The Bizarre Disappearance of Leah Roberts
A woman vanishes under strange circumstances during a cross-country road trip
A Cryptic Note, A Wrecked Vehicle
When free-spirited Leah Roberts, 23, made the impulsive choice to go on a cross-country road trip alone, her friends and family became concerned. Leaving behind a cryptic, albeit upbeat, note and enough money to cover a month of rent and other expenses, Leah left Durham, North Carolina, on March 9th, 2000.
Leah made few stops along the way, instead driving directly to Washington State over the course of four days. Her ultimate destination was apparently Desolation Peak, near Mount Baker, a location that she’d mentioned to one of her friends during a recent literary discussion.
Ostensibly on a journey of self-discovery, she wished to make her way to a region featured in The Dharma Bums, a book by her favorite writer, Jack Kerouac.
But that journey would soon come to a mysterious end.
On March 18th, a couple out for a jog discovered Leah’s 1993 white Jeep Cherokee wrecked at the bottom of a steep embankment in a wooded area near Canyon Creek Road.
Some aspects of the scene were odd, such as the fact that several articles of clothing were found tied to trees and sticks nearby. Many of Leah’s belongings were strewn around the area, but the young woman herself had vanished.
What happened to Leah Roberts?
Leah Toby Roberts
The youngest of three children, Leah Toby Roberts was born on July 23rd, 1976, in Durham, North Carolina, to parents Nancy and Stancil. When she was a teenager, her father was diagnosed with a life-threatening respiratory illness—the first of a number of hardships that the Roberts family would suffer.
After graduating from high school, Leah began attending North Carolina State University, majoring in anthropology and Spanish.
A Series of Tragedies
On February 5th, 1997, Leah’s mother died suddenly from heart disease.
In another unfortunate turn of events, Leah was in a serious car accident in the fall of 1998, which resulted in a shattered femur and a punctured lung. To help her femur heal, a metal rod was implanted next to it. Despite these setbacks, she came out of her recovery with a renewed zest for life, telling her sister that she felt "born again."
Yet she was to suffer another heartbreaking blow when her father died on April 19th, 1999, as a result of his illness. Losing both her parents at such a young age, and in a relatively short period of time, deeply affected Leah. Her brother Heath and sister Kara described her as "lost."
Leah Drops Out of College, Finds Inspiration in Jack Kerouac
Leah dropped out of college just three months shy of obtaining a degree. She learned how to play guitar, began writing poetry, took up photography, and adopted a kitten, whom she named Bea. She often went to local coffeehouses to write poetry and would engage in deep discussions about the meaning of life with the new friends she made there.
One of these friends was Jeannine Quiller, who stated that Leah spoke of emulating novelist Jack Kerouac and taking a road trip to the West.
"From the last conversation that we had, we were talking about Dharma Bums and about how Kerouac was up on Desolation Peak, just taking in all the beauty around him," Quiller said.
A Sudden Departure
On the morning of March 9th, 2000, Leah and Kara spoke on the phone. Among other things, they talked about the uncertainty of Leah’s future plans, and the conversation ended with the understanding that the two sisters would see each other again soon.
That afternoon, Leah spoke to her friend and roommate Nicole and agreed to babysit with her the following day. When Nicole returned home from work that evening, she saw that Leah’s Jeep was missing from the parking lot. This wasn’t particularly notable at the time, since Leah didn’t have a consistent schedule anymore and would often come and go.
However, when Leah didn’t show up for the babysitting job the next day, Nicole began to worry. Her friends and family tried to contact her repeatedly over the next few days, without success.
Kara reported Leah missing on March 13th.
A Strange Note Is Found
When Kara and Nicole searched Leah’s room, they discovered that a lot of her clothing, as well as her kitten, were gone. They also found money and a note written in Leah’s handwriting and addressed to Nicole, which read as follows:
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 everyone. Help "Shep." with Easter @ Latta House for fun for the children
Give Peter my lap-top
Give everyone my love, see you soon. Tell Kara don't worry (even though she will)
Leah
P.S. cookies in freezer
[Circled off to the side of the letter] April 23 "On the Road." No I’m not suicidal I am the opposite—remember Jack Ker-o-wack (sp? [smiley face])
[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.
Leah had also drawn a Cheshire Cat smile on the outside of the folded note. She was a fan of Alice in Wonderland, but her sister wondered if the presence of the cat’s mischievous grin had a deeper significance.
"I kind of wondered if it wasn’t the cat that always disappears and reappears out of nowhere," Kara said. "I feel like it might have meant to her, here’s my grin, it’s here, it’s gone, it’ll be back."
Leah's family and friends were unsure of what to make of this. All attempts to contact Leah continued to fail. Her cell phone records would later reveal that she hadn’t used her phone since leaving North Carolina and it’s unclear whether she even brought it with her.
Kara felt that her sister was trying to discover a purpose and find her direction again.
"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 journey," Kara said.
