Oh it's absolutely odd, but I find it just as odd that the FOUND ring would be listed in NAMUS when describing Leah's belongings. Aren't the things that are catalogued like that typically on the individual at the time that they vanished?
I have a small theory, stick with me here.
So what if Leah was experiencing car problems by the time she arrived in Bellingham? Maybe she took a scenic drive after seeing American Beauty, somebody could have followed her out, trailed her, then offered to help, and she put the ring there for safekeeping while this person "showed her" what was wrong with her car in case she needed to get her hands dirty. Then that person could have harmed her in some way, when she was out of the vehicle, and rigged the vehicle to crash.
Just a theory. But I mean.... theories are really all we have to go on unless more information is released.
There’s no mention of Leah putting gas in the Jeep in Bellingham. From where she was last known to have bought gas in Brooks, OR to the theater in Bellingham is right at 300 miles. I calculated the range on her Jeep at less than 360 miles. I think her Jeep was found approximately 35 miles from the theater.
There’s 2 places that I think Leah would have gone in Bellingham before going East on the Mt Baker Hwy. 1. The gas station. 2. Book store for local information about her destination. According to her debit card charges and what we know about who LE was talking to in Bellingham…. It doesn’t appear she went anywhere other than the mall. Think about it. The trip was about to take on a massively new look. Going from traveling the I-5 corridor to heading into increasingly rural and mountainous route. Bellingham is the last stop on her journey that offers an abundance of services…and at this last opportunity to outfit her trip all she does is go to a movie and restaurant?
I think either her Jeep limped into the mall parking lot with some sort of car problems or someone saw her as a target of opportunity when she left the Jeep for the theater. Young female, apparently traveling alone. The wire that was cut, while it was stated that it could have been cut to allow the vehicle to somehow accelerate over the embankment, that circuit does exactly what the name implies. Disabling that switch and the starter gets no current and the vehicle will not start. Restore the connection or easier yet, bypass it with a screwdriver and everything works just fine again.
By far the least elaborate, easiest, and safest way for a person to launch an unmanned vehicle over an embankment is to weight the accelerator pedal with the floor mat. Someone would experiment with the positioning until they reached an RPM level that would make it possible to reach in, put it from neutral to drive, and get clear of it without injuring themselves. I think that’s how the ring got under the floor mat.
Why was the ring in the Jeep? Same reason everything else was still in the Jeep, including her pants with all her cash. Those pants were probably what she was wearing the last time she was alive. I think there’s a not so secretive or public crime scene. If any of Leah’s stuff were found at that location it would trace back to a short list of suspects. Whoever brought harm to her, put everything in the Jeep and got it away from where she was last with this person. I tend to think that was not far from the mall in Bellingham. It gets rural rather quickly going East of Bellingham. A lot of the small acreage homes that exist now weren’t even built yet when Leah disappeared. There was lots and lots of farm fields and wooded area just east of town.
I don’t think where the Jeep came to rest is an arbitrary dumping location. I think whoever put it there was familiar with the road. If you lived, once lived, or had some ties to one of those little towns out there you’d be familiar with the road. Then you have to think about this: if only one person is involved in Leah’s disappearance and that person dumped the Jeep…what was their next move? Seems like they’d have to have somewhere to walk to or someone to call without raising suspicion. Some people are pretty good bull****ers and some people are easily hoodwinked. The former often gravitates to the latter and vice versa. My theory is that the person had ties to the area and walked to the closest gas station or store or tavern or even a residence and came up with a story of how he ended up there.
I actually think her abductor actually is/was at the time married. My profile would be he’s probably got a criminal record. Mostly relatively minor. A lot of family members around him, especially kids have criminal records. Wouldn’t be surprised if the wife is the breadwinner. Probably less attractive than him and super gullible. Completely overlooks that he doesn’t really have a “career” and is oblivious to him acting mostly like he’s single. I wouldn’t automatically assume he was an auto mechanic. He may have worked around cars to know tamper with the starter relay, but if you own a bunch of jalopies yourself you learn stuff like that. What would make me think that he has been in the auto repair world is that if he disabled her Jeep in the mall parking lot, I don’t think he forced her to go with him. Not in such a public place and during the daytime. I think he conned her with a fictional path to restoring her Jeep to working order. It’s daytime, a weekday, and obviously located within a reasonable distance to a number of auto repair shops. What makes me think that he has spent time in a shop I’m theorizing that his plan required a bit of a sales pitch. Maybe his friend or family or wife’s family owned some kind of repair shop. I think he’s “Barry” and that if he’s ever arrested that he’ll be (in retrospect) a decent match to the composite. He’s probably been on dating sites. LE should sort through them for matches to the composite sketch. The fact that only one of the bar patrons saw Barry doesn’t automatically make me suspicious of them. If someone walked into the bar to indicate to her that he was there, that person would be avoiding being seen by anyone but Leah. I think he has ties to Glacier or Maple Falls. I think he has ties to Everett and made the red herring call from the gas station. Unfortunately, I think he’s tied to at least one other disappearance in Wathcom County. A woman from Maple Falls who lived in fairly close proximity to where Leah’s Jeep was found went missing about 10 years after Leah. She went missing not from Maple Falls, but from Bellingham. Once again I sense a crime where it wasn’t a forceful abduction, but a case where she was lured. Those cases being 10 years apart makes me think he naturally hides in plain sight. I’ll bet he’s got plenty of previous addresses in the county, some being jails, but not super tethered there either.
