The Herald-Sun (Durham, NC)
June 12, 2007 Tuesday
Final Edition
METRO; Pg. C1
613 words
Tour aims to raise awareness of missing;
Leah Roberts vanished in '00 on cross-country trek
BRIANNE DOPART
bdopart@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
Kara Roberts believes it could have been the promise of a new life that led her sister, Durham native Leah Roberts, to get into her 1993 Jeep Cherokee and drive to the Pacific Northwest seven years ago.Before her disappearance in March 2000, Leah Roberts was an aspiring writer who loved "On the Road" writer Jack Kerouac, her sister said Monday. She may have been hoping to pen a new chapter in her life the day she jotted a note to her roommates at her Raleigh residence, packed her mother's engagement ring and a substantial amount of cash and left for the west coast.Leah Roberts, then 23, was 15 credit hours shy of graduating from college and in the process of putting her life back together. Her mother, Nancy Roberts, died in 1997 from heart failure and her father, Stancil Roberts, succumbed to a long illness in 1999, her sister said. Unwilling to give up hope of finding their baby sister, siblings Kara and Heath Roberts have worked tirelessly in an attempt to keep her memory alive and her name in the press with the hope that someday they'll find the answers to questions plaguing them since Leah Roberts vanished."The past seven years have been tough," Kara Roberts said of her family's ordeal. "I think everyone's experienced what it's like to lose someone for a moment. You kind of know what it's like when you lose sight of your child in a store and the panic you feel. Imagine that feeling spread over seven years."Part of the mystery revolves around a departure letter."Remember," Leah Roberts wrote in a March 9, 2000, note left for her roommates along with money covering a month's worth of rent and bills, "everyone is together in thoughts and prayers and time passes quickly. Have faith in me, yourself, everyone...Tell Kara don't worry (even though she will)."Next to her message is an added, circled message: "April 23 'On the Road' No I'm not suicidal I am the opposite -- Remember Jack Kerowack (sic)?"Credit card records and surveillance video shed light on Leah Roberts' journey in the nine days between her departure and the discovery of her banged-up Cherokee in a state park near Bellingham, Wash. On March 10, Leah spent the night in a Memphis, Tenn., hotel. By March 12, she'd made it to Oregon, and on March 13, the same day her family was filing a missing persons report (they had yet to find Leah Roberts' note) she went to see her favorite movie, "American Beauty.""Basically, the trail stopped there in Bellingham, Washington ... And we're still looking for her," Kara Roberts said. "We haven't given up hope. Leah went missing in Washington, but maybe there's someone around here who remembers something she may have told them."In a cross-country tour beginning this week and inspired by Leah Roberts' journey titled "On the Road to Remember," the Roberts siblings and Monica Caison, director of the CUE Center for Missing Persons, hope to raise awareness of Leah's disappearance and cases like hers.The first tour was held in 2004 for the express purpose of garnering leads in Leah Roberts' case. The tour got so much attention from media and families who themselves were waiting for answers about their own loved ones' disappearances that Caison and the Roberts decided to make the tour an annual event, dedicating each cross-country trek to a different missing person.The Roberts ask that anyone with information about Leah's disappearance or whereabouts contact the Whatcom County (Washington) Sheriff's Department at (360) 676-6650, or (360) 676-7722, or the CUE Center for Missing Persons at (910) 232-1687.For tour infoFor more information about the tour or its next stops, go to the CUE Center's Web site at
www.ncmissingpersons.org.
The Herald-Sun | C.F. Ward Heath Roberts (from left), Monica Caison and Kara Roberts take turns speaking to raise awareness of missing persons at Bay 7 of the American Tobacco Campus on Monday.
June 13, 2007
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