Leah Roberts

BRIEFS
Newspaper
March 20, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA)
Author: Staff | Page: 3A | Section: Local
94 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1040, grade level(s): 6 7 8
Sheriff's Office seeks car owner
The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office is seeking
information about the whereabouts of a car's owner after
finding the vehicle, but no one in it, off Mount Baker
Highway on Saturday.
The car obviously had been in an accident, but no one
reported seeing the accident or any sign of people near the
car, officials said.
The registered owner is Leah T. Roberts, 23.
Authorities hope anyone with ideas about Roberts'
whereabouts will call 911.
"We are unaware of both her location or her condition,"
said Sgt. Scott Rossmiller.
Missing woman's relatives

arrive to help
Newspaper
Author: Kari Thorene | Page: 3A | Section: Local
292 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1150, grade level(s): 9 10 11-12
BY KARI THORENE
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
The brother and sister of a missing North Carolina woman
flew into Bellingham Tuesday to assist Whatcom County
sheriff's deputies with their investigation.
Leah T. Roberts, 23, is still missing after her 1993 white
Jeep Cherokee was found wrecked on an abandoned
logging road near Mount Baker Highway Saturday.
Roberts left her Raleigh, N.C., home March 9 for a cross-
country road trip.
"It doesn't surprise me that she would go off and try to find
herself," said her brother, Heath Ro-berts, 30. "I was
concern-ed about her, but I wasn't very worried until we
got the phone call that they had found her car."
Leah Roberts dropped out of North Carolina State
University just weeks before her road trip, Heath Roberts
said. She would have finished her Spanish and
anthropology degrees in May.
"I think there are two things," he said about his sister's
decision to drop out in February. "Finding herself and
doing something creative were more important than going
off and joining working society."
But, he added, that's only his perception.
Leah Roberts did not call her brother or sister, Kara
Roberts, before she left. They found out about her trip
from friends.
Heath Roberts said his sister likes talking to people and
recently started taking guitar lessons.
She is described as white, 5-feet-3, 135 pounds with short
dark hair with a hint of blonde. She has a beauty mark
above the right side of her lips and may be traveling with a
kitten named "Bea."
Family and friends say Leah Roberts frequents
coffeehouses, is vegetarian and likes live music. She has a
strong Southern drawl, smokes cigarettes and is fluent in
Spanish.
Have you seen Leah

