350: Leah Freeman

On the night of June 28, 2000, a fifteen-year-old girl vanished while walking home through Coquille, Oregon. Her boyfriend spent hours driving through town, desperately searching for her. But while he was looking for answers, police were looking at him...

SPONSORS -

Hero Bread: This year, hit your goals without giving up your favourite bready dishes. Use code "MORBIDOLOGY" to get 10% off at: https://www.hero.co/

AG1: AG1 puts your multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfoods, and antioxidants into one scoop. Get the best offer at: http://drinkag1.com/morbidology

SKIMS: Shop my favorite bras and underwear at http://www.skims.com

HelloFresh: Get 10 free meals + a FREE Zwilling Knife on your third box at: http://hellofresh.com/morbidology10fm

Nutrafol: Find out why Nutrafol is the best-selling hair growth supplement. Use code “MORBIDOLOGY10” for $10 off at: http://nutrafol.com/

CHIME: Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. Head to: http://chime.com/morbidology

GUSTO: Gusto is an online payroll and benefits software for small businesses. Get three months free at: https://gusto.com/morbidology

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/morbidology--3527306/support.

Speaker 1: Coquail and Oregon sits in the southwestern corner of the state,

where the Coquil River winds through coastal mountains before emptying

into the Pacific. It was founded in the eighteen fifties

and took its name from the Kokuil Indian tribe who

had lived along the river for thousands of years before

white settlers arrived. By the late eighteen hundreds, it had

become a timber town that was made up of sawmills

and logging operations that fed on the endless forests in

the surrounding hills. By the turn of the millennium, Cokail

had transformed into something quieter. It was a small town

of around four thousand people. The lumber industry had faded,

but the close knit community remained. It was the kind

of place where people knew their neighbors and teenagers gathered

outside the fast moored on Friday nights because there wasn't

much else to do. It was eighteen miles from the

Pacific coast, surrounded by dense forest and winding back roads,

and it felt removed from the violins and chaos of

larger cities. It was a warm summer evening in June

of two thousand, when a teenage girl stormed out of

her best friend's home after an argument. She walked alone

along Central Boulevard, a well lit heavily traversed four lane street,

but somewhere between the high school and the cemetery, she

disappeared into the darkness. What followed was an investigation marked

by missed evidence, dismissed concerns, and a police department that

seemed more interested in convenient answers than difficult truths. Lenicole

Freeman was born on the twenty ninth of October nineteen

eighty four to parents Dennis Freeman and Corey Courtwright. Their

marriage fractured when Lee was still young. She grew up

living with her mother, her older sister, Deniece, and her

maternal grandparents, Aj and Dot Courtwright in the Samford Heights

area of Coquille. Their home sach just a block from

Samford Heights Park, a patch of grain where neighborhood children

gathered in play. Despite their divorce, Leay's father remained a

presence in her life. Dennis owned and operated a popular restaurant,

Denny's Pizza in Cockail, and from the time they were

little Leah and her sister Denise spent countless hours there.

The restaurant became a second home to the girls. Lea

was described as short, opinionated, funny, feisty, and energetic. She

was said to be a streak of lightning who could

steal a basketball from opposing players. She was never intimidated

by taller opponents. Her uncle Bill Middlestone reflected she would

make us all laugh. She just had a lot of energy.

A spunky little girl. She had what her father called

the candory attitude towards life, a confidence that suggested there

was nothing she couldn't accomplish. She loved volleyball, basketball, and track.

She loved to talk, to socialize, and to be around

other people. She dreamed of becoming a beautician after high school,

a future that seemed bright and attainable. Her mother, Corey,

fondly said Lee was definitely fun, loving, athletic, beautiful, sweet.

I suppose anything good you could say about a person

you could say about her. Lee was also very well liked,

and she had many friends. She played with all the

other neighborhood kids in Sandford Heights Park, and one of

those neighborhood kids was an older boy named Nick mc gruffin,

who also lived near the park. The exact moment their

friendship shifted into something more remains lost to time, but

by the time Lee was a freshman at Coquill High School,

everything had changed. Lee was a freshman when she started

dating Nick mc guffin. He was a high school senior.

Nicka just graduated. She was fifteen and he was eighteen.

In a small town like Okale, age gaps between teenagers

often went unremarked upon. But this wasn't just any relationship.

They became inseparable. The it couple, the kind of pairing

that turned heads in hallways, that sparked whispers and speculation.

When spring arrived in two thousand, Nick asked Leah to prom.

He later recalled, I asked Lee if she go to

the prom with me. She had a gorgeous white dress

and her hair done perfectly. I'm glad we went and

got that picture that we did together. The photographs from

that night showed them both smiling, young and seemingly carefree,

Lee dressed in white, Nick beside her, captured in a

moment that felt timeless, but beneath the surface there were tensions.

Ley's mother Corey had her concerns. She later said that

Nick seemed like an okay kind of guy, but the

age difference bothered her. More than that, something fell off.

The relationship was moving too fast, becoming too consuming. When

Corey discovered the truth about the physical nature of their relationship,

her worry deepened into something closer to alarm. She recollected,

I found out they were being sexually active, and that

was disturbing to me. It caused some conflict between Ley

and I because she wanted him to be her boyfriend

and I didn't. It was a conflict as old as time,

a mother's protective instinct clashing against a daughter's fierce desire

for independence and love. Leah wanted what teenagers always want, autonomy, romance,

the intoxicating feeling of being chosen. Corey wanted what mothers

always want, safety, caution, more time before adult decisions had

to be made. They argued about other things too. Ley

and Nick thought sometimes about his occasional marijuana youths. They

were typical teenage tensions, jealousies, misunderstandings, and frictions, but to

the outside world they seemed happy. On the twenty eighth

of June two thousand. Leah and Nick washed his Mustang

together along with his friend Brent Bartley. Corey later said

that Lea seemed happy, very happy. She and Nick were

in a playful mood, splashing each other with the water.

