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subject to credit approval see store or ashley.com for [Music] [Music] details [Music]
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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:48
with me as always is a man that has the nanny cam setup to keep an eye on that sneaky little elf on his shelf here is
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the captain it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks thanks for telling a
00:02:01
[Music] friend today in the garage we got a big beer on tap that Beer's name is Bill
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brasy from the good folks over at The Peddler Brewery and beautiful Huntington West Virginia bill brasy is a New
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England style hazy IPA and one of my favorite SNL characters big on Aroma and flavor just like the legend bill brasy
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himself ABV 6.6% garage grade four out of five bottle caps and let's give some thanks and holiday cheers to some of our
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good friends that helped us out with this week's beer run first up a big cheers to Phillip Malloy in El Monte
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California and also in Cali we have Holly Jackson in Upland California and a big we like your jib to Ben Davidson and
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Home in Wisconsin and last but certainly certainly not least we have Jen Von and
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queens everyone we just mentioned well they went to our website True Crime garage.com and they clicked on the
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Donate button which helped us out with this week's beer fund and for that we thank you yeah BW R in beer run make
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sure you go to our website True Crime garage and sign up on our mailing list and if you haven't already subscribe to
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our Channel on YouTube @ True Crime garage TV and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
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around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] [Music]
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oh it never seems to get any easier does it it doesn't get any easier telling these stories nor does it get any easier
00:04:41
to hear them we listen and we ask ourselves so many questions along the way questions like why her or why
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him what would I have done in this situation and of course course could this have been
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avoided sometimes the why her or him is answered in the story The what would I have done part
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well that's up to you and could this have been avoided I'll fill you in the answer is
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almost always yes the overwhelming majority of these cas PES simply boils down to very bad and horrible person does
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something very wrong and horribly bad to a good person but even with answers it doesn't
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get any easier for 7 years we have been researching writing and telling these true crime
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stories and all of us have certainly learned some very profound things along the
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way but often we still can't make any sense out of this violence or ever get over the Innocence
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Lost Innocence Lost is really the most honest way to summarize this week's True Crime Story the victim was a 21-year-old
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college girl a young woman that was well-liked hardworking and just straight up a very
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good person almost too innocent to be 21 years of age she didn't seek trouble and
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she didn't start trouble she was close with her family and friends she got good grades and even though she was a young
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independent woman she still checked in with Mom and Dad she looked to her older sister for
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God guidance after leaving her parents' home and going off to college she regularly told her parents
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her sibling and friends what she was up to where she was going and with whom she'd be going
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with no problems here right you would think that would be the case but we've been doing this long
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enough to know that the wolf is always at the door today's True Crime Story is about a
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young woman who should have had the world at her feet she was packing up and preparing to
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head home for the holidays until she became lost and stolen away forever Innocence Lost and it doesn't
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get any easier this is a tragic Cold Case story story of Leah Hickman and this is true
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crime [Music] garage 21-year-old Leah Hickman was a journalism student at Marshall
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University Marshall is located in Huntington West Virginia and in 2020 had more than
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11,000 students now this week's True Crime Story however takes place back in 2007 our first real true sign of trouble
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here Captain is when Leah Hickman goes missing in December of 2007 now at the time Leah shared an