Roberts?
Newspaper
Author: Mark Porter | Page: 1A | Section: Local
980 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1230, grade level(s): 11-12
PEOPLE: Missing woman apparently was at Bellis Fair
mall.
BY MARK PORTER
Detectives are asking the public's help to piece together
information about a North Carolina woman whose Jeep
was found Saturday wrecked and abandoned east of
Glacier.
The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office is distributing an
informational flier and picture of Leah T. Roberts, 23, who
is still missing after leaving her Raleigh, N.C., home on
March 9 for a cross-country road trip.
Four days and 2,500 highway miles later, a ticket stub
found in her 1993 Jeep Cherokee shows Roberts
apparently attended the 2:10 p.m. showing on March 13 of
the Oscar-nominated film "American Beauty" at Bellis Fair
mall.
Then last Saturday - five days later - a Whatcom County
man and his girlfriend discovered Roberts' Jeep down an
embankment on the remote Canyon Creek Road off Mount
Baker Highway.
While investigators are still classifying Roberts'
disappearance as a missing persons case, the nearly week-
long gap of information is of concern, said Whatcom
County Sheriff's Office Detective Sgt. Kevin McFadden.
"It (foul play) is always in the back of our mind,"
McFadden said.
Roberts' credit card records show purchases in Texas,
Albuquerque, N.M., and then Oregon, where she
apparently last used the card in the early hours of March
13 in Brooks, Ore., just north of Salem, McFadden said.
He said the Jeep obviously had been in an accident, but no
one reported seeing the accident or any sign of people near
the vehicle.
Several windows had been smashed, and someone used
blankets to cover them. There were bags with personal
items strewn outside the Jeep, including a guitar,
checkbook, Roberts' passport, compact discs and other
personal belongings.
There have been no attempts by Roberts to locate the Jeep
or belongings, which were impounded by authorities after
Saturday's discovery, McFadden said. No one has called
law enforcement, and Roberts hasn't walked into a
hospital or care clinic with medical needs, he added.
There was no sign of blood or a struggle at the scene, he
said.
Lionel "Link" Paquet, a Bellingham man who owns a
chalet near Glacier, said he and his girlfriend were jogging
up Canyon Creek Road Saturday afternoon at about 1 p.m.
when he saw a dark piece of cloth on the left side of the
road suspended from a twig about a foot off the ground.
There was another piece of clothing under it - possibly a
coat dampened by rain - and Paquet decided to stop and
check it out. He saw the Jeep down an embankment, and
the pair went down to investigate.
"The car was sitting parallel to the road and it was
upright," Paquet said. "But stuff was strewn all over the
place, mostly clothes."
"I was expecting to see something worse, because the
windows were a bit dark. There wasn't anyone in there, but
there were a lot of clothes in there as well as hampers and
baskets."
The couple yelled out for a while, but no one returned their
calls, he said.
Outside the Jeep, Paquet and his girlfriend found personal
items, including a checkbook belonging to Roberts and her
passport. They also found the movie ticket stub in an
ornate wooden box with a crocodile on it, still inside the
Jeep, he said.
They then left the scene and immediately called
authorities, he said.
The missing persons probe is a joint investigation of the
Sheriff's Office and the FBI, which has jurisdiction on
federal land. The Jeep was found on U.S. Forest Service
land.
The responding deputy did a 200-yard perimeter search
on Saturday, and Sheriff's Office Deputy Mark Joseph and
FBI agent Chris McMurray did a more extensive search of
the area earlier this week, McFadden said.
There are a lot of downed trees and debris at the accident
site, making movement difficult, he said. Since the Jeep
wasn't too far from the paved road, investigators believe
Roberts would have gone back up to the roadway instead
of trying to traverse through thick brambles.
Her brother, Heath Roberts, and sister, Kara Roberts, flew
to Bellingham Tuesday to help deputies. They said Leah
Roberts didn't tell either one about her trip before she left.
They found out about the trip by word of mouth from
friends.
Roberts told a roommate in a scribbled note not to worry
about her. She also mentioned beat author Jack Kerouac's
landmark 1957 book "On the Road" in reference to her
trip. "No, I'm not suicidal. I am the opposite. Remember
Jack Kerouac?"
Heath Roberts characterized his missing sister as "very
easy-going." He doesn't believe she had any conflicts with
anybody. There is no indication she left with anybody from
Raleigh, he said.
Leah Roberts dropped out of North Carolina State
University just weeks before her road trip she would have
finished her Spanish and anthropology degrees in May.
She has a couple of very close friends, and always kept in
contact with them and her family, especially with her
sister, Heath Roberts said. Their mother died about three
years ago, he said, and their father died last April.
Both siblings went to the accident scene on Wednesday to
get a mental picture of the scene.
"I wouldn't say that taking a trip to get life experiences
would not be like her," he said. "But we were a little
surprised when she left without communicating to
anyone."
Leah Roberts is described as white, 5-feet-3, 135 pounds
with short dark hair with a hint of blonde. She has a
beauty mark above the right side of her lips. She might be
traveling with a blonde kitten named "Bea."
Family and friends say Leah Roberts frequents
coffeehouses, is vegetarian and likes live music. She has a
strong Southern drawl, smokes cigarettes and is fluent in
Spanish.
In addition to the flier, detectives also are working with
friends and relatives in North Carolina, McFadden said.
"We're also trying to determine what she did prior to
leaving North Carolina, and why she said she wanted to
explore and find herself - and then just zipped across the
country in four days," McFadden said.
Trip no surprise to family,