At around four pm, she kissed her mother on the cheek,

told her she loved her and she would see her later.

She Nick and Brent then headed over to Brent's grandparents'

house for dinner. At around seven pm, Nick drove her

over to her friend Cherry Mitchell's home. The plan was

for the girls to hang out and then Nick would

pick her up at nine pm for a double date.

But before then, Lea and Cherry's mother, Peggy, got into

an argument over whether the girls could go jogging. Lea

stormed off and Cherry followed. She and Leah then got

into an argument. Cherry didn't approve of Nick. She described

him as a known druggie. She later said, I said

I thought she was better than doing drugs. She told

Leah she thought their relationship was toxic, that they weren't

good together. We have responded, I'm sorry, I'm not good enough.

She then walked off in the direction of her home.

Jerry went back inside thinking that Lea would come back,

but she never did. At round nine pm that night,

Jerry heard a knock on the front door. It was Nick.

Jerry was surprised. She assumed that Leah would have called

him to pick her up after she left her house.

Jerry told Nick that Lee had already left, but Lea

wasn't back at home. In a small town like O'khelee,

there were only so many places a teenage girl could

have gone, so Nick climbed into his Mustang and started

searching for his girlfriend. He headed to the Fast Mart,

a local convenience store where teenagers sometimes gathered. Lea wasn't there.

He returned there five or six times that night, checking

with different employees in different customers, but nobody had seen Leah.

She definitely hadn't been there that day. Nick then returned

to Cherry's home to borrow her phone to call Ley's mother, Cory.

She told him that Lea wasn't there either. Nick told

her he would go and look for her, so he

climbed back into his car and drove her on the

familiar straits of Kakail. Eventually, it started to get dark

and Nick was still searching his Mustang had a gas

lake and he could only put a few gallons in

the tank at a time. He was stopped twice that

night by police for a missing headlight. Sometime later, he

bumped into his friend Kristin Steinhoff and explained what had happened.

He said that Leah and her friend had gotten into

an argument and Lea had left her home and not

come back. He asked Kristin if he could climb into

her car and they could search together. They searched all

the same places, but there was no sign of Lea.

Nick dropped Kristin back home and made one final pass

by Ley's house. It was now too thirty in the morning.

He looked up to her bedroom and felt a wave

of reliefe there was a glare on the bedroom window.

It looked like the television was on. He later said,

It's not like she could send me a text. She

couldn't call me on a cell phone, so I thought

she was home and I went home after that, but

Leah Freeman was not home and she was not safe.

It was around e at am when Nick received a

phone call. It was from Ley's mom, Corey. She was

panicked as she asked where Leay was Nick said he

thought that she was at home. Cory said no. Ley

never returned. Nick told her what he knew, that Leah

had stormed off and he had searched for her, but

he said he stopped when he thought he saw her

television on. In the early morning ours Nick got back

into his Mustang and started to search again. This time

he was accompanied by Lea's family. It was clear that

Leah was gone, but where nobody knew. Her family and

Nick drove over to the police department to report her missing,

but officers didn't share their concern. To them, it seemed

like Lea was a runaway, that she had stormed off

after a fight with her friend. She probably stayed overnight

at another friend's place. Lea's friends and family said that

this wasn't the case. Lee had never run away before

and she never would. Plus, she was scheduled to get

her braces removed from her teeth. Her family said she

never would have missed that appointment. They organized their own

search parties in groups. They combed through Kokuel handing out

flowers with Ley's face in plaizoned on the front. Described

Lea as standing at five feet two inches tall with

blonde hair and green eyes. The day that she disappeared,

she was dressed in a white tank top, blue jeans,

and Nike shoes, but it seemed that nobody could account

for Leay's whereabouts. The days continued to trickle past with

no developments in the case. Police were still disinterested, but

that all changed on the third of July. A passerby

had come across a blood stained shoe in the cemetery

across the street from Kokaill High School. It was one

of Lay's shoes. Finally, detectives were assigned to the case

and Leay's disappearance was made public. They soon learned that

Ley had been spotted that night. It was around nine

pm when she was seen walking near the high school.

Somebody else saw her around fifteen minutes later. She was

standing alone across the street from the high school, between

the cemetery and the gas station. But after that, Lee

was never seen again, and somehow her bloody shoe ended

up in the cemetery just across the street. Lee's family

couldn't sit by and just wait for noos while detectives

ran their investigation at their own measured pace. Corey and

Dennis and Denise took to the streets themselves. They searched

anywhere that their daughter might have been. They even offered

a five thousand dollar reward for information. Finally, detectives called

in the Major Crimes Team and the FBI, after dragging

their heels for a week, their handlers guiding them along

the half mile route from Leay's home to Cherry's home.

They also searched the places where Leah was known to

spend time, the spots where teenagers gathered to talk, but

the dogs found nothing. Detectives continued to stress that there

was no sign of foil play, but even as they

said it, they had to acknowledge the contradiction at the

heart of their theory. If Leah had left on her

own volition, she took none of her personal belongings with her,

no bag pack, no money taken, no note left behind,

and she didn't have a history of running away. By

all accounts, she had been in good spirits that day,

happy even when she kissed her mother on the cheek

and said she loved her. And then there was the

bloody shoe. Then on the fifth of July, everything shifted again.

Leah's second Nike shoe was discovered thirteen miles northwest in

Hudson Ridge, a place that was popular for beer keg parties.

Like the first shoe, this one was stained with blood.

One shoe with blood could be explained away an injury,

an accident, something innocent twisted into something sinister by worry

and fear. The two shoes, miles apart, both marked with

her blood. According to a forensic expert, the blood spatter

was indicative of a high impact wound. The truth settled

over Coqueel like a fog. Something terrible had happened to

Leigh Freeman. The search intensified. The tawn came out in droves.

