WA WA - Leah Roberts, 23, Whatcom Co, 13 Mar 2000

[Vincet78562003]

I will hopefully soon be living in the Bellingham area of Washington. If I do make it up there to attend school, I will make it part of my life to go on searches to find her. I watched the Disappeared episode and was totally shocked. She seemed so full of life.

 

[neverletgo]

I will hopefully soon be living in the Bellingham area of Washington. If I do make it up there to attend school, I will make it part of my life to go on searches to find her. I watched the Disappeared episode and was totally shocked. She seemed so full of life.

:wagon: to Websleuths, Vincet78562003! :seeya:

 

[MysteryMaven]

Why haven't they figured this out yet? law enforcement found the information about Leah meeting the 2 guys (one a skilled mechanic) so important to the investigation that it was withheld for many years. The mechanic makes a false statement to police about meeting Leah and moves to Canada. When you look at it that way, it seems simple. I guess they don't have enough on him to make an arrest. I don't think Leah was in the car when it crashed. I think she made fast friends with the wrong person and he crashed the car to make it look like she wandered away injured after a bad accident. I think any sightings are probably mistaken identity.

 

[Vincet78562003]

I agree with you. We must figure out where she went after meeting this guy. I am sure he followed her to a place (a destination she may have wanted to see that was isolated?). I think the police have been looking in the wrong spot. I bought a metal detector and I am going to search as many places as I can when I get up there to Bellingham.

 

[cherrydocs]

I agree with you. We must figure out where she went after meeting this guy. I am sure he followed her to a place (a destination she may have wanted to see that was isolated?). I think the police have been looking in the wrong spot. I bought a metal detector and I am going to search as many places as I can when I get up there to Bellingham.

As a Bellingham native myself I'd be really interested to see what you might find. Please keep us updated!

 

[Vincet78562003]

As soon as I get up there and start searching, I will post updates on where I search. I'll definitely keep you guys updated.

 

[AddysMom7610]

Bumping for Leah


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[Fireweed]

I was just thinking about Leah today because I was reading about the John Glasgow case, a man's whose body was found seven years after he went missing less than one mile from where his car was. It seems very often that is the case. Leah deserves to have one more final search.

 

[SnoopingPacNw]

Leah has been on my mind a lot lately after coincidentally catching the Unsolved Mysteries segment about her watching reruns on Lifetime after recently re-watching her Disappeared episode.

My mind is swimming. On one hand, her talk of Bellingham, Desolation Peak, On the Road, and Dharma Bums, etc. makes me almost certain she was heading to the lookout on Desolation Peak Jack Kerouac spent the summer of 1956 in. Her car was found near the intersection of Canyon Creek Road and Wa-542/ Mount Baker Highway. This is roughly 80-100 miles west of Desolation Peak. However, there is no direct route there on a major highway; I am assuming one would need to use forest service roads to get there unless they wanted to do some major backtracking. I had an inkling that maybe Leah had set off to find herself in Desolation Peak. Here's an article with more info about the location: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/travel/climbing-a-peak-that-stirred-kerouac.html?_r=0

I also thought that perhaps she had set off with Bea to commit suicide after the loss of her parents. However, I cannot for the life of me see any way she could have traveled those 100 or so miles without have leaving a trace somewhere. I am fairly certain someone would have noticed a woman with a cat flagging a ride.

Another idea I had was that perhaps she decided to camp out at the Douglas Fir Campground just south of Canyon Creek Road and north of the Nooksack River and maybe she ran into the wrong person/people. Canyon creek road is a small offshoot of the larger highway, is unmarked, and would be very easy to miss by someone unfamiliar with the area who happened to be driving by. However, it's in walking distance to the campground.

One last theory I have been pondering is that she somehow met with James Allen Kinney, who murdered Keri Lynn Sherlock in Bellingham 1998. While he was eventually caught in North Carolina in March of 2001, it's possible he was still in the area in March of 2000. He is also suspected in the murder of Mandy Stavik ( http://www.whatcomcounty.us/301/Unsolved-Homicide-Mandy-Stavik ) who disappeared while jogging about 30 miles south of where Leah's Jeep was found and whose body was found in the Nooksack river in 1989.

