MN MN - LeeAnna Warner, 5, Chisholm, 14 June 2003

[DeeMarie]

[h=1]Chisholm Girl, LeeAnna Warner, Missing for 13 Years[/h]
http://kstp.com/news/missing-minnes...chisholm-minnesota-iron-range-/4326337/?cat=1

 

[ELOCsoul]

Just researching this case a little today, and a couple of things stand out at first blush:

1. The mother allowed a 5 year old girl to walk to a neighbor's house to play without first checking to verify the neighbor was home - that seems unusual to me.
2. I have read that she noticed Leeanna missing about 5:30pm, but didn't call police until 3 hours or so later.
3. Seems to have been an eventful year for the mom, looking for her biological mother, problems with a credit agency, suspended driver's license.

Not drawing any conclusions or making suggestions here, but this is interesting info.

 

[JerseyGirl]

http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2016/dec/12/family-hopeful-in-finding-missing-daughter-after-13-years/

 

[Lola Aspasia]

Working very hard on this case independently. Please reach out if you’d like to collaborateor have any information

 

[mmcleod]

A few days after the anniversary of LeeAnna Warner's disappearance 14 years ago, I find myself asking where is LeeAnna? Being a native to Minnesota, this tragedy touched close to home. Having witnessed the unraveling of another Minnesota mystery, the 27-year-old cold case of Jacob Wetterling, after the confession of Danny Heinrich to the abduction, molestation, killing and disposal of Jacob's body, there is always hope that someone will come forward and solve this mystery. Godspeed LeeAnna.

http://kstp.com/news/missing-minnes...-2003-chisholm-minnesota-iron-range-/4326337/

 

[mmcleod]

Thank you for sharing your observations! Here are some of my thoughts...

Just researching this case a little today, and a couple of things stand out at first blush:

1. The mother allowed a 5 year old girl to walk to a neighbor's house to play without first checking to verify the neighbor was home - that seems unusual to me.

If she were my child, though I have the luxury of hindsight, I likely would not have let her leave without first checking with the neighbor; however, I feel it needs to be argued there could be “small town mentality” in this case. With a population just shy of 5,000 people at the time of the 2000 census, there likely was a sense of safety, albeit false as this instance suggests. Living in a small town, it is perceived that everyone knows the comings and goings of neighbors. With a sense of security, it is easy to let one’s guard down. How many times have we heard, “nothing like that happens in our town?” Until it does…

2. I have read that she noticed Leeanna missing about 5:30pm, but didn't call police until 3 hours or so later.

Since the genesis of 9-1-1 in northern Minnesota in the 1980s, we were always told 9-1-1 was to be used only in dire emergencies. I still live with the fear of dialing 9-1-1 to this day. While I cannot speak for LeeAnna’s parents, I wonder if there wasn’t a fear of “calling out the cavalry.” Often children are found close to home. It could be argued that the parents were hesitant to call 9-1-1 until they were certain she wasn’t hiding in plain sight. These are conjectures, of course. There is a possibility, however, that the parents were involved in something more sinister.

3. Seems to have been an eventful year for the mom, looking for her biological mother, problems with a credit agency, suspended driver's license.

These events certainly could play into the disappearance of LeeAnna. I believe there could be more to this story that involves the parents about which we do not know. In a KSTP news feature to keep fresh LeeAnna’s disappearance, I found the mother’s choice of words in this interview interesting, “…I was trying to get her into the house and she wanted to say goodbye [to her friend]…” They just arrived home. Why goodbye? Her mother did not say LeeAnna wanted to go to her friend’s to play. She said, “…to say goodbye…” My mind thinks of many possibilities…none of them end well.

Here's that news feature:
http://kstp.com/news/missing-minnes...-2003-chisholm-minnesota-iron-range-/4326337/

Not drawing any conclusions or making suggestions here, but this is interesting info.

 

[Vegas Bride]

Bumping for LeeAnna

I grew up in a small Minnesota town, years before this, but it was completely normal for all the children in the neighborhoods to roam freely for hours at a time. No calls to check with a parent first. Especially in the summer when you didn’t have to think about school the next day.

At LeeAnnas age, I had a friend down at the other end of the block I’d go play with, walking down the alley to get there.

I hope one day she will be found and her family can have answers.

 

[sellithorpe]

My husband and I came across this podcast that has helped develop new leads in another missing persons case: Tara Grimstead. It started in 2015 with a 10 year old case (she went missing in 2005), and an arrest was made in February of 2017 with a new lead. Court has indicted two suspects as of September 2017 thanks to awareness from this podcast.

This might be something that could help shed new light on Leeanna Warner and her whereabouts. I have sent in a suggestion for this to be a case he reviews. Perhaps it would help if others sent it in as well.

https://www.upandvanished.com/season2

 

[buffetoflies]

bump for LeeAnna!

 

[Mom who cares]

Bumping for Beaner on the 15th Anniversary of her disappearance. Where are you sweetheart?

 

[doodles1211]

Chisholm Girl, LeeAnna Warner, Missing for 13 Years

This is another one of those cases that sticks with you! I really didn't think that this case would be unsolved and for so long. Chisholm is such a tiny town.

 

[theshadow45]

Bumping for LeeAnna, today is her birthday.

 

[Savemecastiel]

Bumping

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Bumping for Leeanna. I saw her case on my social media today.

 

[Jim_M]

Bumping for Leeanna. I saw her case on my social media today.

Seventeen (17) years missing today. Sadly amazing how the time flies on by.

LeeAnna Susan Marie Warner – The Charley Project

LeeAnna, circa 2003; Age-progression to age 15 (circa 2013)


May we find all of our missing angels someday.