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apartment located on 8th Avenue in Huntington with her older half sister Jessica Vickers Jessica was Leah's
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mother's daughter from her first marriage when our story kicks off in 2007 Leah's father Ron or Ronnie was
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separated from Leah's mother Leah was close with her half-sister as they not only lived together but also spent a lot
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of time together as we will see when we get into the timeline leading up to The Disappearance but she was also close
00:09:25
with her father and close with her mother as well Leah is described as a pretty regular college student but I
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thought she was much more impressive than just a regular college student who tries hard Leah was outgoing she had a
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lot of friends she was studious cared greatly about her grades and education she was driven and focused she worked
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hard both at work and at school Leah worked at the Dress Barn the thing here Captain the thing that makes this case
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to me a real shocker is just how truly innocent Leah was like we said in the trailer she didn't look for trouble she
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didn't get into trouble she didn't party a lot like many of the 20 and 21 year old college students Not only was she
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close with her half sister Jessica she was close with her father and her mother as well
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21-year-old Marshall University student Leah Hickman Leah Hickman was reported missing on December 16th 2007 and this
00:10:33
is a pretty thorough report when the missing person's report is filed in this case considering that we have four
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persons present when the report is filed present we have Leah's mother Sher Russell Leah's half sister Jessica
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Vickers Leah's best friend Caitlyn starky and another friend who is not named in the reports she's reported
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missing to the hington Police Department on Sunday December 16th 2007 being reported on this day however the alarm
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was actually raised the previous day on the 15th this when her half sister and roommate Jessica Vickers went to the
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apartment that the two shared looking for her sister this is going to be leading into the winter break leading
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into the winter break for Marshall University and its students but also we have Leah's half sister and roommate
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Jessica Vickers who was planning to go and stay with her boyfriend for what is an indeterminate amount of time I don't
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know how many nights she was intending to stay there there was some talk that Jessica may be going home for the
00:11:45
holidays as well so while we have this these two living together in this apartment in Huntington West Virginia we
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also have the fact that both of them are getting ready to leave and take a break
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not just from school for Leah but also take a break from their apartment for a period of time as well and like we said
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Leah was reported missing on the 16th but alarms were already raised on the 15th and like Nick was saying we have
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four individuals that end up making this phone call so they they did their due diligence to try to track her down
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themselves and were unsuccessful yeah the trouble Starts Here captain on the 15th when Jessica vicker's
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roommate half sister to Leah is sent to the apartment looking for her sister and
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she's sent there at the request of their mother now there when she gets there Jessica has already gone and stayed the
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previous night at her boyfriend's home when she gets to the apartment that they shared there she finds Leah's car parked
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out front of the apartment this is typical behavior from my understanding and I'm going to do do my best as we go
00:13:00
through this story to describe the apartment the layout and how it's situated on the street because I believe
00:13:07
that that is very important to this case so you have street parking right in front and on the side
00:13:15
of this apartment the apartment building itself is located on a corner and it's on 8th
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Avenue she parked right in front of the apartment on the street however there is
00:13:28
a small parking area that is designated for the apartment's occupants and residents right behind the building
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itself but from my understanding that it is that Leah typically would park on the
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street in front of the apartment and this seems to be her preferred parking space so when Jessica Vickers gets to
00:13:52
the apartment on that Saturday looking for her sister the first thing she's going to notice is Leah's bright yellow
00:13:58
yellow Chevy Cavalier parked in street parking right in front of the apartment she gets into the apartment quickly