Volunteers scarred the woods, pushing through dense underbrush. Detective set

up root blocks, stopping drivers returning from their Fourth of

July vacations, asking if they'd seen anything, noticed anything, remembered

the girl in a white tank top walking alone. Nobody had.

The days passed slowly for Leah's loved ones. Police chief

Mike Greeves spoke to the press and said, we're still

where we were at the beginning. But even as the

official investigation seemed to stall, rumors began to circulate it

through Cookueel. People whispered in grocery store aisles and parking

lots and living rooms. They found it hard to believe

that a stranger could have abducted Leah, not from a

well lighted, heavily traveled four lane street that ran through

the center of their small town, not without anyone seeing something,

which meant perhaps that whoever took Lea wasn't a stranger

at all. And in a town where everyone knew everyone,

that was the most terrifying thought of all. After the

second shoe was discovered, detectives turned their attention to Hudson

Ridge and the surrounding area. The blood on both shoes

told them that something violent had occurred. The question was

ware and whether Lea could still be found. On the

third of August, more than a month after Leah vanished,

a search team was combing through the woods along an

embankment of the Cookhail River. It was rugged, terrain stayed

densely forested, the kind of place where you could hide

something and nature would quickly reclaim it. The summer hate

hung heavy in the air, thick and oppressive beneath the

canopy of trees. Insects hummed, branches cracked underfoot. The searchers

moved slowly, methodically, I scanning the forest floor for anything

out of place, but it was the smell that struck

them first, human decomposition. They followed the smell to the

bottom of an embankment. Lying on the ground was a

decomposing body. It was Leah Freeman. Detective Chris Webley recalled

the HUDs.

Speaker 2: The area where the remains of Leah Freeman were found

just right now at the base of this hill, where

only our suspects had disposed of Lea's body. So there

was a search party assigned to this area. They detected

the odor, it was consistent with a decomposing human body,

and they found Lea's remains. E body was in a

bad condition.

Speaker 3: She was out in the summer heat six weeks. It's

not that hot around here, but on the other hand,

it's summertime, and the decomposition there was animals, So there's

a lot of information that would have been there earlier

that just wasn't available to anybody.

Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Lee was partially hidden by the undergrowth that had

begun to creep over her in the five weeks since

she'd been left there. Her legs were crossed over, suggesting

she had been ruled on the sloop. Her body was clothed,

still wearing that white tank top and those blue jeans

from the twenty eighth of June shoes were missing. The

scene erupted into controlled chaos. The area was immediately cordoned

off with crime scene tape right yellow against the grain

of the forest. More officers were called in. Crime scene

technicians began the painstaking work of documenting everything. They photographed

the body from every angle, measuring distances, sketching the layout

of the scene, collecting soil samples and trace evidence from

the surrounding area. The embankment was steep and remote, the

kind of place you'd only know about if you were local,

if you'd driven those back roads before, if you understood

the geography of Coquel's hidden places. It was eight miles

from where her first shoe had been found, accessible only

by winding roads that snaked through the forest. This wasn't

a random dump sight. Someone had chosen this spot deliberately.

Detectives believed Lay's family and Nick were informed of the

tragic update. Nick later recalled, it was like my world

was over. I broke down. That's the saddest moment that

I've ever gone through. Lee's body was then carefully transported

to the medical examiner's office, where doctor James Olsson would

attempt to determine how she died, but he hit a

brick wall. Five weeks in the summer, heat had taken

its toll. Lea's body was in an advanced state of decomposition.

She was partially skeletonized, her soft tissues degraded beyond recognition.

There were no usable organs to evaluate it, no clear

indicators of trauma that might point definitively to a cause

of death. Yet doctor Olson knew that this was no accident.

The circumstances told their own story. He ruled Lay's death

a homicide and later recollected I chose to call it

homicidal violence of an undetermined tie because of the circumstances.

In other words, finding other items of her apparel, one

of which had blood on it, you basically have the

disappearance of this healthy young woman and she's stumped. There's

no question she stumped in an area that was probably

intended hopefully to conceal her remains, perhaps indefinitely, someone had

killed Leah. Freeman transported her body to a remote embankment

and then rolled her down into the woods, where they

hoped she would never be found, where the forest would

keep their secret. But the forest had given her back.

Now the question became who had taken her there? The

missing person investigation dramatically shifted into a murder investigation, and

detectives already had a lead suspect, Nick MacGuffin. In the

immediate aftermath of Leah's disappearance, Nick had been cooperative, helpful.

Even he'd driven around Cockheel searching for her. He'd enlisted

friends to help. He'd gone to the police station with

Lea's family to report her missing. When her body was discovered,

he'd broken down, devastated by the news. To all outward appearances,

he was a grief stricken boyfriend mourning the loss of

his first love. But detectives were trained to look beyond appearances,

and when they examined Nick mcguffin more closely, certain things

began to stand out. He was the last person to

see Leah alive, or at least one of them. He

dropped her off at Cherry's house that evening. He'd been

the one who was supposed to pick her up when

Lea stormed out after their argument. She'd been heading back

towards him toward their planned date, and Nick had been

not driving that night, searching, or so he claimed, for

ours through Kukuiel's streets. Numerous people had seen Nick in

and around Kokuielle the night Leah vanished. He'd been to

the Fast Mart multiple times, He'd been in contact with

Lea's mother. He enlisted Kristin Steinhoff to help him search.

These were all verifiable movements, documented sightings that seemed to

establish his presence in town during the critical hours the

two detectives. This didn't exonerate him, In fact, it raised questions.

Why had he returned to the Fast Mart five or

six times that night? Was he genuinely searching or was

he establishing an alibi making sure that people saw him,

remembered him, could place him in town. Why had he

driven past Leay's house at two thirty in the morning

and claimed to see her television on, convincing himself that

she was home safe, when her mother would later confirm

that Ley had never returned. And perhaps most troubling, Nick

knew these roads. He knew the backways out of Cookhale,

the remote spots where teenagers gathered for parties, the embankments

and vorest paths that snaked along the river. He would

have known exactly where to take a body if he

needed it to disappear. The age difference between them hadn't escaped.

Detectives notice either Nick was eighteen, a high school senior,

Lea was fifteen, a freshman. Their relationship had been sexual.

Corey had discovered this and disapproved, creating tension between mother

and daughter. There were questions about part dynamics, about control,

about what happens when a teenage romance curdles into something darker.

Friends mentioned arguments between Nick and Lea, small things, typical

teenage drama, jealousy, nicks, occasional marijuana use, the normal friction

of young people learning how to navigate intimacy. But in

the horse light of a murder investigation, the these arguments

took on new significance. Had one of those fights escalated,

Had something happened that night that Nick couldn't take back.

Detectives began to build their theory. Nick mcgoffin had picked

Leah up after she stormed out of her friend's house.

Maybe they argued, Maybe things got physical, maybe in a

moment of rage or panic or terrible calculation he killed her.

Then he spent the night driving around Cookqueale, being seen,

creating the appearance of a desperate boyfriend searching for his

missing girlfriend, while Ley's body lay hidden in the darkness.

It was a compelling theory. It fit the facts as

investigators understood them, and in a small town like Coquel,

where everyone knew everyone, it made a certain terrible sense.

Lea hadn't been taken by a stranger. She'd been killed

by someone close to her, someone she trusted loved. But

having a theory improving it were two very different things.

Detectives didn't let Nick know that he was their lead suspect.

They played it carefully and strategically. When they brought him

into the police station to be interviewed, they framed it

as routine, just gathering information from a witness, someone who'd

been close to Leah, someone who might help them understand

what happened. Nick came willingly when he arrived. They took

photographs of him. They documented his arms, his hands, his neck,

every visible inch of skin. They were looking for defensive wounds,

the telltale scratches and bruises that might indicate a struggle,

evidence that Leah had fought back against her attacker, but

Nick didn't know this. To him, it was just part

of the process, another ball to check in the investigation.

Those photographs showed nothing, no scratches, no bruises, no marks

that suggested violence. Nick also agreed to hand over his Mustang. Again,

he was cooperative. When they opened up the trunk, they

were surprised to find it empty. There was no liner,

no spare tire, no jack, and no tire iron. Nick's

father explained that it had recently been repaired, which necessitated

the removal of everything inside. They came across a piece

of duct tape and two rules of film. The car

was processed by forensic technicians. He went through it with

meticulous care. They vacuumed fibers, swabbed surfaces, searching for blood evidence,

or any trace that Lee had been in that vehicle

against her will. They were looking for the physical proof

that would connect Nick to Lead's death, the smoking gun

that would transform suspicion into certainty. Mustang revealed nothing incriminating.

They then headed to next home, where they collected hair samples,

rolls of film, a stained white sock, a woman's sweatshirt,

to baseball caps, and drug paraphernalia. DNA testing showed nothing

of interest on any of the items. DNA testing was

also conducted on evidence collected from Leay's body and clothing.

In two thousand, DNA analysis was still relatively new in

criminal investigations, but it was becoming increasingly reliable. If Nick

had killed Lea, if there had been a struggle, if

he transported her body in his car, surely there would

have been some microscopic exchange of evidence, a hair of fiber, skin, cells, blood.

The results came back nothing connected Nick to the crime scene.

No DNA, no fibers, no physical evidence that placed him

at the embankment where Lay's body was found. Detectives then

tried a new tactic. They turned to Nick's friend Brent,

who had dinner with Leah and Nick and his grandparents

the evening she disappeared. They offered him immunity to share

anything he knew about Lea's murder, but Brent had nothing

to say. Detectives then re examined the timeline. Nick's movements

that night had been documented by multiple witnesses. The timeline

didn't work, the physical evidence didn't exist. Their leads suspect,

Their most obvious suspect couldn't be connected to the murder.

The investigation stalled while Nick was under investigation, While detectives

chased leads that went nowhere and analyzed evidence that refused

to speak, the community of Kickhel gathered to say goodbye.

More than one thousand people filled the cook Heel High

School Gymnasium for Lea's memorial service. They came from across

the country, family friends, classmates, teachers, people who had never

met Leah but felt the weight of her loss anyway.

Before the service began, Leah's father, Denis, spoke to reporters

that gathered outside. His voice carried the exhaustion of five

weeks of searching, of hoping, of finally receiving the news

that every parent dreads. He said, this woke off bur

sleepy little town. Things like this are only supposed to

happen in large cities. The service was presided over by

Reverend Carl Scray. He stood before the assembled crowd and

spoke about loss, about memory, and about the long road ahead.

But he also spoke about anger, the seething, destructive rage

that was already beginning to simmer in Kokuiel. People wanted

someone to blame they wanted justice, they wanted answers. He

urged the community to resist that darkness. As he said,

it is up to us to continue to make a

positive difference in this Kokuil community. If we become instead

bitter and vengeful, we dishonored memory. After Ley was laid

to rest, Chief Deputy District Attorney Paul Fraser set up

a grand jury. It was an effort to break through

the wall of silence that seemed to have descended over Kakiel,

to compel testimony from witnesses who might know something but

weren't coming forward voluntarily. Grand juries had subpoena part they

could force people to talk. The grand jury convened, witnesses

were called. Testimony was heard behind closed doors, but it

didn't result in any charges being filed. There just simply

wasn't enough evidence, not against Nick mcguffin, not against anyone else.

So Lea's killer remained unknown. The investigation continued for a

while longer, detectives following up on tips, reinterviewing witnesses, hoping

for a breakthrough that never came. But without physical evidence,

without a confession, without that one crucial piece of information

that we crack the case wide open, they had nowhere

to go. Gradually the case went cold. Months passed, then years.