friends
Newspaper
BY KARI THORENE
With little notice, Leah Roberts, 23, hopped into her 1993
Jeep Cherokee and drove from her Raleigh, N. C., home to
Bellingham between March 9 and 13.
Most of her friends didn't think twice about her
spontaneous trip until Whatcom County Sheriff's Deputies
called with news that her Jeep had been found, totalled, off
a logging road near Mount Baker Highway.
Her family thought the road trip was one more attempt by
Roberts to find herself.
The North Carolina State University senior, who grew up
in the town of Durham about 15 miles from her college,
had been soul-searching for a while. Her parents both died
in the last three years, with the father dying last April.
"We've had a hard couple of years and it was just time to
reflect on stuff and see where she was going to move from
here. It's a little unusual to be - she was 22 with no
parents," said older sister Kara Roberts.
Leah Roberts withdrew from her classes at North Carolina
State University after her father checked into a hospital in
March, Kara Roberts said.
"She didn't have any direction" after his death, Kara
Roberts said. "I think she's been like that a lot, especially
now."
Finding some direction and meaning has been priority No.
1 for Leah Roberts, who started writing poetry and taking
guitar lessons earlier this year.
When she dropped out of school, only three months before
she would graduate with degrees in Spanish and
anthropology, her brother, Heath Roberts, said the
decision reflected her desire for more varied life
experiences.
Since her withdrawal from the university last March, Leah
Roberts had been trying to catch up and finish her degree.
But she struggled, Kara Roberts said, even though her
Spanish was "amazing."
To prepare for her plunge back into academia, Leah
Roberts spent last summer beefing up on her two majors:
studying anthropology in Costa Rica, where she could
practice her Spanish.
After the class was over, Leah Roberts opted to stay behind
while the other students returned to the states, Kara
Roberts said. She wanted to soak up the language from
native speakers.
Decisions like that, along with a previous semester spent
studying in Spain and frequent trips with friends, earned
Leah Roberts the reputation as an independent, well-
traveled and spur-of-the-moment "free spirit."
Renee Bollten, a college friend of Leah Roberts, said the
23-year-old travels so often that the seemingly impulsive
nature and long distance of the Washington trip did not
surprise her.
"Not a single one of her friends raised an eyebrow about
her taking a road trip," Bollten said.
Bollten said small groups of their large network of friends
customarily pick up and go on road trips together. The last
time she and Leah Roberts took a trip was to Atlanta for
New Year's Eve, 1998.
Kara Roberts said she talked on the telephone with her
sister the day she left for Washington. "There was no
indication (that she was planning a road trip)," Kara
Roberts said.
"In fact, she said maybe we could do something if I was
around for the weekend and she had plans with her
roommate to do something on the following day," Kara
Roberts said.
Even so, Kara Roberts said she found nothing startling
about her sister's abrupt departure. She chalked it up to a
desire for privacy.
To her, a letter written by her sister and left for her
roommate, Nicole Greene, confirmed the privacy theory.
"She wanted to get away for awhile without having to
explain it to anybody and that she didn't want us to worry.
She implied that she would be back in the next month -
she left enough money" for only one month's worth of
bills, Kara Roberts said. "That accident threw a crimp in
her plans.
"The scary part is, you just don't know what she's
thinking," she said. "Since she didn't contact us before, I
think she just wants to be a little out on her own."
Roberts letter to roommate
Here's the text of a letter left by Leah Roberts for her
roommate:
March 9, 2000
Nicole -
This is to cover bills for while I am gone. Remember -
everyone is together in thoughts and prayers and time
passes quickly. Have faith in me, yourself.
Help Shep with Easter at Latta House for fun for the
children.
Give Peter my laptop.
Give everyone my love. See you soon.
Tell Kara don't worry (even though she will)
Leah
Cookies in the freezer.
(Circled and in large letters) April 23 "On the Road" No,
I'm not suicidal. I'm the opposite. Remember jack
Kerouac?
(Boxed in small letters) Tell Nikki I meant to come but I
had no choice. She'll understand.
(Boxed in small letters) Tell Melissa she should come stay
in my room if she wants to come to Raleigh.
Clues elusive for missing

