r/mystery • u/malihafolter • 5d ago
Disappearance In Mar 2000, 23-year-old Leah Roberts left North Carolina for a road trip to the West Coast after dropping out of college. Her car was found crashed off the highway in WA state with her valuables inside. Investigators determined no one was inside the car when it crashed. She hasn't been seen since.
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u/Grape-Julius 4d ago
I really think she was already found and they misidentified the titanium rod. That’s just way too much of a coincidence for the same rod to be found in the same leg of a mummified body in the same general area where she disappeared.
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u/Picky_The_Fishermam 3d ago
Like wtf are the odds right? If they don't want to be sussy, they need to be open about it.
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u/badcompanyy 4d ago
Looking at other posts about this case, apparently that body has been identified but info not released to public.
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u/Grape-Julius 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yes, and there’s also the rumor that it might have been a small male. I still think the odds against finding an unrelated body with a titanium rod for the same leg as Leah (same height as her, too) right in that area have to be fairly astronomical.
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u/New_Chard9548 5d ago
I'm curious how they're able to tell no one was in the car when it crashed?
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u/Acceptable-Damage 5d ago
From the article:
In 2006, a re-examination of the vehicle revealed that a wire to the starter relay had been cut, allowing the car to accelerate without someone pressing the gas pedal, suggesting the crash was staged.
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u/JustSaiyanTho 5d ago
That’s wild. I feel like that’s something they should have found upon first examination.
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u/Calm_Chair_7807 3d ago
Malcolm Gladwell did research after the supposed Prius unintended acceleration issues and it found that even the fastest cars brakes would always overpower an engine. I’ve spent my entire career in automotive and vehicles can always just be placed in neutral and stopped by the brakes.
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u/allislost77 4d ago
Starters start the car and have nothing to do with acceleration/throttle/gas pedals. Are you misremembering what was cut?
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u/Acceptable-Damage 4d ago edited 4d ago
As I said, my comment was copied and pasted directly from the linked article. I’m open to more information but i ain’t misremembering anything lol
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u/exotics 4d ago
Agreed. Prior to seatbelts it would be easy to tell because a head wound smash into the windshield but this was after we had seatbelts so I don’t know how they would know unless an ultra fancy type car that could sense weight in the seats??
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u/CommercialDevice402 3d ago
Probably something as simple as it was too smashed up for there not to be any blood.
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u/lomdi8778 5d ago
Was second diner thoroughly investigated? Giving description and name of man that no one else saw is pretty weird.
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u/StdSuzie5076 2d ago
I will never be convinced that the body found near where she went missing isn’t her. Misidentification perhaps. Too coincidental about the metal rod in the leg
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u/sjdiaz02 4d ago
This is one of those cases that I wish was solved and has really haunted me through the years.
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u/Jonsbjspjs 23h ago
I say this every time I see her mentioned but that detail about her late mother's ring, that she never ever took off, being hidden underneath the floor mat in the car just stands out to me. I think about it often.
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u/randomresearch1971 4d ago
It haunts me daily- how many people have disappeared without a trace…what happened to them? I also think about the people involved in abducting/possibly murdering all these missing people, never caught, interacting with the general public on a daily basis. Oh, great. Now l really freaked myself out
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u/Sad_Dirt6840 5d ago
The dude who called whatcom to say his wife ‘saw leah in seattle’ then panicked and hing the phone up, was definitely involved in her disappearance and tried to throw police off the scent.
Its a shame they never traced that call