The flyers with Lay's face faded in shop windows. The

news cruise moved on to other stories. The volunteers who

had searched the woods went back to their ordinary lives,

but Leay's family never stopped searching for answers. Her father,

Dennis said, sometimes I play like it never happened because

it's easier to deal with. There will never be any closure,

even if someone is convicted. Corey accused police of not

properly handling the case. The police chief later assigned the

school resource officer to visit the family. After that, they

stopped receiving any updates. Police said they were still investigating,

but Lay's family felt that their efforts weren't good enough.

Corey then hired an attorney to watch over the case,

Brent Jaspers. He said the family believes those responsible are

still in the community and that there are strong leads

and there is frustration that they haven't been followed up on,

and somewhere in Kakheale someone knew what happened that night

on the twenty eighth of June two thousand. The question

was whether they would ever tell. The years stretched on,

marked by frustration and loss. In June of two thousand

and four, four years after Leaya's death, Corey came for

the police again. She accused them of incompetence. She revealed

something that had been gnawing at her since the beginning.

The morning after Leah disappeared, police had come across a

party scene on the deck of a home on Fir Street.

They found bear cans scattered across the wood planks and

a white sleeveless T shirt left behind. Corey believed that

the T shirt belonged to her daughter, but police never

collected it as evidence. They walked away, dismissing it as

just another teenage party, another mess left behind in a

town where teenagers drank in backyards and parking lots every weekend.

It was only around in ur later, when the pieces

began to click together, that they realized that items could

somehow be connected to Lea's disappearance. They returned to Fir

Street ready to secure the scene, but by then everything

had been cleared up. The beer cans were gone, the

T shirt was gone. Whatever evidence might have been there

had vanished swept away before anyone understood its significance. Corey

accused police of categorizing her daughter as a runaway until

her bloody shoes were found, of wasting precious time while

Ley's trail went cold, of feeling her daughter when it

mattered the most. She said, I will never take any

information to police again. I am sick of the attitude

they give and eye. I am sick of being ignored.

It was a damning indictment from a mother who had

spent four years watching her daughter's case languish. So Corey

took matters into her own hands, spearheading the creation of

a website containing all available public information about the case.

If the police couldn't find answers, maybe the public would.

The same year, Lea's grandparents AJ and Dot died without

knowing what happened to their granddaughter. Corey remarked, that's all

my dad wanted. He wanted someone to pay for what

he'd done to her. He tried so hard to stay alive.

It breaks my heart. The years continued to pass, Leah's sister, Denise,

married and had two children. Life moved forward as it

always does. Corey wrote a letter to Leah, speaking to

the daughter who would never read it, telling her about

the nieces she would never meet. Her daughter, Leah has

the Bassett hound eyes, feels the silky on a blanket,

and sucks her thumb just like someone else. I know

they are adorable little kids, and I wish you could

have been here to be their aunt, Leah. In October

of two thousand and nine, Leah's father, Denis, tragically passed away.

He died not knowing how his daughter's life ended or

who killed her. Corey was now fifty three years old,

and she was terrified that she too would die without

knowing the truth. She said, I have to find justice.

This was my child. I just can't stand the thought

of someone getting away with this. That same year, next

defense attorney Robert McCree spoke publicly about the case. He

said he hadn't heard from Nick in some time, but

he shared his own thoughts on the investigation's failures. They

get an idea about who'd done it, and they seem

incapable of going outside the box. He said he had

no doubt in his mind that Nick was innocent. To McCrae,

the police had fixiated on Nick from the beginning and

never seriously considered other possibilities, other suspects, other theories that

might lead them to the real killer. The following year

brought unexpected movement. In twenty ten, detectives announced that a

cold case team was looking into Leah's murder, conducting fresh interviews,

re examining old evidence with new eyes and new technology.

A ten thousand dollars reward for information was announced. Then

in June came the announcement that sent shockwaves through Kakhel.

The case was heading to grand jury again. Once more,

the lead suspect in the murder was Nick mcguffin. The

grand jury heard testimony from more than one hundred witnesses, friends,

family members, teachers, people who had known Leah and Nick,

people who had seen them together, people who remembered things

from that night ten years ago that might finally add

up to something. And this time it seemed that the

grand jury was convinced. Police Chief Michael Reeves explained that

there were concerns about Nick's version of events. He said

the first was macguffin's claim that he drove up and

down Central looking for Lea and his claim that he

did not see her, when in fact, several persons saw

her walking on Central at the same time he claimed

to be looking for her. The second was the fact that,

in all the time that mcguffin claimed he was looking

for Lea, he never physically went to Ley's home to

say if she was home, even though he had been

close by on several occasions. The grand jury also her

testimony from a teacher, Sharon Nelson. She told them something

that painted a darker picture of Nick and Leay's relationship.

She said that it appeared to be physical abuse in

the relationship. She described Nick as having a flashed temper,

the kind of personality that could turn violent without warning. Moreover,

in the early stages of the investigation, Nick had taken

a polygraph examination and he failed. According to Detective Mark Ranger,

when he told Nick about the field polygraph, he went

from being cooperative to angry. Then there was more testimony

people had apparently seen Leah and Nick together after Leah

left Cherry's home that night. Kristin Steinoff also said that

when he was in her home that night after searching

for Lea, he took methamphetamine and tried to have sex

with her. Nick denied part of this. He said he

had smoked marijuana, not meth but admitted he came on

to Kristin, but said he then stopped because he didn't

want to hurt Lea. There was no physical evidence, no DNA,

no fibers, no murder weapon, just a few troubling comments,

a field polygraph, and a timeline that didn't quite add up.

But apparently that was enough. On the twenty second of

August two thousand and ten, ten years and nearly two

months after Leah was killed, Nick mcgoffin was arrested and

charged with her murder. For the first time since her

daughter's body was found. Corey shared her thoughts on Nick

as a suspect in the very beginning. I didn't believe

it was him. I didn't want to. I don't like

believing the fact he did this, and I know that

hasn't been proven yet. But I've got to get this

girl her justice. This was my child. She deserves it.