But Leah's departure wasn't a total surprise. Several weeks earlier, she had talked to Nicole about taking an impromptu trip across the country.
"It sounded great, but I was working. I didn't have the money. I couldn't just jump in the car spontaneously and go," Nicole said.
Paper Trail and Security Footage
Leah’s financial records showed that she’d withdrawn thousands of dollars on March 9th, and that her debit card was used to book a hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. Over the next few days, she’d make several food and gas purchases as well, the last of these at a gas station in Brooks, Oregon, on March 13th.
Security camera footage from the Brooks gas station just before 1 a.m. showed Leah alone, with no signs of distress or any indication that she was being followed. However, she did look out the door at the parking lot before handing something (possibly her debit card) to the cashier.
It's unknown what Leah might have been looking for, if anything in particular.
Joggers Discover Leah's Abandoned Jeep
On March 18th, five days after the last activity on Leah's bank accounts, a couple found her abandoned Jeep in Washington’s Mount Baker National Forest and called the police. Investigators later estimated that the vehicle had likely been going around 40 mph when it went off the road and surmised that it had rolled several times before coming to rest at the bottom of the embankment.
With a crash of this severity, law enforcement felt that any occupants would have been badly hurt. Yet not only was nobody in the Jeep, there was also no blood or any other signs of injury either. The windows were broken and blankets and pillows had been hung over them, perhaps suggesting that the vehicle had been briefly used as a shelter following the accident.
Leah’s checkbook, guitar, CDs, passport, and other belongings were scattered around the Jeep and in the nearby woods. Some of her clothing was found tied to trees and branches in the area, and a small amount of male DNA turned up on one article of clothing.
A camera with an undeveloped roll of film was among Leah's possessions. Kara and Heath had the film developed, but found only pictures taken the previous winter. Apparently, she hadn’t snapped any shots during her road trip.
Bea, Leah’s kitten, was missing as well, but an empty cat carrier and cat food were still inside the Jeep. Her mother’s engagement ring, which she was known to constantly wear, was discovered beneath the vehicle's floor mat.
"That was a very, very sacred item for her," Nicole said about the ring. "I don't care what kind of emotional state she was in—unless she had some kind of serious mental disorder—she would have never left that ring. Never."
All told, $2,500 in cash and jewelry was found at the scene, indicating that if foul play had occurred (as later developments would suggest), robbery was not the motive.
Men Talked to Leah at a Restaurant Before She Went Missing
Kara and Heath flew out to Washington to search for their sister.
Two men recalled speaking to Leah at Elephant & Castle, a restaurant in Bellingham, Washington, on the afternoon of March 13th. All three were seated at the counter. According to both men, Leah talked about her road trip and Jack Kerouac. One of them said that she left the restaurant alone. However, the other individual claimed that she’d departed with a man whom he referred to as "Barry."
Police produced a sketch of Barry based on the witness's description. However, because no one else who had been in Elephant & Castle that day could corroborate the existence of this third man, investigators believe that part of the story is possibly a fabrication.
Additionally, a movie ticket stub from a theater in Bellingham was found among Leah's belongings.
Leah Is Allegedly Sighted in Everett
A week after the Jeep was found, the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a man who said that his wife had seen Leah at a gas station in Everett, Washington. She was reportedly disoriented and unable to give her name when asked.
For unknown reasons, the unidentified caller seemed to panic and then hung up the phone. Authorities believe his tip was credible, though they haven’t elaborated on why.
The Search Continues
The search for Leah Roberts continued for two weeks and utilized helicopters, dogs, and metal detectors (due to the metal rod in her leg). No sign of the missing 23-year-old was found.
"We brought in dogs, we brought in search and rescue, and did a complete grid search up and down the road," said Sergeant Kevin McFadden of the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office. "But they weren’t able to find any indication that anybody had left that vehicle."
Engine Tampering: Who Was Responsible?
For reasons that are still unclear, Leah’s Jeep was not fully processed for evidence during the initial investigation. In 2006, new detectives took over the case and examined the vehicle. They discovered an unidentified fingerprint under the hood and, even more concerning, that the starter relay wire had been cut, allowing the vehicle to accelerate without pressure being placed on the gas pedal.
They believed that the engine tampering must have been done by someone who was knowledgeable about cars.
Investigators had already believed that the accident was staged and this discovery seemed to confirm that suspicion. But who was responsible—and why—remained a mystery.
Law enforcement tracked down one of the men who’d spoken to Leah in Bellingham before she went missing—the one who claimed that she’d left the restaurant with someone named Barry. The man happened to be a mechanic.
However, his fingerprint didn’t match the one discovered under the hood of the Jeep. His DNA was also tested against what was found on Leah’s clothing, but the results have never been released to the public.
A Mummified Body Is Discovered
In 2014, a mummified body was found in the same region that Leah’s wrecked vehicle had once occupied.