00:14:07
discovers Leah's purse and car keys inside of the apartment the back door there's a back door to this apartment
00:14:15
which leads to a stairwell so this just doesn't go out and exit the building it's a back door from the apartment that
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goes to a stairwell a twostory stairwell well I guess would be a three-story stairwell I apologize that's a common
00:14:32
space that anybody that has an apartment inside this building can access that door from their apartment to the
00:14:42
stairwell Jessica says that she found this door to be unlocked and in fact many of the reports out there say that
00:14:50
the door was slightly open again let me describe this apartment a little bit more thoroughly here Captain because
00:14:56
this is the key I believe to understanding this week's case I believe that damn near everything about the
00:15:03
apartment also would tell us that our suspect pool in this case is probably not that large right with this case in
00:15:13
all cases we cover we'll be posting some of the pictures so you can see this apartment building more in detail on
00:15:21
social media it's a all brick apartment with multiple apartment units in this building the address was 4038 Avenue
00:15:30
Huntington West Virginia and as we said it's located at an intersection this is 8th Avenue and 4th Street like the
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captain said it's a red brick building it's brick from head to toe out front where Leo would typically Park facing
00:15:48
8th Avenue you have a twostory open porch and if you're looking from the street there you can see a door uh once
00:15:58
you go up a a few steps you can see a door and you can see a big large window for each one of the four apartment units
00:16:07
so this building has four apartment units in it you have two on the second floor two on
00:16:14
the ground level floor two on the right two on the left it looks to be rather spacious for apartments now from my
00:16:25
understanding and from what I've been told because there are no pictures available online that I could find of
00:16:31
the interior of the layout anyway of this building so that door that you would see from 8th Avenue if you go in
00:16:41
that door there is a shared space where you would then go and access your front door to your apartment then remember at
00:16:50
the very back of the building we also have four doors from each one of the four apartments that goes into that
00:16:57
enclosed stairwell which again is another common space why do we need this these two
00:17:05
different ins and outs to each apartment well you have this really nice front porch area if you're on the second floor
00:17:14
you have a balcony that oversees that front porch and then once you're inside you you access that common area you can
00:17:20
go into your your front door from there your back door to your apartment goes to
00:17:25
that stairwell that stairwell is key because that stair will lead to the basement and in the basement level you
00:17:32
have a shared space with washers and dryers so that's the laundry area for the four apartments in this building now
00:17:41
this is not from my understanding Captain it's not part of a larger apartment complex this is simply a one
00:17:49
building unit I'm sorry this is simply one building with four apartment units inside of it the other thing that's key
00:17:57
to this case two is the other residents because at the time there's practically nobody else living in this building you
00:18:05
have Leah and her sister are living in one unit you have the man that owns the building itself he lives in one unit and
00:18:16
the other two units were unoccupied at the time and from some Reports most reports it's a little confusing because
00:18:23
some reports state that there was repairs going on inside the building other reports state that there were
00:18:29
Renovations going on in the two empty units but both can be true one could be described as repairs where it's the same
00:18:38
thing that's going on and they're actually renovating those other units from my understanding Captain the man
00:18:44
that owned the building he's the only other resident that shares a unit in this building with Leah and her sister
00:18:52
but he's out of town he's in Florida or someplace warm and sunny for the winter and so much so that we have the police
00:19:00
on record stating that yes we checked this other dude out that lived there that owned the building and he was gone
00:19:06
had been gone for days and had a rock solid Alibi he was many many miles away in another state well I'm glad you bring
00:19:13
that up because since the owner lives part-time in another state he has maintenance workers and there was
00:19:21
maintenance being done on the apartment during that time period that Leo went missing yes I've seen reports that state
00:19:29
that his brother was in charge of overseeing things while he was gone I don't know if that meant that the
00:19:35
brother was living there or staying nights there my guess is probably not but also that doesn't mean that his
00:19:41
brother was responsible for actually doing the repairs it might just be hey if you get a call you need to call one
00:19:48
of my maintenance workers yes my understanding the way that it's described is that he was overseeing the
00:19:54
building and that this was a regular thing he would oversee the building when his brother would be gone for these
00:20:00
extensive periods of time and he operated as you know a property manager mostly when his brother was gone and
00:20:08
like you said yes there are reports of repairs reports of Renovations maintenance so there were other people
00:20:16
that would be in and out of this apartment building around the same time let's dive into a detailed timeline of
00:20:24
Leah's disappearance let's start with Sunday December 9th so roughly about a week before she goes missing we have
00:20:33
Leah Hickman's final week of school which started off routinely okay this is this is a routine thing for her and her