Nick macgoffin was ordered to be held on two million

dollars bill. By now, Nick was twenty eight years old.

He had graduated from culinary school and had built a

career for himself as an executive chef at the Mill Casino.

He received a four point zero grade point average in

May two thousand and maintained grades between three point five

and three point nine. Throughout his studies. He worked hard,

kept his head down, and tried to build a life.

He had a long time girlfriend, Megan, and together they

had a daughter, Violet, who was born on the eleventh

of October two thousand and seven. She was almost three

years old when police came to arrest her father for

a murder that happened before she was born. His co

workers described him as quiet, some even said he was secretive,

the kind of person who didn't engage in serious conversations

with fellow employees, who kept his personal life carefully partitioned

from his professional one. One worker described him as cocky,

saying if you talk to him, he's the cook of

the world. He was pretty sure of himself. Despite this,

Greg Prynne said that Nick was likable. All he ever

spoke about was his girlfriend, Megan and his daughter Violet.

He seemed like a man who had moved on, who

had tried to create something stable and good out of

the wreckage of his teenage years, and now all of

that was being torn away. Nick appeared in court on

the twenty fifth of August. He was emotional as he

sat at the defendant's table. He cried when Judge Michael

Gillespie read the murder indictment, and then he said to

the judge, I'm not a flight risk. I'm just a

family man and I work hard. His voice broke, he

cried as he pleaded not guilty. Afterwards, standing outside the

courthouse where reporters had gathered, Corey commented with a hardness

that came with ten years of grief. It's your turn, buddy.

I've cried for ten plus years. I hope you cry

for the rest of your life. To Corey, this was

justice beginning to unfold. Next. Tears were long overdue, but

others in Cooquil weren't so sure. So Manny Nick looked

less like a murderer and more like a scapegoat for

a botched investigation. Cookill police had taken a week to

call in help from the FBI and the Major Crimes Unit.

They dismissed Leah as a runaway when her family was

screaming that something was wrong. They failed to collect evidence

from that party scene on First Street. They let the

trail go cold. Some said that Nick had been railroaded.

The police needed someone to blame for their failures, and

Nick was a convenient target. His father, Bruce, was adamant

about his son's innocence. He remarked, it sounds like Nick

was arrested because they needed someone in jail. We know

our son is innocent. Bruce had his own theory about

what happened to Leah. He believed she had been struck

by a car, tortured, and then disposed of by a

group of people. These people were then granted immunity, he believed,

because police had pinned the murder on Nick Instead, He said,

how can an eighteen year old kid do something like

that and over a ten year period not come up

with any insight to me that he did it? And

don't think I have n't been looking for it. If

I had known he killed Leah, I would have been

the first person to take him down. Furthermore, Bruce revealed

something that painted a picture of nixt grief. In those

early days when Lea's body was found, Nick had been

so distraught that he attempted to take his own life

by swallowing a bottle of tylanol. Bruce said he didn't

want to live in this world no more. He wanted

to be with her. In the years after Ley's murder,

the entire MacGuffin family had been targeted by suspicion and rage.

Even before the arrest, people in Koquel had made up

their mind. Bruce described the harassment. People yelled from their

car windows, you murderer, then gestured to you with their

middle finger, or people in the store yellow, You're a murderer.

Your whole family is. They had lived for ten years

under a cloud of accusation, unable to clear next name,

unable to escape the whispers and stairs, and now with

his arrest, that cloud had finally descended completely, smothering any

chance at a normal life. The question remained. Was Nick

macgoffin a murderer who had gotten away with it for

ten years, or was he an innocent man being sacrificed

to close a case that never should have gone cold

in the first place. The trial would have to answer

that question. Nick macgoffin was escorted into court on the

eighth of July twenty eleven. He sat down beside his

defence to him. The courtroom slowly filled up. Reporters, spectators,

members of the community had followed the case for eleven years,

Leah's family, their faces etched with exhaustion and hope. Nick's

family equally worn, equally desperate for vindication. It was a

moment that had been eleven years in the making. During

opening statements, prosecutor Erica Souvelette painted a picture of her

relationship that had been doomed from the start. She told

the jury that Lea and next relationship was a volatile

mix of two individuals that came to a violent end.

She promised to present eyewitness testimony, people who had apparently

seen Lea and Nick together after she left Cherry's house

that night, people who could place him together during the

critical window when Leyad disappeared. The implication was clear. Nick

had caught up with Leah, they'd gotten into his Mustang,

and something terrible had happened. Defense attorney Sean McCrae stood

to deliver his opening statement with a different narrative entirely.

He acknowledged the relationship between Nick and Lea, but framed

it in gentler terms. Nick and Lea were a young

couple in love, and that includes all the kind of

teenage things that go with that kind of love, teenage

drama and teenage argu humans nothing that rose to the

level of murder. Most importantly, McCrae emphasized what the prosecution

didn't have. Physical evidence. No DNA connecting Nick to the

crime scene, no fibers from his car on Leah's body,

no blood, no murder weapon, nothing concrete. He said. Evidence

will show the witnesses mistaken about seeing the two together.

Evidence will show no one saw Nick catch up with

Leah on Central Avenue. It was a bold assertion that

the eyewitnesses were wrong, that memories from eleven years ago

had become unreliable, shaped by suggestion and time. Testimony then

got under way. Corey took to the witness stand. She

told the jury about her concerns regarding the amount of

time her daughter was spending with Nick, about the age difference,

about the physical intimacy that troubled her. She had brought

it up to Leah the day she disappeared. Life last

conversation between mother and daughter, she testified, She said, I'm

going to take your advice, mom. Then she jumped up,

kissed me on the cheek and said, I love you, mommy.

It was the last time Corey ever saw her daughter alive.