N.C. woman
Newspaper
ACCIDENT: Cell phone records, camera fail to produce
any answers.
BY KARI THORENE
The search for a missing North Carolina resident off the
Mount Baker Highway is plugging along, despite
numerous unanswered questions.
Leah Roberts, 23, is the registered owner of a white Jeep
Cherokee that was found wrecked off an abandoned
logging road near Mount Baker Highway last Saturday.
Roberts' belongings were strewn outside the vehicle and
inside, but minus a March 13 movie ticket stub from Bellis
Fair mall, there was no indication of her whereabouts.
On Friday morning, Whatcom County Sheriff's deputies
borrowed an airplane from the Border Patrol to scour the
Canyon Creek Road area from above. After an hour of
flying over the area between Mount Baker Highway and a
mile north of the accident site, investigators returned
empty-handed.
From this point, Deputy Mark Joseph said he will
investigate leads called in to the sheriff's office by people
who say they recognize Roberts from flyers.
"We've been getting some calls from people who say she
looks like someone they may have seen," Joseph said.
Some of those reports are from Bellis Fair Mall employees.
Deputies found a movie ticket in Roberts' Jeep from the
mall's theater, dated March 13.
In the small town of Glacier, near the place Roberts' Jeep
was found, the missing woman is a topic of daily
conversation. But no one has said they remember seeing
her.
"It's just really strange," said Marcella Dobis, who works at
the Mount Baker Snowboard Shop. "I have been here (in
the store) for the last 10 days or so and I haven't seen or
heard anything suspicious."
Jonelle Morrison, clerk at Graham's Store, the general
store in Glacier, agreed. "I haven't talked to anyone around
here who's seen her. It's not a very big town and you notice
people."
Last Wednesday, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office sent
two search and rescue teams to the accident site.
"They didn't have any indication that she went further into
the wood line than the vehicle," Joseph said. "Whoever left
the vehicle walked back toward the road where the vehicle
went in, and from there, there was no indication" of which
way they went.
One of the many unanswered questions in the
investigation is why Roberts drove so fast - covering the
South and West in four days - to get to Mount Baker.
Joseph said detectives are starting to look at the works of
Jack Kerouac for possible answers. Roberts, described by
her friends as a poetry lover and frequent traveler,
referenced Kerouac's landmark 1957 book "On the Road"
in a letter written to her roommate on March 9.
The letter is the only information found so far about her
plans.
Kerouac followed "On the Road," a book about his travels
back and forth across the country, with two books that
mention Whatcom County.
"Dharma Bums" and "Desolation Angels" both referenced
the area and Kerouac's 1956 summer at Desolation Peak in
the north Cascades.
Joseph said he is trying to find out if Kerouac mentioned
specific places in Whatcom County or dates, in hopes of
deciphering the clue left in Roberts' letter.
In the meantime, investigators are trying to cobble
together a clearer picture of Roberts' travels from North
Carolina to Mount Baker.
Through credit card records, investigators pinpointed
Roberts' last gas purchase in Brooks, Ore., just north of
Salem. They are waiting for surveillance video from the
station.
"We just want to see if she had anyone with her," Joseph
said. "Not only did she not say if she was going with
anyone, she did not say that she was coming at all."
Other leads that suggested information about her route or
possible travel companions turned up fruitless.
Deputies did not find Roberts' cellular phone in the vehicle
or at the site of the accident, and Sprint records show no
calls since she left North Carolina.
"We are not sure that she even brought it," Joseph said.
The last two calls Roberts made on the phone were not to
this area, he said.
The next lead for detectives was a camera found near the
Jeep with undeveloped film. While some hoped the film
would paint some kind of picture of the days leading up to
the accident on Canyon Creek Road, Joseph said the
results fell short.
"We developed the film and her brother and sister both
looked at it. These were pictures taken last winter," Joseph
said. "There doesn't appear to be any photos taken since
she left."
BRIEFS
Newspaper
Search widens for Roberts
The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office has issued a multi-
state bulletin about the disappearance of Leah Roberts, a
North Carolina woman whose Jeep Cherokee was found
wrecked off an abandoned logging road near Mount Baker
Highway March 18.
The Sheriff's Office is issuing an advisory message to law
enforcement agencies in Washington and Oregon about
the case, said Detective Sgt. Kevin McFadden.
The agencies also can download a photo of Roberts that
will be put on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, he said.
Detectives received one anonymous tip from a caller who
claimed to have talked to a woman fitting Roberts' general
description in Everett, McFadden said. The caller, who
didn't leave a name or number, said the woman claimed
she didn't know where she lived, he said.
Roberts is described as white, 5 feet 3 inches tall, 135
pounds, with short dark hair with a hint of blond.
Family offers $5,000
reward
Newspaper
April 5, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA)
The family of missing North Carolina woman Leah Roberts
is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to her
whereabouts or, in the event of foul play, for information
leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
Roberts' white Jeep Cherokee was found rolled off of an
abandoned logging road near Mount Baker Highway
