had originally questioned Larry Reed. Clyde had left the Bonneville County Sheriff's office

in the early 90s, and he's passed away now. So by the time Robert headed back to Wisconsin at the end of September 1993, he had no new conclusions conclusions or really any solid information about what had happened to Randy. In the summary of his report, he said that he couldn't come up with any proof that Randy ever left the redairy farm in November 1980, but that he probably did. Since Robert had been investigating the case unofficially, he left the case file at his house and kept working on it in his spare time But nothing new came up in the years that followed

The Leach family eventually lost hope and stopped going on investigative trips out west They did what so many families of missing people do they waited for news to come their way good or bad do. They waited for news to come their way, good or bad. In 2003, Robert Thurman died, and his wife came across the file that her husband had kept on Randy's case, and she took it to the Shaboykin County Sheriff's Office. That prompted detectives to look through it, and they were like, well, we might as well try and get DNA from Randy's family members to get a profile on him, and that, at the very least, we'll see if we get a hit on any John Does around the country. Between 2004 and 2013, detectives tested Randy's DNA profile and dental records against multiple John Does in Washington, California, Oregon, and Colorado, but they got no hits.

In 2014, police submitted Randy's DNA to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identifications and Codas, but still, nothing came up for him. In November 2015, the Idaho Falls Post-Register ran a big story featuring Randy's sister Renee. The article quoted Bonneville County Sheriff at the time Paul Wile, who said that all he could say for sure was that no one at the dairy farm had hurt Randy. The story doesn't provide any information on how the sheriff knew that though. From Detective Winston Hogan's case file, no one can say what investigative work was done to come to that conclusion. The article

also has some big contradictory information, like it says that Randy worked at the dairy farm before, quote, grabbing a ride from the land owner to a junction to Hitchhike. But we know from Larry's past statement to law enforcement that he said that he saw Randy walking away from the farm. No where does it say that Larry gave Randy a ride somewhere so I have no idea where that information came from. Sheriff Wild said in that same 2015 article that the case file kept in Idaho just has some old news clippings in it, no investigative notes at all.

The current investigations lieutenant at the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office told our reporting team that there was a flood in the agency's basement, which is probably why the investigative notes were lost. I can't help but feel frustrated for the Leech family, knowing that there was barely any effort put in defining Randy early on in the investigation. I know it was complicated from the beginning since Randy was hitchhiking across the country and had several different destinations planned, but still, he went missing in Idaho Falls. It makes no sense as to why there wasn't at least a missing person's report for him in Idaho. Looking at the case today, Detective Wieston-Hoggin wonders if Randy would have been found that just one department would have been willing to take the lead and tracking him down.

I just think that there was such a problem back in that time of getting somebody to take responsibility and to actually investigate it, it seems like nobody really wanted to touch the hot potato like they just kept passing it to each other. And I think that's part of the problem was it just nobody took ownership and I think it was difficult back in those days for our department to kind of coordinate things out there because you know everything's being sent back and forth via mail which is going to take days. I just think that there was a lack of somebody really wanting to take it on. Because no one has truly only investigation

from the beginning, Detective Houston Hogan said there are keep people who were never interviewed, like the two missionaries who had dinner with the reads and Randy at the farm the first night he was there. Their full names weren't even listed in any reports. They're just called elders. And a huge problem with the investigation in 1980

is that law enforcement never physically searched the dairy farm or any land near it. They didn't do ground searches near the highway or any areas in Idaho Falls that Randy might have walked through. They didn't question the farm hands we had shared a cabin with. Authorities took the farmer at his word, which I'm not sure would happen today. It just seems like a lot of their information that they have is that, you know, they talked to him.

They, this is what he said to happen. So they just said that happened, you know, without looking any further. And I can't, you know, fault them for it. But I'm thinking in this day and age, we would probably go back to the farmer and be like, Hey, do you mind if we check your place, you know, and just walk around and make sure that nothing's here, you know, maybe not saying you did anything, but you never know if there's other employees at hand or something, just to rule that all out. I think this day and age, we would probably do that, but you know, I don't think we can totally rule out the fact that something didn't happen on the

property with him. I think there's just some questions and some concerns about that. In 2016, one of Randy's ants started sending letters to investigators suggesting some wild ideas, like maybe Randy was killed because of prejudicial hatred, or taken by someone with a sexual motive and tossed into the snake river or buried on the dairy farm. Current investigators have considered all of those possibilities, but there just isn't enough information to substantiate any of those ideas. They've also had to consider that maybe Randy really did try to hitchhike his way out of Idaho in November 1980 and died from exposure. Maybe he couldn't find a ride and froze to death while

camping in frigid mountain temperatures, and his bodies just never been found. They've also considered whether or not he was the victim of a serial killer. There's at least one that was in the same area as Randy in the fall of 1980. Randall Woodfield from 1980 to 81. He was active in California, Oregon. One confirmed victim, but there's 44 other suspect ones. According to past reporting by the Oregonian newspaper, Randall Woodfield was on a killing spree between October 1980 and February 1981 in California and Oregon. His DNA connected him to at least seven murders from that time. The timeline and locations of Woodfield's crimes works in theory for Randy Leach. But Woodfield was known to sexually assault and kill women.

According to reporting by Benjamin Smith for oxygen, the only male victim Woodfield was linked to was one of his victims' boyfriends, who was likely not his intended target. Woodfield is in prison in Oregon and has never confessed to any of the killings that he's been linked to, despite witnesses connecting him to his crimes and DNA matches. Ultimately, detectives have not come up with any proof that Randall Woodfield crossed paths with Randy in 1980, even though it could be a possibility. So, the last theory that law enforcement had to consider is the possibility that Randy vanished on purpose. There's the fact that maybe he just did want to disappear and go do his own thing.

I guess that would seem kind of odd a character and not really in line with what the family would think he would do, so... I don't know that that necessarily would have happened just given the fact that he was so into making these phone calls all the time... That what would suddenly make him just not want to do that anymore. Detective Weiston Hogan is the fourth detective in Wisconsin to officially investigate Randy's case. He took it on in early 2021. When our reporting team was in Wisconsin for this episode, Randy's sister Renee sent Detective

Weiston Hogan an email and told him their family appreciates their work done in the past and the chance to have a fresh set of eyes on the case, but they didn't have much else to add. Renee said, quote, we still always wonder what could have happened to Randy and love him dearly. The farm owner Larry Reid is now deceased, but our reporting team reached out to see if anyone still operating his farm wanted to provide a statement on his behalf, but we didn't hear back. Were investigators today, their big break will come if they can find a match to Randy's

genetic profile through databases of unidentified remains. The chances of him still being alive are slim, at least in law enforcement's mind. It's either going to be science that helps explain what happened to Randy or it will take someone who knows something to come forward. If you think you had any interaction with Randy Leach in the fall of 1980 during his travels in the American West, the Shaboying County Sheriff's Office in Wisconsin urges you to call them at 920-459-3-1-1-1. The deck is an audio-chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the DAC and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com.

So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa