Leigh Occhi - Part 1

On the morning of August 27, 1992, the remnants of Hurricane Andrew were heading toward Tupelo, Mississippi. Inside a small house on Honey Locust Drive, a thirteen-year-old girl named Leigh Occhi was home alone, still in her nightgown. She had an open house at her middle school later that day, and her mom had just left for work. 

Around 8:30, her mother was worried about the storm, so called home to check on Leigh, but there was no answer. She called again. Still no answer. So she made the mile and a half drive home. She'd been gone less than an hour, but when she got home, Leigh was gone. 

In the thirty-four years since that morning, there has never been an arrest, but there have been a few people who have never quite been ruled out. Can new searches finally bring the answers that have been hidden for over three decades?

If you have any information about the disappearance of Leigh Occhi, please contact the Tupelo Police Department at (662) 841-6491, or Crime Stoppers of Northeast Mississippi at 1-800-773-TIPS.

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[SPEAKER_01]: dark cast network, indie pods with a dark side.

[SPEAKER_03]: On the morning of August 27th, 1992, the remnants of Hurricane Andrew were heading toward Tupolo, Mississippi.

[SPEAKER_03]: Inside a small house on Honey Locust Drive, a 13-year-old girl named Lee Oji was home alone, still in her night gown.

[SPEAKER_03]: She had an open house at her middle school later that day and her mom had just loved for work.

[SPEAKER_03]: Around 830, her mother was worried about the storm so she called home to check on Lee, but there was no answer.

[SPEAKER_03]: She called again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Still no answer.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she made the mile and a half drive home.

[SPEAKER_03]: She'd been gone less than an hour, but when she got home, Lee was gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: In the 34 years since that morning, there has never been an arrest, but there have been a few people who have never quite been rolled out.

[SPEAKER_03]: Can new searches finally bring the answers that have been hidden for over

[SPEAKER_03]: When a person goes missing there's a special kind of pain in the not knowing, I want to tell the stories of those who never came home.

[SPEAKER_03]: Today, I want to tell you the story of Leo Chi.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Conan Gallagher.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm Ethan Flick.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is, and then they were gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back, everyone.

[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for joining us once again.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Kona.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm Ethan.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we're the husband and wife team behind this podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: Each week I tell you this story of an unsolved missing person's case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Ethan doesn't know anything about the case going into the episode and is here to provide his reactions and questions in real time, hopefully asking some of the same ones you have at home.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now this week's episode accidentally became a two-parter, which is why it's coming out a little late for my Patreon members.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was about 80, 85% finished with it, but then I ended up going down a rabbit hole.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that rabbit hole is now going to be part two of this episode.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's been a while since we've had a two-part episode though.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I really just went nuts the season and started it with like two two-parters in a row, which was insane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but yeah, we haven't had one since then.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, figured why not?

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, without giving too much away right off the bat, there are a few names that can consistently come up in this case.

[SPEAKER_03]: In this episode, we're going to talk about one of them and next week, we'll dive into the other.

[SPEAKER_03]: But don't fear if you're a Patreon member, you will be able to access part two early, so I'm not going to leave you hanging for that long.

[SPEAKER_03]: I usually try to get both parts up at the same time, but just again, because we got kind of

[SPEAKER_03]: So speaking of Patreon before we get into it, we've had a few folks join us over there, so we'd like to take a moment to give them a shout out.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, too.

[SPEAKER_03]: Survivor Tools, Sineam, Kristen F, and Amanda.

[SPEAKER_03]: We really appreciate your support.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_03]: As a reminder, if you'd like to get our episodes at free and usually early, just, you know, usually, usually early, I've been really good about it this season.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can join us over there on Patreon at any level starting at just $2 a month.

[SPEAKER_03]: You'll also get a free copy of the e-book that I wrote.

[SPEAKER_03]: So now let's get into part one of the story of Lee Ochi.

[SPEAKER_03]: Donald and Vicky met in 1977 in California where they're both serving in the U.S. Army.

[SPEAKER_03]: According to Donald, Vicky was stationed at the Defense Language Institute slash foreign language center in Monterey.

[SPEAKER_03]: They are, she studied Korean and interrogation techniques and became a trained interrogator.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that's fancy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he ended up joining the rapid deployment unit, which I think is also, I don't know a lot about this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, but I think that's also

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know either.

[SPEAKER_04]: It sounds cool.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Within a year of meeting, the couple was married and they were both stationed in Hawaii where Lee was born shortly thereafter.

[SPEAKER_03]: I never understood why every time I told people when I was a kid that I was born in Hawaii, they would always ask me if my parents were military.

[SPEAKER_03]: because like there's a lot of military yeah I didn't know that though and I was always so confused and like no my parents have never done anything remotely like that they just you know decided to move out of Detroit.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well typically people only are usually only moved to wife if they're military or they join a commune.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like your parents did create it their own.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah I was gonna say I'm like please they didn't join anything and my dad created it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Unfortunately, Vicky and Donald's marriage began to deteriorate not long after Lee was born, and the pair split while she was still a baby.

[SPEAKER_03]: Donald continued to serve in the army and was stationed around the country and even around the world.

[SPEAKER_03]: Vicky transitioned at some point to the National Guard, and she and Lee settled into Blu-Mississippi.

[SPEAKER_03]: Donald remarried and has expressed regret that the geography of his job kept him from seeing Lee as often as he would have liked.

[SPEAKER_03]: While his stationed in Germany, however, Lee flew overseas and spent the summer with him.

[SPEAKER_03]: At one point, he was also stationed in Kentucky, which he said made it easier for him to spend time with her.

[SPEAKER_03]: By the summer of 1992, Donald and his wife had a daughter of their own and were stationed in Virginia.

[SPEAKER_03]: Vicki had also remarried.

[SPEAKER_03]: Her husband was a younger man named Barney Yarborough.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was around 29 while Vicki was around 37.

[SPEAKER_03]: The couple both worked at a like it in plaat, a manufacturing company near their home at 105 honey-locus drive in Duplo.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lee was getting ready to start the eighth grade at Duplo Middle School.

[SPEAKER_03]: She loved horses and horseback riding and was known to be a high-energy kid who often got in trouble for talking or fidgeting in school.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was outgoing but she seemed to have an easier time talking to adults than to kids her own age.

[SPEAKER_03]: She had a few close friends but a lot of the kids said

[SPEAKER_03]: Donald described his daughter as a witty and affectionate, but said she was a little standoffish.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said though that he was also a standoffish, so he wasn't sure if it was because of genetics or because of her situation.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and that was his word to her situation.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, what is her situation?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't know exactly what he meant by that.

[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't really clarify, but we will talk a little bit about her home life and you can make your own inferences.

[SPEAKER_03]: by his own admission, Donald wasn't around much.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, he was in the rapid deployment unit, so he was just moving.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think even more than a typical person in the army would move.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he didn't really have a clear like day-to-day picture of Lee's home life.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it doesn't really sound like he and Vicki had a very friendly relationship either.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it seems as though he was pretty

[SPEAKER_03]: You would only talk to his daughter on the phone once or twice a month, and he said thatly never said much during those conversations.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, there could be a million reasons for that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some kids are changed.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was 12, 13.

[SPEAKER_03]: She had just turned 13, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: So like, yeah, kids generally suck on the phone.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you like when you call them and you're their parents, so it could just be something as simple as that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But Donald did say that he always had the

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, because of his distance, Donald probably didn't know much about the rumors that had been going around school, prior to Lee's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: According to a number of friends and classmates, Lee often came to school with bruises.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: One friend, a kid named John Bradley, who wrote the bus with her, said that he remembers her coming on and having bruises all up and down her legs.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that whenever he would ask her about it, she'd had an excuse, she fell, she ran into something like whatever it was.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, like, bruises all up and down your legs, like, yeah, that is normal for a lot of kids.

[SPEAKER_04]: It could be indicative of absolutely nothing, or... Well, I mean, it really depends on how many bruises and where the bruises are in your legs.

[SPEAKER_04]: And like, typically, if you fall down, you're not going to get a whole lot of bruising on the back of your thighs.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: However, there was a more alarming incident.

[SPEAKER_03]: One day, we showed up to school with a bruised face in a black eye.

[SPEAKER_03]: When asked what happened, she said that she was kicked in the face by a horse.

[SPEAKER_04]: A horse?

[SPEAKER_03]: A horse.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, like, you don't survive that.

[SPEAKER_03]: that's what I'm saying.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you're someone who spends a lot of time around horses, which it does say that sound like we did, injuries absolutely happen.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, totally.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like my mom worked with horses for years for most of my childhood, and she got wrecked, like broken ribs.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, a lot of injuries that honestly could have been viewed as like abuse.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's sure.

[SPEAKER_04]: But did she ever get kicked in the face?

[SPEAKER_03]: No, because you don't get kicked in the face,

[SPEAKER_03]: like your school gets crushed.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like, I mean, that is bad.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Lee was little.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was 4 foot 10 and 95 pounds.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, no.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: She doesn't survive a kick to the face.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And if you survive, you're certainly just not showing up at school with a black guy.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so even her friend was like, that absolutely did not happen.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, I can't immediately was like, no, you did not get kicked in the face by a horse.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said he was sure that the school is going to get involved because clearly something happened at home, but it doesn't seem that they ever did.

[SPEAKER_03]: So because of this, like I cannot absolutely say that Lee was being abused, all I'm saying is that people who knew her had that fear.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let's get to the morning of Thursday, August 27, 1992.

[SPEAKER_03]: Her can Andrew was a devastating storm that had ripped through Florida and honestly flattened parts of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: On this day, the remnants were pushing through Mississippi.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, they weren't engraved danger in Tupolo, but the rain and the winds were heavy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Vicki had worked that day, and Lee was staying home.

[SPEAKER_03]: At some point later, like in the afternoon,

[SPEAKER_03]: least grandmother was supposed to pick her up and take her to an open house at her middle school because this is like the last couple days of summer break.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it was an open house, you know, to meet the teachers and kind of do that's probably your locker assignment like all that good stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that was the plan for the afternoon and then Lee and Bikki were supposed to get dinner at Taco Bell and you know talk about the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that morning before she went to work, Bikki and Lee had breakfast together.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lee was still wearing her night gown and the tube chatted about their planes for the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bikki left for work a little bit before 8 a.m.

[SPEAKER_03]: But shortly after she arrived at work, Bikki learned that the storm was heading toward

[SPEAKER_03]: around 830 she called home to check on Lee.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now this was before caller ID or if it wasn't it was before they had caller ID.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they had a code that let Lee know that it was her mother calling and that she could answer the phone.

[SPEAKER_03]: Vicky would call, let the phone ring twice, hang up, and then call back again.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's such a funny detail to me because like my parents

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, my parents did not.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would answer the phone whenever it rang.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no.

[SPEAKER_03]: We had that same code because I was left alone a lot.

[SPEAKER_03]: So Vicky called using their code, but Lee did an answer.

[SPEAKER_03]: She tried again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Still nothing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she got in her car and drove the mile and a half home.

[SPEAKER_03]: When she arrived home a few minutes later, Vicky immediately noticed that things were different.

[SPEAKER_03]: The garage door was open, and crucially, the garage light was on.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now this is the light that's connected to the garage door opener, and it automatically turns on when the garage door opens, but it automatically shuts off after about five minutes.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the fact that it was still on indicated that the door had just

[SPEAKER_04]: Unless the, the beam going across the safety beam going across the bottom is tripped.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I didn't seem like it was though.

[SPEAKER_04]: I got it.

[SPEAKER_04]: I also don't know when that technology came out.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I know if that was around in 92.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, from all accounts, it seems like it was on because it had just been opened.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: When she went inside the house, Vicki was met with a chilling scene.

[SPEAKER_03]: Inside, Vicky saw blood smeared on the wall.

[SPEAKER_03]: She went room to room calling for her daughter.

[SPEAKER_03]: In least bedroom, she told CNN, quote, her favorite blanket was crumpled up on the floor, and I was very scared, and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: After checking around the house and finding it empty, she called the police at about 9 a.m. Officers responded immediately, Lee had been alone for less than an hour.

[SPEAKER_03]: So remember, she called about 830.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Twice didn't get an answer.

[SPEAKER_03]: Got in her car, got home.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she got home probably around like 845 or so.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she only spent 15 minutes looking around.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so she called police very quickly.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, she left like 745 for work.

[SPEAKER_03]: So every whatever happened in that house,

[SPEAKER_04]: And didn't you say Vicky remarried?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_04]: Are we going to get to our husband?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_04]: OK. Then I will save my question.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: In case you are already coming up with theories in your head, there's something that I want to mention right off the bat.

[SPEAKER_03]: In addition to the blood smeared on the wall, there were fresh, still wet stains.

[SPEAKER_03]: On the walls, the carpet, and the bathroom countertop.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was also blood and hair stuck to a door frame.

[SPEAKER_03]: This suggested to investigators that Lee's head had struck it or had been struck against it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now interestingly, in the bathroom, it appeared as though somebody had tried to clean up.

[SPEAKER_03]: But police never found a used rag or towel anywhere in the house, so whoever cleaned took that with them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now the bathroom sink wasn't the only evidence of a clean up, though.

[SPEAKER_03]: The night gown that leaves mother's says she was wearing that morning when she left for work was found blood stained inside of her laundry hamper, along with the blood stained

[SPEAKER_03]: presumably the one that we had been wearing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then investigator later police chief Bart Aguire later told the Associated Press that because blood appeared to have dripped down onto the night gown, the injury that caused it was likely above the neck, meaning a head wound, which does fit with the blood in the hair from the doorframe.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it sounds like, you know, she hit the doorframe, she was hit against the doorframe, however that happened while she was wearing the night gown.

[SPEAKER_03]: and then either changed or was made to change or was changed by someone else.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a lot about this scene to take in and a lot of things that are kind of confusing because the timeline is so tight.

[SPEAKER_03]: If we're taking everything at face value, all of this would have had to have happened in less than an hour, which to me, the only way that that could really happen would be if somebody was watching the house.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I can't imagine that somebody was just, you know, wandering by with murder on their minds.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was like, hey, no, no, yeah, this is definitely somebody was watching the house and had this had something planned, right, whether it's murder, rape, kidnapping, yeah, who knows.

[SPEAKER_03]: Who knows?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: And given that there was an attempt to clean, the head injury was probably not part of that plan.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it seems like whatever happened in that house got out of hand.

[SPEAKER_04]: It seems like Lee put up a fight.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, considering that the blood stains were in like different rooms, you know, like this wasn't a focused attack, like this is somebody who was fighting back, who is running, who, you know, like this was a fight.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's early morning.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Neighbors, did anybody hear anything?

[SPEAKER_03]: No, because those are them were out work or yeah, so a lot of them were gone and then yeah, with the storm and everything was so loud like nobody was outside, nobody, you know, could hear anything and nobody saw anything.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, so it does seem like somebody is watching the house.

[SPEAKER_03]: They saw Vicky leave and they're like, okay, this is my chance.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then whatever happened in the house happened.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they were able to get out within minutes of Vicky coming back via the garage.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: That might also have been the entry point.

[SPEAKER_03]: It might have been.

[SPEAKER_04]: Did we was there any sign of forced entry on any of the doors?

[SPEAKER_04]: None.

[SPEAKER_04]: So again, with that, the safety sensor on the bottom of the garage, like that might have been the entry point.

[SPEAKER_04]: Fight happens in the house.

[SPEAKER_04]: He drags Lee out through the garage, which is already open for however, however, that happened for him to gain access.

[SPEAKER_04]: as he's running out, it trips that sensor, which turns the light on again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, in both of Lee's parents, so that she wouldn't have opened the door to a stranger.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they believe that whoever was out the door was somebody that Lee would have opened the door to, at, you know, eight in the morning while wearing a night gown.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, should I ask again?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we're going to get to it.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so let's get back to the scene.

[SPEAKER_03]: There wasn't forced entry.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nothing like that garage door was open.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of what we know about the house.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's nothing in the garage that indicated any struggle there.

[SPEAKER_04]: Was there blood on the hallway leading to the garage?

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure what hallway it was.

[SPEAKER_03]: I will say it was like not a large house though, so, you know, it was probably relatively close to the garage, in any case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Vicky told police that there wasn't anything missing from the house either, so it didn't seem like a home invasion, you know, for burglary purposes.

[SPEAKER_03]: But she told police that a new outfit, including a new bra and underwear, that Lee had just gotten for her birthday the week prior, we're missing.

[SPEAKER_04]: So maybe what she was forced to change into or what somebody put on her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: At some point, the perpetrator tried to clean up some of the mess, which was evidenced in the bathroom, but perhaps realizing that it was futile gave up because there just was a lot of blood everywhere.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, the thought was like, maybe they started to clean up and there was like, you, what's the point?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, there's no cleaning this up.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: The other possibility that I haven't really seen anywhere, but kind of popped into my head as I was writing this, is that the cleanup in the bathroom wasn't from trying to clean up the scene itself.

[SPEAKER_03]: What if Lee fought back and injured the person who attacked her?

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe the person went to the bathroom to try to clean themselves up, and then wiped up the sink in an effort to not leave their own blood behind.

[SPEAKER_04]: Good possibility.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like, because I can see you going to the bathroom looking in the mirror, seeing how bad it is, trying to clean yourself up, and then cleaning up the mess that you've made there, but who cares about her blood that's all over the house right, because obviously she's going to be missing, so they would expect it to be her blood.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, yeah, that does actually make sense because like why would he also have left the bloody night gown and the bloody bra right there if he was worried about cleaning up the scene.

[SPEAKER_03]: But hey, the towels that they used because he's blood on it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I did find the detail of the night gown and the bra being put in the hamper to be interesting.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I've heard that Vicki was kind of a neat freak.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so I'm wondering if Lee at the end of this was still conscious.

[SPEAKER_03]: And was made to change and just how to have it put her stuff in the hamper.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, even though she's in the middle of this like horrible traumatic event, just kind of on auto pilot did that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because it, it struck me as weird and it struck a lot of people as weird.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, over the years that like a perpetrator would take the time to like put her clothes in the hamper.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why a lot of people are like, it is weird that the idea that a stranger came in and did this because why would a stranger take the time to clean up why would a stranger put the clothes in the hamper?

[SPEAKER_03]: Which are valid, but again, I think the stranger was cleaning up after themselves.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think I mean, I don't think it wasn't stranger, or the very least I don't think it was.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well yeah, and by stranger I mean, not Vicki.

[SPEAKER_04]: Gotcha.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it had to have been somebody that knew Vicki's schedule.

[SPEAKER_04]: The new when she'd be out of the house.

[SPEAKER_03]: Or had an idea, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Or was just knew that she would go to work and had been waiting and watching the house knowing that she would leave at some point to go to work.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it was targeted either way.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I absolutely do think it was targeted.

[SPEAKER_03]: Along with her new outfit, there are two other things missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lees reading glasses and a sleeping bag that she always kept in her room.

[SPEAKER_03]: If Lees had been wearing the glasses, maybe you would take them because, you know, she was still conscious and she was still wearing them and that's just not something you would have necessarily thought about, but if she wasn't wearing them, like, why grab them?

[SPEAKER_03]: did Lee herself somehow have the wherewithal to grab them.

[SPEAKER_03]: And same thing with the sleeping bag, was that taken because this was a kidnapping?

[SPEAKER_03]: Or was it used to roll up a body?

[SPEAKER_04]: But if it was used to roll up the body, again, why, why dresser?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, why dress her, why put her clothes in the hamper?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, why get the glasses?

[SPEAKER_04]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Police are trying to puzzle all of this together while also starting a search.

[SPEAKER_03]: The thought was that Lee could have been injured and wandered off, or that she could have been dumped somewhere nearby.

[SPEAKER_03]: Cause again, it's just such a short timeline.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're like, she couldn't have gotten bar, you know?

[SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So police hit the streets.

[SPEAKER_03]: They even brought in bloodhounds, but the storm was raging to the point where they were basically useless.

[SPEAKER_03]: Detective Aguire told CNN that the dogs covered a half-mile radius from the house that morning, but came up with nothing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Organized searches through the wooded areas run too below, also found nothing.

[SPEAKER_03]: DNA testing was in its infancy at the time, so in terms of forensics, all the police could do was blood typing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Every sample that they took from the scene came back as typo, the same type as Lee.

[SPEAKER_03]: Neighbors were interviewed, but a lot of them were at work, like I said, and no one reported seeing anything suspicious that morning.

[SPEAKER_04]: I have questions about blood type.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do we know what blood type Vicki was or what blood type her father was or a blood type Vicki's husband was I do not know the blood type of any of them okay I did look it up As the mother of somebody with an O blood type you could also have an O blood type you could also have a or be you just couldn't be a B right So yeah I do not know I assume the police know

[SPEAKER_04]: We would hope.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: But no, I'm not sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not sure about her stepfather or her father, either.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, of course, police interviewed Vicki and Barney the stepfather first.

[SPEAKER_03]: Despite the rumors of abuse, Barney was actually cleared pretty quickly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Interestingly, he wasn't living at home on Honey Locust at the time of Lee's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_04]: because of abuse?

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know!

[SPEAKER_03]: I've never seen any public reason given for the split.

[SPEAKER_03]: According to investigators, Bernie had an arutite alibi for that morning.

[SPEAKER_03]: They've never specified what it was, but my guess is that he was seen at work.

[SPEAKER_03]: He worked at the same manufacturing plant as Vicki, so I'm thinking that he was there probably, you know, at the same time and people saw him.

[SPEAKER_04]: And Vicki's alibi?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah, I mean, same thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it seems like she was alibiid for being at work when she said she was and left when she said she did.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, police also gave them polygraphs.

[SPEAKER_03]: Barney passed his, Vicki did not.

[SPEAKER_03]: As for Donald, his story is interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: According to an interview he did in 2017 for the podcast, 13 The Search for Leochi, he said that he found out that Lee was missing from Vicky, but not until the next day.

[SPEAKER_03]: He says that Vicky called him and told him that Lee had run away.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was I was I was given a little bit of a cushion there or whatever.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like I could understand like Vicki not calling him right away because what you know, he's he's in for help.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, at least that's where his home is he might have been deployed somewhere.

[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I could I could see that like yeah, like when he's he's dealing with the immediate.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and they don't even like he's there from what it sounds.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: but then to tell him that she ran away.

[SPEAKER_04]: At least that's according to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is according to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: Also according to him, he was like, okay, so that's what she told me.

[SPEAKER_03]: He says that he just assumed that Lee was off with friends and just told Vicki to call everyone that, you know, we know, straight.

[SPEAKER_03]: But then he said he started calling Vicki every day to find out what was going on.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, if Vicki did tell him that it's a convenient way to let him know that his daughter isn't at home, but it's not really an emergency.

[SPEAKER_04]: You don't really need to look into it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: You don't need to come down here, like whatever.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we're sure that Donald was in Virginia at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, police did verify that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, so Vicky called him, told him that we had run away.

[SPEAKER_03]: Didn't mention the blood.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so he's like, oh, yeah, she's probably with friends.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, let me know what happens, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Keeps on calling her back, asking for updates.

[SPEAKER_03]: Vicky doesn't have any.

[SPEAKER_03]: On what he remembers as a Friday.

[SPEAKER_03]: So potentially like a week after Lee went missing,

[SPEAKER_03]: He said to her, well, what have you guys found out?

[SPEAKER_03]: And he says it was only then that she told them, well, when she disappeared, there was blood everywhere.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I would be fucking furious.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's when he's like, okay, well, obviously, this is not just, it's not a runaway.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a runaway, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, there's not blood everywhere when you run away.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's when he and his wife and their baby came down to Tupolo.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right around this time, on September 4th, which was eight days after Lee vanished, a McDonald's worker in Boonville, Mississippi, about 30 miles north of Tupelow, reported seeing a girl who looked like Lee in a vehicle at the drive through.

[SPEAKER_03]: Police ran the tip down, but it ended up being another child, so they were actually able to find who it was and identify the kid.

[SPEAKER_04]: Damn, that's wild.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't even know how they would have done that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's not the last time Boonville comes up in the story.

[SPEAKER_03]: Five days later, on September 9th, an envelope arrived in the mail at the house on Honey Locust Drive.

[SPEAKER_03]: The envelope was addressed to B. Yarbaro, who was Lee's stepfather, Barney Yarbaro.

[SPEAKER_03]: His name, however, was misspelled.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's just the letter B and the Yarbaro, but Yarbaro was spelled wrong.

[SPEAKER_03]: The street name, Honey Locust, was also misspelled.

[SPEAKER_03]: The envelope had six stamps, which was twice the postage needed, and it was postmarked from Boonville.

[SPEAKER_04]: extra postage is typical of in my line of work we call it not mail.

[SPEAKER_04]: Really?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's it's a it's a strong indicator that it's a suspicious item.

[SPEAKER_03]: Really?

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah, extra postage misspelled words on letters or packages, bizarre writings on the packages, stains on the packages or letters, all of those are indicators that it's a suspicious letter.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's so interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like, the scenes, the markings, the writings like that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I wouldn't have thought extra postage to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: That would just tell me that they were too easy to go to the post office and just like put a bunch of stamps on and hope for the best.

[SPEAKER_04]: Nope.

[SPEAKER_04]: See you on pretty much any time, anybody sends a threat letter.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's so interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that obviously never occurred to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: So inside the envelope, we'll use missing glasses.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that was it.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was no note, no ransom demand.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was nothing else at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_04]: Fingerprints?

[SPEAKER_04]: Did they fingerprint test?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, the FBI took over forensics for that envelope.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, good.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is clearly a kidnapping at this point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Two people, police said they didn't even bother with the state lab.

[SPEAKER_03]: They sent it straight to Kwanago.

[SPEAKER_03]: But despite that, nothing of value was found.

[SPEAKER_03]: Handwriting analysis went nowhere and there were no fingerprints.

[SPEAKER_03]: They held out hope that they could get DNA from the stamps or the envelope.

[SPEAKER_03]: but they had all been moistened with water, not saliva.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that, too, was a dead end.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this is another little bit of evidence that struck me.

[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of the write-ups on this case talk about how this is indicative of the sophistication of the sender.

[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's just somebody that you don't have to be that sophisticated to understand how you can leave evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, and so I think, yeah, you're right.

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of fingerprints, like, yeah, I think it's pretty common knowledge like wear gloves or whatever, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the DNA is a different story.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because this is 1992.

[SPEAKER_03]: DNA was in its infancy.

[SPEAKER_03]: It had first been successfully used in the US in 1987 to convict a serial rapist in Florida.

[SPEAKER_03]: But in 1992, not a lot of members of the general public knew about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: DNA in relation to criminal trials didn't really hit the mainstream consciousness until the OJ since in trial three years later in 1995.

[SPEAKER_04]: So to me, a couple of things.

[SPEAKER_04]: First, this does fit with your theory of the person trying to clean up their own blood in the bathroom.

[SPEAKER_03]: Paso.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, because if they are aware of DNA and their blood is in the bathroom, they cleaned it

[SPEAKER_04]: they were very aware of that.

[SPEAKER_04]: So to me, that doesn't necessarily mean sophistication.

[SPEAKER_04]: It means somebody that has a prior history.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm, interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and to be fair, like, but the towel thing might not have been an awareness of DNA specifically, but an awareness that blood evidence can be used in trials.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: To me, all of this points to somebody that has been involved with the law on the wrong side.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's definitely a possibility.

[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, so a lot of people, again, when you read about this case online, a lot of people have come to the conclusion that the person, moistened the envelope and the stamps with water because they were aware of DNA and they were trying to avoid that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't necessarily think that's the case.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that you're right, that you could be right in general,

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that they necessarily had DNA specifically within that thought process, because the whole moistening everything with water thing, I think isn't related to that at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when I was younger, I worked admin in a lot of offices, and I even worked for a temp agency for a while, so like I ended up being in a variety of offices in a variety of industries.

[SPEAKER_03]: One thing that I remember clearly is that nobody ever looked stamps or envelopes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, just for those of you who are like, well, yeah, nobody likes stamps because they're stickers.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were not at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: They weren't.

[SPEAKER_03]: They weren't.

[SPEAKER_03]: You did have to look at just like an envelope, but nobody did.

[SPEAKER_03]: What you had was a little plastic dish that you would put water in and it came with a tiny sponge that you would then put in the water and you'd use the sponge on the stamps and the envelopes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, did they?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh.

[SPEAKER_04]: To count the money.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, to count the money to what their fingers.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the bill, yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we would have them in like every office I was ever in would have them because if you're sending out a bunch of stuff like you're not wanting to lick 50 envelopes like that's gross.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you would do this.

[SPEAKER_03]: It would be faster, it would be less disgusting and that's just what you did.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I also think that when we're like reading about these stories or listening to them or whatever, that we picture like the bad guy and a secret layer somewhere putting these things together to taunt the police.

[SPEAKER_03]: But when I had admin work to do like in my personal life, like I needed to sense something out or make copies or print something, I would always take it to the office and use the supplies there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So what if the person who sent those glasses just did that?

[SPEAKER_03]: They took them to work, pop them in an envelope, put some stamps on, and dropped them into a mailbox in Boonsboro.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a good possibility.

[SPEAKER_03]: Regardless of the house and wise, Detective Aguyer later told the AP that he believed the glasses were deliberate distraction.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that if they had been sent by an actual kidnapper, that they would have sent more than just the glasses, they would have asked for something.

[SPEAKER_03]: But like what would be the point of just sending the glasses?

[SPEAKER_04]: uh, proof of life, perhaps or proof of having her.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, but again, well, without any additional, uh, notes for ransom or anything like that, then there is no point.

[SPEAKER_03]: People who have suspected Vicki say that maybe she did it in order to point the police in the direction of Boonsboro

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, Boon Sporo was 30 miles away.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know, I think it's clear that anybody could have driven and stuck a nibble up in a mailbox.

[SPEAKER_03]: That doesn't necessarily mean they were from there at all.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[SPEAKER_04]: But also, I mean, I know you said the key failed the polygraph, but her ally by stands that she was at work.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it would have been so tight for her to do any of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, which was always when I thought, but police see that the blood was still wet.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I mean, she could have done it in the early morning hours before she left for work, too.

[SPEAKER_04]: But then again, where is she, where did she take her?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Another question.