Corey described receiving Nick's phone call that evening, asking if

Lea was at home, He told her not to worry,

that he would find her. She'd gone to bed that

night with the uneasy feeling that something was wrong, but

also with a mother's desperate hope that everything would be

found by the morning. When she woke at three thirty

a m. And found that Lea still wasn't home, she

assumed that Nick had found her that Leah was safe somewhere,

maybe having fallen asleep at a friend's house. It wasn't

until morning, when she called Nick that she learned otherwise.

The prosecution then called witnesses who had seen Lea that night.

Multiple people testified that they'd spotted her walking along Central

Boulevard a ron nine p m. Heading in the direction

of the high school. She had been alone, walking with purpose,

still upset from her argument with Jerry, But the most

crucial testimony came from witnesses who claimed that they had

seen Leah and Nick together later that evening. One witness

describes seeing a young couple in a Mustang in the

area around the time that Lee had disappeared. However, Neix's

defense team pointed out that this woman had earlier described

the car as a small compact car. Another said he

saw Nick and another man standing in a convenience store

parking lot holding Leah against an ice machine. They said

they were inside when they heard a loud slam. When

he went outside, he saw Leah running across the parking lot.

Nick threw his keys in the air and screamed something,

he testified. One witness said she saw two young men

walking down Fairview Road, supporting a blond girl between them.

This was close to where Lea's body was found. The

defense attacked these testimony aggressively during cross examination. How dark

had it been? How far away were these witnesses Could

they be certain eleven years later about what they truly sing?

Memory is fallible, Time distorts details, suggestion, plants seats. Sharon Nelson,

a teacher, testified about her observations of Lea and Nick's relationship.

She described what she believed was physical abuse bruise as

she had noticed on Leah, the way Nick seemed to

control her movements his flash temper. Another witness, Stacy Crutchfield,

recalled one argument where Leah yelled and pushed Nick. He

didn't respond in anger. Instead, she said that he backed

away next, letters that Leah had written Nick were read aloud.

In one, she wrote, I can't believe I miss you

as much as I do and it's only Friday. Have

you noticed how much more comfortable I am around you?

In another, she wasn't so happy. She wrote, I don't

understand and how you can be so pissed at me.

You can't stop trading me like I'm just your bitch.

I depress all my friends because you depressed me with

all these problems. I think we would have broken up

by nou. The prosecution then presented evidence about the field

polygraph examination. Detective Mark Ranger testified about Nick's shift from

cooperative to angry when confronted about the results. The prosecutors

this suggested consciousness of guilt, the reaction of someone who

had been caught in a lie. But the defense countered

the polygraph results weren't admissible as evidence of guilt for

a reason they were unreliable. An angry reaction could just

as easily come off from an innocent person being falsely accused.

The timeline then became a central battleground. The prosecution argued

that Nick had time to catch up with Leah drive

her to that remote embankment, kill her, and return to

establish his alibi by being seen around town. The defense

argued the timeline is impossible. The next documented movements that night,

confirmed by multiple witnesses, didn't allow for the ours needed

to commit murder and dispose of a body miles away.

Expert testimony was then presented about the condition of Ley's remains.

The advanced decomposition meant that determining an exact cause of

death was impossible, but there were no defensive wounds visible

on the skeletal remains, no clear indications of how she died.

Then Lea's cousin, Melissa Bebe testified. She said that in

two thousand and three, Nick had told her it's amazing

what you can get away with in cous County. According

to the prosecution, this was close enough to a confession,

but then there was something more. Michael Brake failed testified

that in two thousand and two, Nika told him I

killed before and I'll kill again. However, Michael never took

this to police until two thousand and ten. Defense team

suggested he wanted the ten thousand dollar reward. Richard Bryant

had shared a cell with Nick for a week in

September of two thousand and two, when he was arrested

for breaking and entering. He told the jury that Nick

was emotional one day, he said, he said he could

picture her laying there with her head sitting on a rock,

and I couldn't do anything about it. The prosecution rested

its case, confident they had presented an off circumstantial evidence

to convince the jury. The defense rested theirs, confident they

had created reasonable doubt. Now it was up to twelve

people to decide was Nick mcguffin a murderer or a scapegoat.

The jury deliberated for four hours before they reached a verdict.

The courtroom filled back up. Leah's family sat on one side,

bracing themselves for whatever came next. Nick's family sat on

the other, equally terrified. Nick was brought back in, his face, pale,

his hands trembling. The jury foreman stood. They announced that

they had found Nick mcguffin guilty of manslaughter, but they

found him not guilty of murder. It was a split verdict,

a compromise that suggested the jury believed something had happened

between Nick and Leah that night, but couldn't be certain

it was premeditated. Perhaps it had been an accident that

spiraled out of control, perhaps a fight that turned fatal,

Perhaps something in between the prosecution's narrative of calculated murder

and the defense's claim of complete innocence. Most of the

courtroom was stunned. Next, defense attorney Sean McCrae urged the

state to continue looking for the real killer. He said,

Nick mcguffin has been convicted, but it is doubtful that

Leah Freeman case has actually been solved. It was later

revealed that two jurors had wanted an acquittal. They didn't

think there was enough evidence. One of them said, yes,

a young girl lost her life, but now a young

man has lost his life. I'm not really even sure

he did it. On the twenty third of September two

thousand and eleven, Nick Magoffin returned to court for sentencing.

Judge PAULA. Brownhill had the difficult task of determining how

many years Nick would spend behind bars. The manslaughter conviction

carried a potential sentence of up to twenty years. The

prosecution argued for the maximum, citing the severity of the crime,

the lost to Lay's family, the eleven years they had

waited for justice. The defense argued for leniency, pointing out

that Nick had built a life in those eleven years.

He'd become a father, held down a job, contributed to society.