March 18. The 23-year-old left a note to her roommate in
Raleigh, N.C., on March 9 saying she was going on a cross-
country road trip she did not mention a destination or any
specific plans.
Saturday, Whatcom County sheriff's deputies oversaw an
all-day search for Roberts to no avail.
Roberts is described as white, 5-feet-3, 135 pounds with
short dark hair with a hint of blonde. She has a beauty
mark above the right side of her lips. She might be
traveling with a blonde kitten named "Bea."
Leah Roberts'
disappearance ever-
present in family's minds
Newspaper
Author: Kari Thorene Shaw | Page: 1A | Section: Local
936 Words | Readability: Lexile: 990, grade level(s): 6 7
PEOPLE: North Carolina woman's Jeep found one year
ago near Glacier.
BY KARI THORENE SHAW
Kara Roberts hoped her little sister would call and wish
her a happy birthday.
It was March 19, one year ago, and she hadn't heard from
23-year-old Leah for 10 days - not since Leah had left a
scribbled note in her Raleigh, N.C., apartment announcing
that she was off on a solo, soul-searching road trip.
She would call, Kara promised herself. It wouldn't be like
Leah to miss giving a birthday wish.
When the phone finally rang, it wasn't Leah calling from
the road, but a Whatcom County Sheriff deputy way on the
other side of the continent in the dense Mount Baker
forest. Leah's Jeep had been found tumbled off of an
abandoned logging road near Glacier. Leah was missing.
"It was a shock," Kara Roberts recalled. "We didn't have
any clue what was going on."
A year has passed and still no one knows where Leah
Roberts is or what happened to her.
Whatcom County Sheriff Det. Mark Joseph confirmed
there are no new leads or sightings. There were precious
few to begin with.
Today, Kara Roberts turns 27. Like last year, she plans to
have dinner with her grandparents and uncles in Durham,
N.C. Like last year, she would love to hear from Leah.
"I've been a year without talking to my little sister," she
said. "That's hard."
When Leah Roberts hopped into her 1993 white Jeep
Cherokee with her kitten "Be" and headed west on March 9
last year, she left little mention of her plans other than a
scribbled note to her roommate, Nicole Bennett,
promising rent money and a swift return.
Such an impulsive trip was normal for Leah Roberts, who
had just dropped out of North Carolina State University's
Spanish and cultural anthropology programs.
She was "trying to find herself," her siblings would say
again and again. Both of her parents had died recently,
and Leah Roberts had struggled to cope with the loss.
The letter asked Bennett to "Tell Kara not to worry - even
though she will."
Nine days later, her Jeep was found with its windows
smashed and towels draped over the doors. The keys were
in the ignition her checkbook was on the ground.
Local law officers searched for days, but turned up
nothing. Her siblings and friends were devastated, but put
all of their energy into looking for her.
Kara Roberts and her brother, Heath, 31, flew to
Bellingham to see the Jeep and distribute fliers.
Bennett and a friend, Melissa Horne, came to Bellingham
in May. They went to Stuart's Coffee House on Bay Street -
it was like Cup O' Joe, Leah's favorite place to sip
cappuccino and write poems back in North Carolina,
Bennett said.
It felt better to be in Bellingham, Bennett would say later.
It felt closer to Leah.
Back in North Carolina, the Roberts' childhood neighbors
set up the Find Leah Fund at a local bank, and offered a
$5,000 reward for information leading to her
whereabouts.
Bennett and Horne organized a benefit concert.
Leah's friends and Kara and Heath Roberts took every
chance they could to get her picture back in the news and,
hopefully, in front of someone who might remember the
petite blonde with the fearless smile.
But as the months dragged by, there was less and less to
do.
The "Missing Person" flier with Leah's grinning photo,
posted on the wall at Stuart's Coffee House for nearly a
year, has been replaced by announcements for yoga classes
and upcoming art shows.
"We kind of don't know what to do now," Heath Roberts
said. "We are at a point where we've done all we can do."
Kara Roberts gets together with her sister's friends about
twice a month. They talk about Leah's love of poetry, how
she just started taking guitar lessons, how she could make
a friendship with just about anybody. They remember her
big smile and her clever jokes.
"She's not there and it feels weird," Kara Roberts said.
"You're constantly thinking about where she could be or
what might have happened. It plays mind games with
you."
Kara Roberts insists there's more that can be done to find
her sister. She sent a video to the TV show "America's
Most Wanted," asking the producers to run a segment on
Leah's disappearance, but got no response.
She collected signatures to send to national newspapers
urging a story. Maybe with all of those names written
down, the entire nation will hear about Leah Roberts and
someone with information will come forward.
"I sure would like to have some closure to this," Kara
Roberts said. "It's been pretty rough. Leah's disappearing
is always in the background. It's always kind of hanging
over your head."
ROBERT WILLETT THE NEWS AND OBSERVER
PHOTO
FRIENDS STILL HOLD OUT HOPE: icole Bennett (left)
holds a photograph of her missing friend Leah Roberts in
the living room of the apartment they shared in Raleigh,
N.C. Suzie Smith (right) was also a friend of Roberts.
Roberts' tumbled Jeep was found March 18, 2000, off an
abandoned logging road east of Glacier.
How to help
Leah Roberts, 24, is white, 5 feet 3 inches and 135 pounds.
She has short dark hair with hints of blond and a beauty
mark on the right side of her lip. She has a strong
Southern accent and frequents coffeehouses and live
concerts. She has been missing since March 9, 2000.
Missing woman's family