00:20:43
sister we have Leah and her sister Jessica they would go I found this to be very interesting and I think that it
00:20:51
pointed out to me how close these two likely were which makes this set this story even more
00:20:59
heartbreaking but not only do they live together they have a weekly breakfast that they regularly did together at Bob
00:21:06
Evans and this takes place on that Sunday December 9th they would typically go and drink hot chocolate Leah would
00:21:14
usually order pie while they were there and she had some of her favorites maybe get a cheesecake or A Slice of
00:21:19
Cheesecake while she was there so on that Sunday business as usual the Two Sisters go out for a nice breakfast
00:21:26
together at Bob Evans the next day December 10th we have classes that resumed at Marshall
00:21:34
University and the students were in the process of taking finals this week let's
00:21:40
fast forward a little bit to December 13th this is that Thursday that day was a trip for Leah to
00:21:48
go visit her mother Sher Russell she went to visit her mom as she would regularly but I guess this was
00:21:57
somewhat of a a less routine visit because it was for her to check up on her mother I guess her mother had some
00:22:06
health test recently and they were all kind of worried about what the results of those tests would be on this Thursday
00:22:15
Leah also spoke with her best friend Caitlyn starky they discussed making plans for Friday night that leads us to
00:22:23
Friday December 14th according to Jessica Vickers Leah's half sister she says that she woke Leah up on that
00:22:31
Friday morning this in preparation for a trip together to the Huntington Mall the
00:22:38
sisters ate breakfast and then headed out for Christmas shopping they were going to do some Christmas shopping
00:22:43
together the sister Jessica she reports that they arrived at the the mall promptly around 900
00:22:50
a.m. about 2 hours later around 11:00 a.m. they left the mall and returned back to their apartment Jessica said
00:22:57
that the trip back was special as she would go on to describe for the papers a recent email that Leah had sent Jessica
00:23:07
praised her sister for improvements in her writing skills so they're having this moment they went Christmas shopping
00:23:13
together and they're having a bit of a bonding moment she says or recalls on the way home from the mall that Friday
00:23:21
morning that will take us up to 1:30 p.m. this is when Leah calls her mother her mother is busy cleaning at the time
00:23:28
they did speak briefly Leah spoke to her mom about coming home that evening even
00:23:34
though she had scheduled work the following day her mother convinces her to meet her at the Huntington Mall later
00:23:43
that evening now around 300 p.m. Leah calls her father Ron Hickman he's at work and he would later describ the
00:23:53
phone call this conversation as Leah checking in unfortunately this would be their last telephone conversation at
00:24:02
3:30 Jessica returned home for lunch she packs up a few things for a weekend stay at her boyfriend's she said
00:24:13
that when she's there at the apartment she sees Leah Leah is in the kitchen washing dishes she said that they spoke
00:24:21
briefly Leah seemed excited about her grades she was getting good grades at the time and so she was excited about
00:24:29
putting in the hard work getting good grades she was looking forward to the holiday season they also discussed their
00:24:36
upcoming Sunday morning breakfast at Bob Evans and then Jessica leaves this is when we really need to start focusing in
00:24:47
on the timeline here because the alarm is raised on that Saturday and Leah is reported missing on that Sunday it's
00:24:55
really at this time when we start start backing into events and known events of Leah it's around this time that we're
00:25:03
going to see that she likely whatever happened to Leah went down that evening and she was probably actually missing
00:25:11
starting Friday evening Friday night so let's start with 5:30 p.m. this is when Leah goes to a local
00:25:20
McDonald's it's my understanding captain that this McDonald's is a six-minute round trip so roughly 3 there 3 minutes
00:25:28
back to go pick up some fast food for quick dinner that night yeah there's actually a map of this and it's it's
00:25:36
very close a couple blocks away I've also been told that this McDonald's is no longer in existence so if you are
00:25:43
trolling on a map or if you're driving in the area looking for the closest McDonald's to this
00:25:49
403 8th Avenue Apartment the one that we are discussing right now is no longer there I could be wrong but I believe
00:25:57
that the building is still there but it's not a McDonald's obviously so Leah talked to her friend and it's always
00:26:03
just reported as friend I believe that this is Caitlyn starky that they're talking about and I think that I've seen
00:26:10
this in one of the reports that it was in fact Caitlyn starky who we've already brought up so she talks to her friend
00:26:18
via VIA her cell phone so Leah has her own cell phone she's talking to her friend about
00:26:25
cleaning supplies and plans that she she planned to spend some time cleaning that
00:26:31
evening and this would be the last conversation between Leah and her friend yeah what a sad situation around the
00:26:41
same time we have Leah's mother and her stepson who arrive at the Huntington Mall remember Leah is
00:26:52
supposed to be meeting them at this mall the plan was for Leah to call when she arrived at the mall but
00:26:59
unfortunately the stepson forgot his cell phone in the car Leah had her mother's phone because of a bad battery
00:27:08
Leah never arrived at the mall so between 6:30 p.m. and 700 p.m. that night the mother stepson Duo they leave
00:27:18
the mall and this is when mother decides to call her daughter from the car because she's concerned that her
00:27:26
daughter didn't show up and the call goes straight to voicemail so the mother continued to call Leah Hickman over and