 

[Stina]

 

[Richard]

LeeAnna Susan Marie Warner

LeeAnna, circa 2003

• Missing Since 06/14/2003
• Missing From Chisholm, Minnesota
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 01/21/1998 (22)
• Age 5 years old
• Height and Weight 3'0 - 3'2, 48 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A sleeveless dark blue denim dress (some agencies call it a shirt) with an attached belt, orange Hanes underwear, a flower-shaped earring with a red garnet in her right ear, and no shoes or socks.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, dark brown eyes. LeeAnna has a mole or wart just above her left ankle, and a dimple on the back of her left shoulder. Her nicknames are Beaner and Little Beaner. Her hair was cut in a shoulder-length bob at the time of her June 2003 disappearance, and her ears are pierced. Her name may be spelled as "Leeanna," "Leanna," or "Leanne," or she may be referred to as LeeAnna Marie Warner.

Details of Disappearance

LeeAnna was last seen walking home from a friend's house, which was a block and a half from her own residence. She had gone to play with the friend at 4:30 p.m., but no one was home at her friend's residence. She was last seen walking on southwest Second or Third Street, westbound, between 5:00 and 5:15 p.m.

LeeAnna's mother, Tiffany Kaelin Whittaker, more commonly known as Kaelin Warner, began looking for her at 5:30 p.m., enlisting neighborhood children to help. When the search turned up no sign of LeeAnna's whereabouts, Kaelin called the police between 8:40 and 9:00 p.m.

An extensive search by authorities, which lasted several days and included helicopters and bloodhounds, failed to locate LeeAnna. While there is no evidence that she was kidnapped, authorities have been leaning towards that view, feeling they would have found her quickly had she merely wandered off. Tracker dogs traced her scent to the roadside edge but lost it after that.

An unidentified man in his mid-thirties was seen on foot in the neighborhood at about the time of LeeAnna's disappearance. He was approximately 5'10 tall and 155 pounds, with a dark-colored tattoo of a star or sun on his right arm.

A maroon and blue two-door Cadillac driven by an African-American man in his twenties or thirties with a bald or shaven head, and an older model rusty brown pickup truck driven by a Caucasian man with black curly hair were also seen in the area.

Neither the vehicles or their drivers have been identified. It is unknown whether any of them had to do with LeeAnna's apparent abduction.

Matthew James Curtis, 24, was arrested in Chisholm in August 2003 for possession of child pornography charges which were unrelated to LeeAnna's case. He was interrogated several times about a possible connection to LeeAnna, however, due to the nature of his alleged crime.

Curtis was found dead September 2003, the day before he was supposed to appear in court on the child pornography charge. Police say he suffocated himself with a plastic bag and his body was found in a gravel pit eight or nine miles outside of Chisholm. The investigation into his death has been closed and ruled a suicide.

There has been speculation that Curtis did not commit suicide and was in fact murdered in a possible revenge or gangland-style killing, and his remains were then staged to make it look like he took his own life. There is no evidence to support this theory, however.

Authorities initially suspected that Curtis was involved in LeeAnna's disappearance, and they processed his pickup truck for DNA samples. They could not find any evidence that the child had ever been in the vehicle, and it was decided that Curtis was not connected to LeeAnna's apparent abduction.

Police suspect foul play in LeeAnna's disappearance. LeeAnna's parents were not asked to take lie detector tests and are not suspects in their daughter's apparent abduction.

They have both been previously divorced and LeeAnna's father, Christopher, had domestic problems with his ex-wife; they both sought mutual restraining orders and he alleged that she had threatened Kaelin and LeeAnna. These difficulties occurred several years before LeeAnna's disappearance, however, and are not thought to be related to it.

The Warners moved to Chisholm just a few months prior to LeeAnna's disappearance.

After LeeAnna vanished, a child's footprints were found near Longyear Lake, a shallow lake near where she was last seen. Investigators pumped some of the water out of the lake in late October 2003 to search for evidence relating to her case, but they found nothing important and had to stop pumping because the lake was freezing over.

They began a new search of Chisholm in the summer of 2004, looking for the child's remains, but to no result. No further searches are scheduled for the foreseeable future. LeeAnna's parents believe she is still alive and was possibly abducted for the purposes of black-market adoption.

LeeAnna enjoys playing with dolls and riding her bicycle, and is described as an outgoing, precocious, and fearless child. She has been known to wander, and her survival instincts are said to be quite advanced for her age. Her case remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency

• Chisholm Police Department 218-254-7915

Source Information

• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
• The Saint Paul Pioneer Press
• Find Beaner
• KDLH 3
• The Star Tribune
• The Polly Klaas Foundation
• MSNBC
• Minnesota Department of Public Safety
• KSP-TV
• WCCO.com News
• Child Protection Education of America
• Mesabi Daily News
• Duluth News Tribune
• BeyondMissing
• Operation Lookout
• LeeAnna Susan Marie Warner – The Charley Project
  
• Disappearance of LeeAnna Warner - Wikipedia

 

[Abbey Road]

Any idea of make and model of the old truck was that ever found

 

[Richard]

Any idea of make and model of the old truck was that ever found

None of the case summaries that I have seen stated a Make or Model of the truck witnesses said was in the area. Only that it was an older model and rust colored.

Matthew James Curtis, 24, was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography but was killed or committed suicide before he could be tried. He had one or possibly multiple pick up trucks which were taken by police and processed to see if they could link him to Leeanna's disappearance, but with negative results. No word on their make or model either.

 

[winniebago]

I wonder if they searched other surrounding lakes in the area besides Longyear. There's practically hundreds around there and thousands in the state. I hope the little girl has found peace, where ever she may be.