GONE MISSING at age 23!

Leah was an adventurous young woman from

Durham, North Carolina who was inspired and grieving. Leah Roberts’ story is
not a story in the sense of entertainment, rather, it is a true account with
certain known facts, but also shrouded in mystery, possibilities, hypotheses,
innuendo and lots of unsubstantiated speculation.

Leah Roberts loved to travel, and on March 9, 2000, she left her home in North
Carolina for a cross-country trip and never returned. Investigators still don't
know what happened.

Two weeks after she left, her jeep was found wrecked down an embankment in
a remote area 90 miles north of Seattle; she had crossed the country in just
three days.

Some of her belongings, including CDs, her checkbook, and guitar were found
around the jeep and inside they found food for her missing cat, Bea, a gas
receipt, and a movie stub for "American Beauty". However, there was no body,
blood, signs of a struggle, and a large scale search found nothing.

Robbery didn't appear to be the motive because several thousand dollars were
found in the car, and a strange thing that investigators found was that blankets
were covering the windows as if keeping out the rain.

The SUV was carefully examined at a police garage. It was full of Leah's
personal belongings: a large amount of cash, an empty cat carrier, and Leah's
mother's diamond engagement ring.

Leah's roommate, Nicole Bennett, remembered the ring:

Quote:

As long as I've known Leah, she has worn her mother's engagement ring. It was her
most prized possession. And when we discovered that the ring had been found in the
car, it was definitely, for me, a bad sign.

Authorities searched into her background and learned that she had been on a
spiritual quest; her parents had both passed away recently and she had been in
a near-fatal car accident.
Also, she had dropped out of school a few weeks before her road trip and
instead stayed at a coffee shop in Durham, North Carolina. While there, she
spent hours writing in her journal and creating poetry about the meaning of
life.

She was also enamored of 1950s beatnik Jack Kerouac and was especially
interested by one of his autobiographies about leaving middle class life and
going on a journey in the area where she vanished.

She also wrote a note to her roomate about how she was not suicidal and
implied that she was going to go on a journey like Jack Kerouac.

Her family and friends still want to know what happened to her and they are
offering a $10,000 reward for information.

Suspects: Before Leah vanished, the police received information that she was
seen leaving a local Bellingham, Washington restaurant with an unknown
individual. The identity of this person is unknown but unreliable.

Recent new examination of her car has uncovered sabotage of her car that
might have sent it careening to where it found. Fingerprints and male DNA on
the clothes in her car have not been linked to a known donor.

Vital Statistics:

Caucasian Female; DOB – 7-23-1976; 5’ 6” 130 pounds; sandy blonde hair blue eyes;

Distinguishing Marks: Pierced ears, dimples, Surgical scar on right hip, metal rod- femur –
secondary to previous car accident

Habits- Lifestyle – Vegetarian, smoker, Fluent Spanish speaker, strong southern dialect;

Leah spent a lot of time at Cup O’ Joe’s Coffee House

Leah dabbled in poetry, and was influenced in outlook at that time in her life by poet,
Author, and Journalist, Jack Kerouac. His public persona and his talented works were a
contradiction in terms. His 1951 book ‘”On the Road” no doubt inspired Leah as she set out
on her adventure to “find herself and her true calling in life after many losses. (From
Biography.com: “On the Road,” a barely fictionalized account of these road trips packed
with sex, drugs and jazz. Kerouac’s writing of On the Road in 1951 is the stuff of legend:
He wrote the entire novel over one three-week bender of frenzied composition, on a single
scroll of paper that was 120 feet long.” Jack died in 1969 of alcoholism and an abdominal
hemorrhage at age 47.)

When Last Seen:

Wearing several pieces of gold, diamond and gem jewelry including 14 carat gold earrings,
.3 caret ruby stones, 3 rings on her right hand, 14 caret white gold ring set with .45 carat
emerald cut diamond with 2 .07 carat baguette diamonds. (Jewelry may have belonged to
her deceased Mother)

Leah left college in Durham, North Carolina during her senior year –Year 2000;
 She left on a cross-country trip on March 9, 2000 and arriving om the west coast in just
three days;

Leah did not share her specific plans (in true adventurous spirit), but did notify her
roommate that she was not suicidal;

Her 1993 white Jeep Cherokee was found down an embankment wrecked without her as
driver or passenger ~ 90 miles north of Seattle; The jeep was located on a logging road in
Whatcom County, Washington (setting from a Kerouac novel) nine days after she left North
Carolina.

Belongings found and identified: Cat Food, guitar, compact discs, checkbook , movie ticket
stub, and $2,500 tucked in the pocket of a pair of pants, credit card and driver’s license,

Other Observations:

No cat was located or signs of foul play, blankets covered the broken windows (as cover
from the elements “for someone”);

Reportedly she spent just $100.00 in eight days of travel;

A witness supposedly observed Leah and called in a tip from at a Texaco gas Station. The
man claimed he and his wife observed her 30 miles from the scene of the crash. She was
disoriented and did not know her identity. He abruptly ended the call, perhaps out of
panic. Police feel this tip was credible.

Reports of the Investigation Discovery show, “Disappeared” revealed that her Jeep may
have been tampered with– to accelerate on its own;

In a Foothills Gazette.com article, Monica Caison is quoted as saying, “She could have
been abducted as she walked out of there or that she ran into foul play and they staged
it.”

“Theories” & Speculation: Picked up by a passing motorist while injured and disoriented on
Mount baker Highway with an unknown assailant driving her vehicle where foul play
ensued; Abduction & Kidnapping; Leah “staged the crash and decided to start a new life”;
Leah wrecked her jeep, hitchhiked to get help, and was kidnapped by someone, Leah
wrecked her jeep, hit her head, and is alive with some sort of amnesia.

Leah was kidnapped sometime before her car crashed, and the kidnapper crashed her car.

Leah told two men at a bar-restaurant at lunch she was travelling alone; The perpetrator is
a mechanic who tampered with her car and fled to Canada with-without her; She spent the
night “in nature” and was removed from the car; A sexual sadist was involved as there
was no robbery.

And on and on….

Quote:

In the past, Leah’s sister, Kara, stated, “Leah was a young woman who was lost. You
know by the time Leah was 22 she had lost both of her parents and here she is on the
verge of graduating from college and I think she just really felt lost and didn’t have a lot
of direction and I feel like she took this trip as a soul-searching trip…I think she just
needed to go and get away to clear her mind.”
Investigating Agency:
Contact: Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office
Det. Mark Joseph (360) 676-6650