00:27:34
over again through the 11 p.m hour but gets the same result each time going to voicemail every single time and she said
00:27:44
that she just initially feared that Leah was mad that maybe Leah had made the trip to the mall gets there tries to
00:27:51
call but because the cell phone is left in the car doesn't get a hold of anybody
00:27:57
and thinks that oh they got their wires crossed or she got stood up or whatever happened and people weren't where they
00:28:04
were supposed to be and maybe Leah got upset that she had to make the trip for nothing yeah I'm not going to fault her
00:28:10
for not understanding technology but the technology at the time she would have been able to see if Leah called just to
00:28:17
be clear they get back to the car Leah's mom is using her son's cell phone to call technically her own cell phone this
00:28:26
part is very tricky about the story here Captain because this is the only report
00:28:31
that says that Leah has her mom's cell phone other reports state that Leah had her own cell phone but I guess both
00:28:40
reports can be right she could have her cell phone and she could have her mother's cell phone I'm going to just go
00:28:46
out on a limb here if she tried to call her own cell phone let's say Leo was borrowing that cell phone she tried to
00:28:53
call goes straight to voicemail that's a red flag we don't know if she showed up
00:28:58
to the mall so that's a red flag now we're calling it's going straight to voicemail she probably tried calling
00:29:04
Leah's phone as well and if there was a battery issue obviously that would go to
00:29:10
voicemail as well but as a parent I would think that this is red flag after red flag and I'd be getting pretty
00:29:19
worried there are some people online who have stated they don't understand why the mother didn't drive out to the
00:29:25
apartment that night I don't know I don't get the vibe that we're frantically calling over and over and
00:29:32
over again I get the vibe that it's more of I'll give her a call here at 7 I'll give her a call at 8 uh maybe 9 9:30 a
00:29:40
handful of times she is a grown woman she's 21 years of age and we also don't know their
00:29:47
relationship could could it be a situation where we have mom who says I just figured she was mad that could be
00:29:55
something that's fairly normal Maybe maybe they've had plans that got busted up before and and Leah didn't take it
00:30:01
too well but what we do know that happened is is the phone calls take place but also that same night Captain
00:30:09
we have Leah Hickman who has plans they're kind of loose plans Loosey Goosey plans here with her friend
00:30:18
Caitlyn starky right and Leah does not arrive for those plans as well from my understanding on that Thursday the day
00:30:26
earlier when starky and Leah Hickman spoke Caitlyn starky works at a local nightclub Leah had said hey on Friday
00:30:37
night you know I'm going to I'm going to be doing some cleaning I'm going to be packing up some clothes to go home for
00:30:43
the winter break but I'm probably not coming home until or not going home until the following day so regardless of
00:30:52
what I got going on this Friday I'll swing by where you work and drop in and see you briefly Friday night that
00:31:00
doesn't happen and so the friend Caitlyn tries reaching out to Leah as well and of course she's getting the same result
00:31:07
she's getting Leah Hickman's [Music] voicemail this holiday season give a gift to your loved that makes them feel
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that's better help hp.com [Music] garage all right we are back ladies and gents cheers everybody cheers to you
00:34:51
captain and happy holidays to everybody out there when we left off we have family and friends who are trying to get
00:34:59
in touch with Leah Hickman they are unsuccessful trying to get in touch with her now we do have Leah Hickman who is
00:35:08
on social media at the time she was on the old MySpace back in 2007 and it is reported that Leah Hickman
00:35:19
last logged on to her Myspace page sometime on that Friday unfortunately for these reports no specific time is
00:35:29
given I do want to Circle back to the McDonald's visit because there's a couple things here we had pointed out
00:35:36
that it's about a three minute drive to McDonald's and a three-minute drive coming back one of the reports out there
00:35:43
and I think that this is probably the more likely report because it's a similar report it's just a little more
00:35:49
detailed it says at 540 p.m. Leah's on the phone with her friend on a cell phone call to her friend saying that she
00:35:57
is going to McDonald's to get some food get some dinner for that night this is the last phone call that is made from
00:36:06
Leah's phone and what what again is difficult is we have the report of well she was borrowing her mother's phone so
00:36:12
is this the last it's reported as this is the last made call from her phone her phone not her mom's phone so the mom's
00:36:22
phone thing is all very weird to me now what's interesting though is we do know that Leah made it to the McDonald's and
00:36:31
she made it home successfully from the McDonald's because later police would find the McDonald's bag food consumed
00:36:41
and the receipt for the purchase and the receipt time is 5:40 p.m. so that goes along with the idea that she's on the
00:36:49
phone with her friend at that same time while she's going through the drive-thru
00:36:54
we know that she makes it home and she was home at least a long enough period of time to consume the food and throw it
00:37:01
away but to me this is the most important time period because let's say a little bit before 6 is when I think
00:37:11
whatever happen happen and that's when you need to start looking at the Inner Circle their Alibis for around that time
00:37:20
period I'd say around that time period to an hour to a twoh hour window and look at the Inner Circle and then start
00:37:29
looking at her Outer Circle of Friends the difficult thing here for law enforcement is always going to be one
