MS MS - Leigh Occhi, 13, Tupelo, 27 Aug 1992

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This link has several people from the area posting about the case:
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/tupelo-ms/T8O22DA20MFENJ2H4
In particular this post is interesting:
662-TUPELO
I don't know if that's true, but I'm related to someone who was friends with Occhi, and she said that she rarely had anyone over to her house. She would spend the night with other girls though. I've had someone that worked on the case tell me that it was bungled in the beginning and should have been solvable. Also that a POI in the case probably had knowledge of body disposal techniques. So sad.
 
Looking at this thread because she is/was my age. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a classmate that disappeared. I only know one person that was murdered (shot during drug deal) and one person that killed someone (over a girl). There are a few people in my class that are gone now (from car wrecks, suicide, war, etc). But I can't picture anyone I know that disappeared, where it is unclear if they are dead or alive. That would be worse than knowing they are gone.

Anyway...
I don't see why so many are trying to blame the mom. She may have failed the polygraphs, but I don't really trust them. I've never taken one, but I know they are based on blood pressure fluctuations.

Wouldn't one be in a "state" if their child disappeared? I, personally, panic whenever around cops (they'd be doing the test, right?) whether I have been doing anything wrong or not.

Again, I haven't had a polygraph about anything before, but I would probably "fail" if I were giving the cops my (correct) full name, DOB, SS#, etc. Whether lying or not, my blood pressure would go absolutely crazy in such a situation.
 
Leigh Occhi: 20 years later

Hurricane Andrew was a tropical depression slogging over north Mississippi toward its doom in the Appalachian mountains on Thursday, Aug. 27, 1992.

Most Tupelo children were readying their backpacks for school and enjoying their last week of summer break.

Thirteen-year-old Leigh Occhi was home alone at 105 Honey Locust Drive in west Tupelo about 8 a.m. after her mother, Vicky Felton, left for work at Leggett amp& Platt. That evening they planned to attend Leigh's school open house at the new Tupelo High School and then eat dinner at Taco Bell.

When Felton called home before 9 a.m. to check on her daughter, there was no answer, so Felton drove back. Her daughter wasn't there and hasn't been seen since.
 
I'm not far from Tupelo, there has been suspicion for some time that someone in the family had something to do with Leigh's disappearance.. And the glasses were mailed to throw the police off..
 
Bumping for Leigh. :beats:

X1kVSOr.jpg
 
When they talk about disposing the body I wonder...

The house I grew up in had a "secret" passage in my parents' walk in closet. If you knew where the seam was you could pull up a section of flooring and go underneath our house into the foundation, essentially.

My parents built our house and as far as I know it was never entered on the actual blueprints registered with city hall.

My parents wanted it in case of a tornado since we didn't have a basement.

I'm just thinking if they had a similar area either leading under the house, or an opening into the ceiling. That would have been an was enough place to stow a body for awhile and then get rid of it.

Then again, I grew up in a place with tornados not hurricanes.
 
:bump: for Leigh. :beats:

Snipped:

Leigh was last seen at her family's residence in the 100 block of Honey Locust Drive in Tupelo, Mississippi on August 27, 1992. Her mother saw her before leaving for work at 7:35 a.m. Leigh planned to attend an open house at her school that day, and was waiting for her grandmother to come pick her up. It was the first time her mother had left her at home alone.
Click to expand...

 
wasn't familiar with this case, but boy I sure got some Hailey Dunn flashbacks /vibes /creepies going on, from reading here, and elsewhere that I looked at

Any that has followed here know how much searching was done?
 
Ohio case reminds region of its missing children

As Cleveland, Ohio, families welcome home decade-lost daughters this week, north Mississippi families still ache and wonder the fate of at least nine children.

[snip]

Lee County’s most notorious, and only, missing child on the national list is Leigh Marie Occhi, who disappeared from her Tupelo home on Aug. 27, 1992, when she was 13.

Her disappearance is classified as a “non-family abduction.” She should be 33 now, and her age progressed poster photo shows a hazel-eyed young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair smiling.

“Foul play is suspected,” her poster notes.

Last year on the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, authorities said they are no closer to solving what happened to Occhi. No suspect was ever named in the case, though her stepfather drew some attention at one point. Multiple people involved in the case implicated an area man as a potential suspect.
 
:bump: with an article from August:

Leigh Occhi – Still Missing but Not Forgotten
By Nicole Bexten
August 27, 2013

Snipped:

Detective Brandon Garrett with the Tupelo P.D. told WCBI, “There’s a lot of tools out there that we’re just now discovering. DNA technology is really 100% different from what it was in the past…you used to have to have a large sample to do any type of testing. Now, it’s just the smallest little sample will go a long way. So, what I’ve been doing over the past few months is going back through the evidence that was collected in the case and sending it to labs to be retested.”
Click to expand...

leigh-one.bmp


http://www.wcbi.com/wordpress/leigh-occhi-still-missing-but-not-forgotten
 
This case is very disturbing. I hope some answers come from DNA testing.

Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk
 
I am from Mississippi, and it is well known that the police botched investigation.. As much evidence that was left at a crime scene, the police should have been able to wrap up this horrible crime..

It is believed that someone in the family or close to the family was responsible.. Her classes were mailed back to her home from Booneville a town not far from Tupelo.. North east Mississippi is very wooded.. Lot's of places to hide a body..
 
I just started reading about this case recently and the mother's failed polygraphs (at least one administered by the FBI, so it wasn't "bungled" by local LE), the glasses arriving in the mail from a nearby location and the cleanup attempt of blood on a flat surface in the bedroom make me suspect the mother is involved.

What motive would a killer have to mail glasses of the victim to the mother's HUSBAND? She is quoted in an article as saying she got the package, told her husband that he got mail, and that he opened it.

Also, I find the clean up attempt to be out of character for an unknown perp.

ETA: From the articles, it seems like there was a great deal of blood in locations, and an actual blood trail to the back door--if this was a kidnapping, why would he beat her to death before the kidnapping?

JMO

This case seems so solvable! I hope this beautiful child gets some justice.
 
Reading other forums about this case, there seem to be a lot of people with information/knowledge…Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of scepticism about reporting. It would be wonderful if the local LE set this up as a special Cold Case project and put a focused resource behind it's resolution.

moo
 
I've been looking at other sites and am finding conflicting stories. The mother and stepfather were separated at the time because he admitted to having molested Leigh? Is there any proof that Leigh was still alive that morning, other than what her mother says? If her mother did this in a jealous rage over her having relations (consensual or rape?) with her husband, the crime could've happened the night before, giving the mother plenty of time to get rid of Leigh's body and other evidence. With that much blood all over the house, with blood and hair on a door frame, it looks like Leigh was chased from room to room by an assailant wielding an ax, baseball bat, hammer, who knows. I understand that both father and step-father passed lie detector tests while the mother failed THREE. It also looks like someone started to clean up the blood, then seemingly just gave up because there was so much of it. Perhaps the murderer didn't have the time, energy or inclination after having just spent all night disposing of the victim? Was the mother's car searched for bloodstains? Did she have a new boyfriend or someone she was close to in the police department? Does anyone know the answers to these questions?
 
Leigh’s mother and a detective on the case mentioned one person of interest who was interviewed. He was never considered an official suspect because of lack of evidence.
Felton said Leigh would never open the door to a stranger, so anyone entering the house without breaking in would have to be someone she knew and trusted.
She insists her own “prime suspect” is a man who was in a position of trust in the church where Leigh and her grandparents were members. He was incarcerated in 2000 for burglary, and kidnapping and rape of a young girl.
No real evidence ties the man to Leigh, but Felton and detectives say the man would have been able to enter the house and he was charged for a crime under similar circumstances in the same time period.
The 54-year-old possible suspect was interviewed once by the FBI during the initial investigation. Garrett said he and another detective spoke to him in 2009, but he refused to talk to them.
“He is still my prime suspect,” Felton said. “I know that Leigh wouldn’t have let anyone into the house that she didn’t know.”
The man is scheduled for release in 2019 from Marshall County Correctional Facility.
Aguirre admits police have little to go on now.
“The mother was our main source for information, she was the last one to see her alive,” he said. “We had to really depend on her for information.
“There were times that we didn’t feel she was being as forward as we thought a mother should be, but we didn’t go as far as to call her a person of interest or to say she was a suspect.”
Felton was interviewed multiple times and failed multiple polygraph tests, although they are inadmissible as evidence in court. Police did not release specific details about the questions asked or what she reportedly failed in the tests.
http://djournal.com/news/tupelo-teens-disappearance-remains-a-mystery/
 
Stella said:
I've been looking at other sites and am finding conflicting stories. The mother and stepfather were separated at the time because he admitted to having molested Leigh? Is there any proof that Leigh was still alive that morning, other than what her mother says? If her mother did this in a jealous rage over her having relations (consensual or rape?) with her husband, the crime could've happened the night before, giving the mother plenty of time to get rid of Leigh's body and other evidence. With that much blood all over the house, with blood and hair on a door frame, it looks like Leigh was chased from room to room by an assailant wielding an ax, baseball bat, hammer, who knows. I understand that both father and step-father passed lie detector tests while the mother failed THREE. It also looks like someone started to clean up the blood, then seemingly just gave up because there was so much of it. Perhaps the murderer didn't have the time, energy or inclination after having just spent all night disposing of the victim? Was the mother's car searched for bloodstains? Did she have a new boyfriend or someone she was close to in the police department? Does anyone know the answers to these questions?
Click to expand...

I am from MS but a different part of the state and have just stumbled upon this case. In everything that I've read about Leigh I've never seen it stated that the stepfather admitted to molesting Leigh, could you provide a source? I don't want to say there was any proof of Leigh being alive that morning but the one thing that keeps sticking out in my head when I reread everything is the police specifically stating that the blood didn't have a film on it which meant it was fresh. I wonder if they ever actually tested it again Leigh's DNA (if any is actually available) or just tested for the type, which they said it matched Leigh's blood type.
 
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