EARLY LIFE:
Leah Roberts was born on July 23, 1976 to Nancy and Stancil Roberts. The youngest of three children, she was raised in Durham, North Carolina.
While Leah had a relatively normal childhood, things took a turn at 17 when her father was diagnosed with a life-threatening respiratory disease. Three years later, her mother died unexpectedly of heart disease. Leah, a sophomore at North Carolina State University, took some time off to be with her family, before turning in the fall of 1998.
Not long after returning to school, Leah was involved in a near-fatal car accident when a transport truck turned out in front of her. She suffered a punctured lung and shattered femur, for which she had a metal rod placed in her leg. Her survival was a life-changing moment for the young woman, who viewed it as her “second chance.”
While attending North Carolina State University, Leah played soccer and did a semester in Spain. She’d also signed up for a field study program in Costa Rica when, once again, tragedy struck. In 1999, after years of dealing with his condition, Stancil passed away.
While upset, Leah decided to continue with her trip to the Caribbean, and it was an experience that completely changed her world view. She became interested in “life’s adventure” and wanted to see the world. She began writing poetry and keeping a journal, and ultimately decided to leave school, just six months before she was slated to graduate with a degree with Spanish and anthropology.
Upon leaving school, Leah, an already private person, drew away from her core friend group and began learning to play the guitar and practice photography. She also adopted a kitten.
DISAPPEARANCE:
On the morning of March 9, 2000, Leah received a phone call from her sister, Kara, who asked how she was doing. At 11:00 AM, she also confirmed plans with her roommate, Nicole Weeks, for a babysitting job the following day.
When Leah didn’t show up to babysit, Nicole didn’t think much of it. Given their conflicting schedules, it wasn’t uncommon for them to go a day or two without seeing each other. However, she began to grow worried by March 12, prompted, in part, by calls from friends looking to get in touch with Leah. She called Kara around noon that day and the pair spent the next 24 hours calling everyone who knew Leah, to no avail.
On March 13, Leah’s friends met Kara and Nicole at her residence. Kara searched her sister’s room and determined that she’d left voluntarily, given the items that were missing, including her new kitten, Bea. Despite this assumption, she still reported Leah missing to the Raleigh Police Department, given her sister’s mental and emotional state.
Kara returned to the home the following day to double-check that she hadn’t overlooked anything. It was during this second search that she came across a note Leah had left for Nicole. With it, she’d left enough money to cover a month’s worth of bills, and while it was largely cryptic, the letter had a happy tone.
Leah also used the opportunity to make reference to Jack Kerouac’s book, On the Road. This jogged Nicole’s memory, with the missing woman’s roommate recalling a conversation they’d had about a cross-country road trip. This brought to mind another Kerouac book, Dharma Burns, which is set in Whatcom County, Washington.
Curious as to where her sister had traveled, Kara began looking into Leah’s bank record; she’d been given power of attorney when Leah went to Costa Rica. She’d withdrawn $3,000 in cash around 6:00 PM on March 9, with there being a motel charge in Memphis, Tennessee the following day. Additional spending showed Leah had driven west along I-40 until she hit California, at which time she headed north on I-5.
Her last noted transaction was at shortly after midnight on March 13, at a gas station in Brooks, Oregon.
While Kara was examining Leah’s financial records, Nicole and her friends began canvassing the area. They came across a woman who regularly talked with Leah at the Cup ‘O Joe coffeehouse. She revealed that the missing woman had been discussing her desire to visit Desolation Peak in Whatcom County, Washington – the exact location mentioned in Dharma Burns.
On March 18, a local man and his wife were going for an early morning run in Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, in Washington, when they came across a crashed vehicle. The white Jeep Cherokee was found along Canyon Creek Road, 30 miles east of Bellingham.
The man called 911. When deputies arrived on the scene, they felt something was suspicious, but also considered the vehicle could have been abandoned by a drunk driver, as was somewhat common for the area. However, upon further examination, they found the broken windows of the Jeep had been covered with towels and clothes, indicating someone had been staying in it. They also located a number of belongings, including a passport, chequebook, guitar, driver’s license and CDs.
Given the Jeep had a North Carolina license plate, the authorities in that state were called, at which point it was discovered that the vehicle was linked to Leah’s missing person report. Officers left a note at Kara’s residence, asking that she contact the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. It was then that she learned that Leah was truly missing.
INVESTIGATION:
Upon learning about the crash, the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office sent officers to the scene. An investigation of the site showed Leah’s Jeep Cherokee had been traveling between 30-40 MPH when it went off the road, meaning whoever was within it at the time would – or should – have been severely injured. However, no signs were found to show that anyone was injured, nor were there any footprints leaving the scene.