He had never been in trouble with the laws since

whatever happened that night in two thousand, he'd been eighteen

years old, barely more than a child himself. Judge Brownhill

then sentenced Nick macgoffin to fifteen years in prison. It

was a substantial sentence, but it wasn't the maximum. Nick

would be eligible for parole after serving a portion of

that time. He would still have a chance at life

after prison, still have the possibility of returning to his daughter, Violet,

who was now four years old and would grow up

visiting her father behind bars. Nick spoke during the hearing.

He proclaimed his innocence and accused witnesses of being liars.

He said, forensic and evidence does not lie, but I

know something that can lie, and its people. I know

many of the state's witnesses were lying. During the hearing,

Knick's defense attorney also revealed something disturbing. She said that

there was a woman who was now a patient in

the Oregon State Hospital. She once said she had been

in a car with two men that night and they

struck Leah. She couldn't be a witness because of her circumstances.

Nick was then escorted out of the courtroom to begin

his sentence. For Corey, it was closure of a sort.

Not perfect, not when she dreamed of when she fought

so hard to keep Leay's case alive, but it was something,

she told reporters outside the court house that she could

finally breathe finally sleep at night, knowing that some one

had been held accountable, But the grief remained. Leah was

still gone. No verdict could bring her back. Nick mac

guffin maintained his innocence even as he was led away

to begin serving his sentence, Even as the years began

to pass behind prison walls. He insisted he had nothing

to do with Ley's death. His family believed him, and

eventually a lawyer named Janie Purcell became to believe him too.

She said that there were more than twenty witnesses who

had seen around could kill when he was supposedly killing Leah.

She said the timeline didn't add up, so that raised

red flags for me. Purcell, who had been working with

the Forensics Justice Project had DNA evidence from the case retested.

What she discovered was stunning. Police prosecutors and the state

crime Lab had not originally disclosed that this DNA evidence existed.

During Macgoffin's trial, The DNA came from the only true

piece of physical evidence related to Lea's death, her bloody shoe.

DNA had been found on the shoe, but it didn't

belong to Nick. It pointed to an unidentified meal. It

had come from somebody who picked up and touched the shoe.

Purcell put it bluntly, there's no blood, there's no DNA,

there are no hairs, that are no fibers. There's nothing

that ties Nick to this crime, but there is DNA

pointing to some other suspect. The implications were staggering. The

Oregon State Police Crime Lab had generated reports showing unknown

male DNA on both shoes back in two thousand and one.

In two thousand and two, years before Nick's trial, but

analysts didn't disclose this information because of an internal policy

at the time. Mohur County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Sullivan

ruled that the internal policy from the early two thousands

was no longer the standard when the case went to

trial in two thousand and eleven. This meant the lab

should have disclosed the DNA evidence, but it didn't. It

was a constitutional violation. Next right to a fair trial

had been compromised by the state's failure to turn over

exculpatory evidence. In December of two thousand and nineteen, court

overturned mcguffin's conviction. The Coote County District Attorney decided not

to retry the case. He said, after having consulted with

members of the original investigating team and the family of

Miss Freeman, I have decided not to pursue a new trial.

After nine years of wrongful incarceration, Nick Macoffin walked out

of prison a free man. It's a day that I'm

not going to forget, right before Christmas, he said. But

freedom came with its own challenges. Nick said that adjusting

to life after prison had been harder than he expected.

He said, I thought it would have been easier coming home.

It's not. I mean, I don't go out a lot.

I stay home a lot. I go work out. That's

one of the things that keeps me somewhat level headed.

He struggled with anxiety living back in the community where

people had cast him as a killer. His career as

an executive chef was destroyed by years of harassment and

nine years behind bars. Even though he had been exonerated,

the stigma remained. Finding work was difficult, rebuilding his life

possible some days, but his daughter gave him strength. She'd

been two when he went to prison. No, she was twelve,

old enough to understand what had happened, old enough to

have her own feelings about the injustice her father had suffered.

He said, I've got to show her strength. She shows

it to me at you know, twelve years old. Nick

says it's become his mission to keep Leay's story in

the spotlight and keep seeking the truth about what happened

to her. He said, I want to keep Leay's voice alive.

I want to keep her lied alive. I just want

to find out what happened. That's all I want. In

July twenty twenty, Nick filed the federal civil rights lawsuit

against the Oregon State Police, the City of Kakail, the

Coups County Sheriff's Department, and others. The lawsuit accused officials

of mine, manufacturing false evidence, and hiding exculpatory DNA. It

detailed how police and forensic scientists allegedly fabricated and suppressed evidence,

used dubious criminal profiling, and engaged in a conspiracy to

convict him while ignoring DNA evidence that may have pointed

de Lay's railkiller. In August of twenty twenty five, Marion

County Circuit Court Judge Sean Armstrong granted neck as certificate

of innocence, stating that he is innocent of all crimes

for which he was wrongfully convicted. He became the first

person in Oregon history to receive such a certificate. In

September of twenty twenty five, Nick received more than fourteen

million dollars as part of a series of settlements, including

nine million dollars from the Oregon State Police Forensics Lab

for failing to disclose DNA evidence. It was vindication, but

it couldn't give him back nine years of his life.

It couldn't erase the trauma, It couldn't bring back the

relationship with his daughter during her childhood years, and most importantly,

it couldn't answer the question that still haunts everyone involved.

Who actually killed Lea Freeman. Well, that is it for

this episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so much

for listening, and i'd like to say a massive thank

you to my new supporter up on Patreon, Melinda. The

link to Patreon is in the show notes. If you'd

like to join, I upload Adfrey and early release episodes,

bonus episodes of Morbidology Plus behind the Scenes, and I

also send out a thank you card along with some

called Patreon exclusive merch. Morbidology is also gnaw up on

Apple subscriptions, where I do Adfrey an early release eppes

as well as bonus episodes of Morbidology Plus. Remember to

check aside at morebidology dot com for more information about

this episode and to read some true crime articles. Until

next time, take care of yourselves, stay safe, and have

an amazing week.