The remains showed striking similarities to Leah, such as height (estimated to be 5'5" vs. Leah's 5'6"), as well as the presence of a metal rod in the right femur—the same location as Leah's metal rod. A trace of the lot number showed that the rod had been shipped in a batch in the fall of 1998, when Leah had her own metal rod implanted.
Initially, these similarities seemed far too remarkable to be purely a coincidence.
However, experts determined that the body likely belonged to a male aged 33–55. The doe's profile has since been removed from NamUs (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System), indicating that this individual was probably quietly identified. No further information on the remains has been released to the public.
Other Developments
Leah Roberts’ disappearance has been featured on Unsolved Mysteries and Disappeared, resulting in many fresh tips, although none proved to be helpful.
Her case is still open and active. She is missed by her family and friends, who still hope that one day they’ll have definitive answers.
Until then, the circumstances surrounding Leah’s accident, as well as what happened to her and Bea afterwards, remain unknown.
Additional Sources
The Bellingham Herald, March 25th, 2000
The Bellingham Herald, March 19th, 2001
The Bellingham Herald, March 25th, 2004
The Daily Herald, March 29th, 2000
The News and Observer, March 9th, 2001
The News and Observer, September 23rd, 2002
Disappeared, season 3, episode 8, "Soul Searcher"
Unsolved Mysteries, season 11, episode 6
(This article was originally published on HubPages)
This story is heartbreaking.
When I was 16 in 2002 I discovered Kerouac and, like so many others before and after me, fell in love. In the '90s, hip cynicism was the default mode of expression (Reality Bites, oh well whatever nevermind). So discovering Kerouac was a breath of fresh air. He had so much enthusiasm and such a compelling vision of life.
I took a cross-country road trip in an old van when I was 17 in summer 2003 with three friends but it didn't satiate me, so I went hitchhiking for four months in summer 2007. I was somewhere in the prairies during the first leg of the latter trip when I met Jan.
Jan was about a year older than me. She said she was hitchhiking to Los Angeles and then planned to head north up the Pacific Coast Highway to Vancouver. We hung out for about four hours, first on the highway shoulder and then in a coffee shop, and she told me about a number of close calls she'd had. I'd already had a few myself as well - a few creepy truck drivers and one older man who started out friendly but then became monosyllabic and angry after I got into his vehicle. I was lucky enough to get out unscathed but I was worried about Jan because of how physically small she was.
Jan was the one who advised me to ALWAYS ask a driver who has stopped for you where they are headed.(Before that I would just get into their vehicle, without asking anything, afraid they would change their minds if I didn't move fast.) "If they don't have an answer or they hesitate, tell them 'thanks but I'll get the next one.' You only have a few seconds to sniff out a bad vibe. Trust your gut."
We'd both been bitten by the Kerouac bug so we talked about him for a while. She also loved Bukowski, which was a big reason she was going to L.A. Neither of us knew what we were looking for. We only knew that we wouldn't find it staying at home.
It's not a good idea to try and hitchhike with somebody. Very few people will stop for even one hitchhiker. Even less will stop for two. We both knew this so we said goodbye and went our separate ways.
I spent the next three months on the road, working random jobs for a week or two and then moving on. I sat on countless dew-soaked fence posts at dawn, scribbling in the notebook I kept in my backpack. (Months later, on my way home I would get caught in a thunderstorm and get so saturated, all the ink would run off the pages of my notebook. I see this as a blessing now. I'm sure my "poetry" was awful.) I met a lot of wonderful people, worked a lot of random jobs, and just generally had the time of my life.
I ran into Jan again in Victoria a lot over three months after first meeting her. I was freakin' ecstatic to see that she'd made it to L.A. and all the way up the west coast, as I'd been worried about her. We both looked and felt incalculably older, like we'd lived many years' worth of experiences since we'd last seen each other. Jan had given herself a close-cropped flattop buzz cut and now dressed like a boy. She also traveled with a screwdriver she'd taken to a belt sander and shaved down to a razor sharp point. Traveling with a knife for protection can be trick, hence the screwdriver.
I've never had to move through the world as a woman but the dim notion I do have of what it must be like comes from knowing Jan. There's no doubt in my mind that her advice helped keep me safe out there. Most people are good but some just aren't.
Before I went hitchhiking, I'd always thought evil was a sinister outside force that rolled through the world like a storm front. If you could just somehow not be there when it brushed past you, you'd be okay. I don't have the space here to describe my or Jan's close brushes with danger but after that trip, I had to admit that evil is within us, not without. It's a feature of humankind, not a bug.
I still talk to Jan. We write each other long emails every 3-4 months. We don't hitchhike anymore but we're both glad we did it. We've talked about Leah Roberts before. Neither of us knew what to make of the cryptic letter she left behind, but it sounds like she was on a journey of self-discovery when she ran into someone bent on doing her harm. It's a heartbreaking story. I hope that one day her remaining family members find peace and some semblance of closure.
R.I.P. Leah Roberts.