I feel like there are so many ways to go with this...so many red herrings leading me in so many different directions, however, I can't deny the string of dead girls and women in the Bellingham area that all lead back to one man. My bet is that James Allen Kinney had something to do with the disappearance of Leah Roberts.

Leah, I hope one day you're found.

 

[Leomoon80]

All good ideas, but my choice is a man she befriended in the bar-restaurant and told of her plans OR the serial killer.

 

[SnoopingPacNw]

Alas, that is the most likely scenario. However, my heart wants to believe she somehow hitched a ride to the lookout to write the next "Great American Novel."

 

[Fireweed]

I have always wondered how many men there are in the world who are perhaps not the planner-stalker type like Ted Bundy, but who are just evil and bold enough to pounce on an opportunity when one comes along. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was much more outgoing with strangers, and I might have even told an interested person that I was doing something really cool, like roadtripping alone without even considering the repercussions. I strongly suspect that Leah told the man at the bar about her trip and her plans and that he gave her some "helpful hint" on a good place to sleep that night, and that in the morning she could get up early and be on her way. The older I get, the more I believe that there is a certain percentage of men in the world who are always on the lookout for women who are alone and with no protection. I don't think these men are serial killers, and I don't think they would break into a house and rape a woman there. They don't arrange "dates" with prostitutes and kill them. They are just always sniffing out women they can potentially get their hands on. I bet a lot of women here have had encounters with men like this - I know I have. Once they found out you were alone or travelling alone, their demeanor changed.

I am totally convinced that Leah met with foul play and that she was somehow set up to be in a place where she would be completely alone and without any protection at all. The location of her vehicle is just too odd otherwise. Someone must have told about that place and how to get there. This was before smart phones and google satellite maps. I am just not seeing how Leah could have found that road unless some local gave her tip-off about it.

 

[allmybecsloveme]

With this being such a weird little case with her vehicle and the wag it was found, I'm shocked there aren't more pages on here. Bumping and then re-reading since it has been a while.

 

[Meraxes]

Bumping for Leah. Her story has always haunted me!

 

[Vincet78562003]

Does anyone know how far along Canyon Creek Road Leah Roberts drove? Where was the car found? Was it near the the river or was it way further out there? I don't think people are looking for her in the right spot. If someone did sabotage the vehicle, they more than likely drove it further away and crashed it to divert attention. Please, let me know your thoughts on all of this. If you do know the spot where her vehicle was crashed, could you please give me a link where that information is found?

 

[Leomoon80]

Here is the original one hour program on the background:

[video=youtube;XWtOgM6vI7k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWtOgM6vI7k[/video]

 

[SnoopingPacNw]

It's hard to say as it was deliberately driven down an embankment. From wikipedia:
"Early that morning in Washington, a couple jogging along Canyon Creek Road, a side route of the Mount Baker Highway that serves some isolated residences and logging camps in and around Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest a short distance south of the Canadian border, noticed articles of clothing at the side of the road next to a slight curve at the top of a slope. Some had been tied to the trees and branches at roadside. In the woods below, at the bottom of a steep embankment, was Leah's Jeep, severely damaged.[SUP][3][/SUP]
From the path it took through the trees, and the extent to which they and the car had been damaged, investigators from the Washington State Patrol determined that it had been traveling at around 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) when it went off the road and down the slope. The contents were tossed around inside, consistent with a multiple rollover, yet there was no blood or other signs of injury to an occupant, such as shatter marks on the glass or stretching of the seatbelt, that would probably have occurred if there had been a driver and/or passenger. It seemed possible that no one had been inside the Jeep when it was crashed, suggesting the accident had been staged or planned.[SUP][3]"[/SUP]

 

[Vincet78562003]

I really want to know the exact coordinates of her crash, if anyone has them. I wonder if the detectives would give that information out?

 

[rubyh]

Bumping for Leah.

 

[exsxpx310]

I was searching Proquest for a newspaper article about the Leah Roberts case. I found one from March 23, 2000, attached here is the text file of that article. What I find most interesting is the Headline of the article. It has to be some kind of mistake.