On March 21, 2000, Kara and her brother, Heath, travelled to Bellingham, Washington to begin their own search into Leah’s disappearance. Upon being brought to the area where her Jeep was found, they began to wander if she’d maybe hit her head and wandered away, but no area hospitals had records of treating an injured or disoriented woman.
While sifting through the items in the vehicle, investigators found no signs of Leah’s kitten, but they did locate a keepsake box. Within it was a movie ticket stub for the film American Beauty at the theatre in Bellis Fair Mall, in Bellingham. It was timestamped 2:10 PM on March 13, 2000.
No one remembered seeing Leah at the theatre, but Kara did visit the sit-down restaurant at the mall, where two patrons recalled seeing her. One said she was open and kind, while the other said they chatted about Jack Kerouac and her reasons for being in Washington. He told investigators that Leah left with a man known only as “Barry,” and provided a description. This, however, went against the account of the first individual, who said the missing woman had left the restaurant alone.
As missing persons flyers were put up across Bellingham, investigators and agents with the FBI began to properly process Leah’s car. They came across a pair of pants with $2,400 in the pockets, meaning she’d only spent $100 of the $2,500 she’d arrived in the area with. As well, they came across her mother’s engagement ring under a floorboard. As Leah rarely took it off, this led the police to theorize that she’d been intentionally harmed.
Approximately one week after the Jeep was discovered, an anonymous man called in to say that he and his wife may have run into Leah at a Texaco gas station in Everett, Washington shortly after its believed the vehicle was abandoned. He said she appeared to be disoriented and wasn’t aware of her identity.
Unfortunately, he ended the call before investigators could ask him for additional details. It’s believed this sighting is valid, with the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office assuming the man panicked during the call for unknown reasons.
Within two weeks of the Jeep’s discovery, searches began of Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, beginning on Canyon Creek Road. An area was mapped out based on how far an injured person could travel on foot, after which dogs, ground personnel and helicopters were brought in. Nothing was found, leading investigators to theorize that Leah either wasn’t in the vehicle when it crashed or that she wasn’t hurt in the incident.
While this search was occurring, officers contacted the gas station in Brooks, Oregon that Leah had last visited before she went missing. Surveillance footage from within was collected, showing her by herself. However, she kept peering out the door while waiting for the clerk to ring in her purchase. Unfortunately, there were no cameras pointed outside, meaning no one knows who or what Leah was looking at.
In 2005, volunteers from a North Carolina-based missing persons awareness group organized a caravan across the United States, to raise awareness about several cases, including Leah’s.
The following year, investigators re-examined the Jeep, to see if anything had been overlooked. The hood was popped open and, along with fingerprints, signs were found to show tampering. The starter relay had had its wire cut, allowing the vehicle to accelerate without a driver behind the wheel.
The tampering was like done by a mechanic or someone with knowledge of cars. This brought officers back to the second man from the restaurant, who was in the military and had experience as a mechanic. He’d since moved to Canada, meaning investigators had to contact Canadian authorities to obtain his fingerprints and DNA.
The fingerprints were a dead end, and no updates have been provided regarding whether his DNA was a match to that found on Leah’s belongings.
DETAILS:
Leah Toby Roberts went missing from Whatcom County, Washington in mid-March 2000. She was 23 years old at the time, and was driving a white 1993 Jeep Cherokee, North Carolina license plate JVP-2881.
When she disappeared, Leah was 5’6″ in height and weighed 130 pounds. She had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes, and was last known to be wearing several pieces of jewelry: 14-karat gold earrings with .3-carat ruby stones and three rings on her right hand, including a 14-karat white gold ring set with a .45-carat emerald-cut diamond flanked by two .07-carat baguette diamonds.
Leah has a number of distinguishable features, including dimples, a surgical scar on her right hip and a beauty mark above the upper-right corner of her lip. The same surgery that caused the scar on her hip also resulted in a metal rod being placed in her leg. This would have a unique serial number.
Other notable details about Leah are that she has a strong Southern accent, is a vegetarian, she smokes cigarettes and speaks fluent Spanish.
CASE CONTACT INFORMATION:
Leah’s case is currently classified as endangered missing.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office at either (360) 676-6650, (360) 778-6600 or (360) 778-6760. The sheriff’s office can also be contacted via its dispatch centre at (360) 676-6711 or its tip line at (360) 778-6663.
Image Credit: International Missing Persons Wiki
Stories of the Unsolved 