[SPEAKER_04]: Or she could have had help with it and set it up.

[SPEAKER_04]: But why?

[SPEAKER_03]: Why?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and who would have helped her?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_04]: She seems like an unlikely suspect at this point.

[SPEAKER_04]: However, not off the list.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, definitely not.

[SPEAKER_03]: Years later, Detective Aguire told CNN that those glasses were the last real clue that the case ever produced.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now the next biggest development came in November 1993,

[SPEAKER_03]: All of you listening now, if you listen to our episode a few weeks back on Paddiado, the one with the Finley Creek Jane Joe and the whole school identification thing?

[SPEAKER_03]: Get this.

[SPEAKER_03]: A farmer found a human skull in a ditch along a soybean field in Monroe County.

[SPEAKER_03]: On November 9, the clearing ledger reported that the corner had positively identified it through

[SPEAKER_03]: It was in the newspaper positively identified or the words that they used.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then just a few days later, like two to three days later, that identification was retracted.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, where was the mistake?

[SPEAKER_04]: I was saying the coroner's office.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, obviously, apparently they had been working from outdated dental records.

[SPEAKER_03]: Further testing established that the skull actually belonged to a woman named Paul Yanis to Keith, a 27-year-old woman who had gone missing from an adjacent county in March of 1993.

[SPEAKER_04]: How do you mix up the dental records of a 13-year-old to a 27-year-old?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, and she just turned 13 five days earlier, six days earlier, so she's like barely 13.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, like, there's still wisdom teeth in there, the 13 year old.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: The skull would have to be a smaller size.

[SPEAKER_04]: Things aren't formed entirely.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it makes less sense to make that mistake because they were working without dated dental records of leaves, meaning dental records from when she was even younger.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what?

[SPEAKER_03]: That doesn't make any sense, but they announced it publicly and had Lee's family thinking that her skull was in the field.

[SPEAKER_03]: So interestingly, eight months later, I found a letter to the editor that Vicki wrote to the paper because the same medical examiner fucked up again.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus.

[SPEAKER_03]: A little girl had been murdered, and the Emmy said that she had been raped, prior to being murdered, and then came back was like, oh, wait, no, never mind.

[SPEAKER_03]: She hadn't been assaulted.

[SPEAKER_03]: What?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so Vicky wrote a letter and was like, oh, hey, also this same person said that they found my daughter's skull eight months ago, and they didn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, maybe the medical medical examiner's office needs to be looked at.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, their shit.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, isn't that insane?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's completely insane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so that makes me doubt, you know, like a lot in general in life, but yeah, despite the fact that this case had a crime scene, which very few of our stories have, the investigation really didn't get very far.

[SPEAKER_03]: But there were, of course, plenty of people to look at.

[SPEAKER_03]: We already talked

[SPEAKER_03]: He participated in a few of the early searches I've seen some news footage and you can see him out there in fields looking.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he and Vicki never reconciled and they ended up getting divorced a few years after Lee's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, police also cleared him pretty early on.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he just ended up being not much of a factor in this somehow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Barney ended up dying of cancer in 1996.

[SPEAKER_03]: Damn.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he was just 34 years old.

[SPEAKER_03]: One obituary mentioned Vicki as his former wife, but Lee wasn't included in it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lee's father, Donald O. G. was stationed in Virginia at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: He ended up spending about a month in two below, searching for his daughter and fields in forests until his leave and his money ran out.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also passed a polygraph, and was ruled out as a suspect by police.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because again, it was just right a clue.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it was clear that he was out of state, you know.

[SPEAKER_03]: So what does he think happened?

[SPEAKER_03]: In a 1998 clearing ledger article, he was blunt, telling them, quote, I thought she was dead the day my ex-wife called me and told me she was missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: My theory is that some bastard beat that child to death in the house."

[SPEAKER_03]: End quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: As for what happened to Leia after that, he says that he thinks she's still in or around to below.

[SPEAKER_03]: Quote, you have that big river running up through there.

[SPEAKER_03]: She could have been thrown off that big bridge, end quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: He later told the Associated Press that while he was searching too below in September 1992, multiple locals pulled him aside and told him to look at Lee's mother.

[SPEAKER_03]: His response was that he already was looking at her and that he didn't know whether or not she was involved.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I just want to play this clip from a TV news interview with Donald from around that time.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll have the whole video on our website because just listening to it doesn't quite capture the disdain.

[SPEAKER_03]: He clearly has, but trust me, it's there.

[SPEAKER_02]: The other side of the family, meaning, please, mother and, and, and, and, and, so far, they go into joining you all in any of the searches of your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not that I'm aware of.

[SPEAKER_00]: If they did it, if they do, it's going to be

[SPEAKER_03]: So I showed you the actual video.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you saw Donald.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, he, it was very much a look of, I don't really know how to describe it.

[SPEAKER_04]: He kind of snickered with a sense of, no, she's an evil bitch and will help.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of what I got.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I got a little barely concealed rage.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: in there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, like I said, I don't think they had a friendly relationship, but for this, doesn't seem like it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so yeah, I don't think that it became friendlier.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let's talk about Vicki.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bikki Felton has never been charged with anything, nor has she ever officially been named a suspect.