boosts reward
Newspaper
June 21, 2001 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA)
Author: Kari Thorene Shaw | Page: 3A | Section: Local
PEOPLE: Relatives say they hope $10,000 will ferret out
information.
BY KARI THORENE SHAW
The family of Leah Roberts, the North Carolina college
student whose wrecked Jeep was found near Mount Baker
Highway last spring, has increased its reward from $5,000
to $10,000 for information leading to her whereabouts.
Roberts has been missing since March 18, 2000, when a
jogger found her car rolled off a logging road just north of
Glacier. Roberts had left her Raleigh, N.C., apartment on
March 9 for a solo road trip.
Since then, her family and friends have traveled to
Bellingham several times to search for Roberts, to no avail.
"There's not a whole lot going on right now," said Kara
Roberts, Leah's older sister. "We were up there a couple
weeks ago putting up posters and meeting with
detectives."
In the past year, Kara Roberts said reports of sightings of
Leah Roberts have been minimal. She was reportedly seen
in Glacier, at the Nooksack Casino and in Everett, but
none of those leads went anywhere.
Whatcom County Sheriff's Office Detective Mark Joseph
did not return phone calls for comment.
Kara Roberts hopes the increased award brings new
information.
"Maybe somebody who is holding back could have a little
more incentive to come forward," she said.
Leah Roberts is 24 years old, 5 feet six inches tall, blond
with blue eyes. She has dimples, a beauty mark above her
lip and a strong Southern accent. Her family describes her
as very friendly with a love for coffee shops and poetry.

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BRIEFS

Missing woman's relatives

Have you seen Leah

Trip no surprise to family,

Clues elusive for missing

Missing woman's family

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