[SPEAKER_03]: She has always maintained that she had nothing to do with her daughter's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: And shortly after Lee went missing, she actually increased the reward to find her and hired a private investigator.

[SPEAKER_03]: However, in 2017, Detective Aguire, who, by then, was Chief Aguire, who was Chief of the Tupelo Police Department, was interviewed by the son Harold for the 25th anniversary.

[SPEAKER_03]: In that article, he said, quote, I would consider her a person of interest.

[SPEAKER_03]: You still can't eliminate her.

[SPEAKER_03]: There are still too many unanswered questions for Vicki, and I don't know if that is unusual for somebody to go off to work and say, well, I just left Lee, but I'm going to call and check on her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why check on her that soon after she just left her, and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now the field polygraph probably didn't help a choir eraser from that was either, and the two subsequent polygraphs that the FBI gave her that she also failed were probably pretty damaging as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now polygraphs are an admissible of course, but three field ones is not a good look.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'd be curious to know what questions she specifically showed

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and they never say what specific questions it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Vicki said, yeah, I, you know, I failed them because like, I was anxious and I was talking about my missing daughter and you know, whatever.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll give, I'll give that to her on the first one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, because that was really shortly after, but like the two subsequent ones with the FBI, like I don't know.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, I would, I would even give her a little bit of leeway on that.

[SPEAKER_04]: But again, I would be curious if it was the very specific question.

[SPEAKER_04]: Did you have anything to do with right your daughter going missing because I'm sure that they would that's like I'm sure they would have asked that question exactly like that right right and if that was the same question that she showed deception on three times and row like that's pretty indicative yeah that does not look good.

[SPEAKER_03]: People, of course, also point to her demeanor as being suspicious.

[SPEAKER_03]: She appeared on the news several times, especially in the early days, you know, asking for her daughter to be returned to things like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she wasn't hysterical.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was very calm.

[SPEAKER_03]: She wasn't crying and people were like, oh, well, you don't care.

[SPEAKER_03]: You don't love your daughter.

[SPEAKER_03]: You did it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bubble, blah, blah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I never put stock in any of that.

[SPEAKER_04]: because nobody knows how they're going to react in a situation like this, unless they're in it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly, and according to her ex has been, she was a trained interrogator in the army.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she has been trained to maintain her wits in stressful situations, one can assume, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And every news clip I've seen of her, she's been calm and has just kind of said, well, she need to say, put the information out there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I even played one for you, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, like I get why people look at that or like that's not how a mother should act or or whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I can also see it as an attempt to have effective messaging and a belief that crying over your daughter won't bring her back but telling neighbors to check their sheds and their outbuildings might.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like that part, I just, I don't put any stock into it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I'm not saying that means she's innocent either, but like it definitely to me does not point to her guilt.

[SPEAKER_03]: But one thing that we can't forget is that there were allegations of abuse in her household.

[SPEAKER_03]: And on top of that, when something happens to a child, statistically it's because of somebody close to her.

[SPEAKER_03]: The timeline is tight, but people have pointed to her going to work and then immediately going home and quote unquote discovering that Lee was missing as her attempt to control the scene and control the narrative.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: However, Vicki has spent decades pointing at a specific, credible alternative suspect.

[SPEAKER_03]: His name was Oscar McKinley-Kerns, people called him Mike.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot to talk about when it comes to Mike, and this is the rabbit hole that I've fell down.

[SPEAKER_03]: So right now, at this point in the story, it looks like Vicki is the most viable suspect.

[SPEAKER_03]: And listen, I'm not saying that part 2 is going to exonerate her, but I do think it's going to give all of us some food for thought.

[SPEAKER_03]: So for those of you who are on Patreon, you'll be able to access it early as soon as I can get it up.

[SPEAKER_03]: But for everyone else, we'll see you here next week.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lee Ochi has been missing from Tupelo, Mississippi, since August 27, 1992.

[SPEAKER_03]: She is a white female with blonde hair and hazel eyes.

[SPEAKER_03]: At the time of her disappearance, she was approximately 4 feet ten inches tall and weighed about 95 pounds.

[SPEAKER_03]: She has a strawberry birthmark at the base of her skull, small scratch scars on her right leg and pierced ears.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lee was 13 years old when she went missing, she would be 46 today.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you have any information on the disappearance of Lee Ochi, please contact the Tupelo Police Department at 6662-841-6491 or Crime Stoppers of Northeast, Mississippi at 1-800-773 tips.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can see all the sources for this episode on with photos and videos at our website and then they were gone.com.

[SPEAKER_04]: be sure to follow us on social and then they were gone pod on Facebook and at ATTWG pod on Instagram and TikTok.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you like what we're doing, please subscribe and consider leaving a five star review on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

[SPEAKER_04]: It will help me with sinners find us.

[SPEAKER_04]: And the more people that listen, more chances we have of bringing someone home.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll see you here next week for part two.

[SPEAKER_04]: See you next week.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then they were gone as hosted by Kona Gallagher and Ethan Flick, all research writing and editing is done by me, Kona Gallagher.

[SPEAKER_03]: The music is the store, by Katza.

[SPEAKER_03]: Additional music is provided by Kai Engel, and then they were gone is a little monster production.

[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, you good girl!