00:37:36
the neighborhood you know Act of random violence and also that she went to college and so her interactions with how
00:37:46
many students were she was she in class with how many students did she have interaction with on a weekly basis well
00:37:53
and it looks to me Captain that from her 8th Avenue apartment to the Huntington Mall we're talking about an 18 to 20
00:38:03
minute drive and pay attention to our timeline here we're saying 5:40 she's got a receipt timestamp from the
00:38:11
McDonald's restaurant that is three a three minutes drive from her apartment the timeline states that between 6:30
00:38:19
and 700 p.m. her mom and Stepbrother are leaving the mall they've left the mall and they've started to call Leah at this
00:38:31
time to figure out what happened you know did oh we're sorry we screwed things up we left the phone in the car
00:38:37
where are you that sort of thing those calls are going to voicemail you have to believe given the time frame it would
00:38:44
take her to get to the mall she likely was going to be leaving her apartment rather soon right to make it to the mall
00:38:51
in time to meet up with her mother yeah she she returned home but if everything had gone as planned it would stand a
00:39:00
reason that she would have left the apartment so I think you have to be right here that something happened
00:39:05
between 5:40 p.m. you know you would say 6:30 7:00 when they start to call Leah but you could probably push that back to
00:39:13
610 6:15 we have a really short window of time where something happened something went down that stopped and
00:39:21
prevented Leah from going about her business yeah and and real quick and I don't know if you can answer that
00:39:27
off the top of your head or if you can find it in your notes real quick but so we roughly have this a little bit before
00:39:33
6:00 a little bit after 6:00 that's the time window of when we think something happened when is it that her half sister
00:39:42
gets to the apartment it's the following day right that's correct that's correct
00:39:47
and it's like early late morning early afternoon we don't have an exact time for it but we we can narrow it down to
00:39:54
that part so without sounding too suspicious of family members here right because that's a that's a a tight rope
00:40:03
that I do not enjoy balancing on but I've always wanted to know more about that I'm using air quotes here that
00:40:12
phone call or those phone calls going from mother to daughter from step brother to step sister the Call's trying
00:40:21
to get in touch with Leah I'm not saying that they didn't happen but what I'm saying is with this being such a crucial
00:40:28
part in our timeline I am very curious I was very curious to see what cell phone
00:40:34
information and Technology the Huntington Police Department accessed in this case to verify statements given to
00:40:43
the police you could easily check to see if those phone calls were made if those
00:40:48
phone calls weren't made we got a whole different set of circumstances here well
00:40:53
one also could argue that were still in the infant stages of social media 2007 we were definitely in the beginning
00:41:03
stages so I wouldn't put it past law enforcement to not check that information because a lot of people at
00:41:12
that time that were on MySpace were using that as a a text message device so is it possible that she was
00:41:22
communicating with somebody through Myspace and not through her her cell phone or
00:41:29
through her mother's cell phone and listen to what goes on that day so on the Saturday December 15th we have the
00:41:36
sister who comes back to the apartment looking for Leah we don't have an exact time of when she arrives there again
00:41:42
it's reported as the morning time she arrives at the apartment this is when she finds her sister's purse and keys
00:41:49
and car are all where she would expect them to be however her sister is nowhere to be found at the apartment
00:41:56
and then she finds this back door unlocked in a jar that goes to the stairwell at 1:01 p.m. Jessica the half
00:42:07
sister post a message on Leah's Myspace page that reads Oh Sister where are you triple question mark whatever time she
00:42:18
arrives there that morning she has enough time to investigate the situation the apartment and such and then have
00:42:25
enough time to sit St and worry and then make this post onto her Myspace page that says Oh Sister where are you I know
00:42:32
that sometimes it's uncomfortable for people to take a look at the family I don't think so I think that's out of
00:42:40
respect for their loved one that they have lost if somebody in my family was murdered or missing look at us look at
00:42:51
the family first rule Us in or out and then you can move on with the investigation and I would hope that my
00:42:59
family members would be as Cooperative as they could be with law enforcement so they could start looking in the correct
00:43:06
direction I find this post to be kind of silly and suspicious oh sister can you can you read it again so
00:43:19
we have it for forba him again oh sister where are you triple question mark just
00:43:24
seems a little strange to me where you could just put hey we're looking for you or hey answer your phone
00:43:34
or something like that but this o sister seems a little bizarre to me again if she's extremely concerned if she's
00:43:44
panicking she's probably not really worried about choice of words here right the other thing too when I read it it
00:43:52
almost sounds like frustration like oh I've looked high and low for the last coup couple of hours for my sister this
00:43:58
doesn't make any sense it almost sounds a little frustrated I think the big red flag here goes down at 5 or goes up if
00:44:06
you will at 5:00 p.m. on that Saturday this is when she does not show up when Leah does not show up for her scheduled
00:44:14
work shift at the dress bar right she was only supposed to be working about 4 five hours that night now keep in mind
00:44:22
this is middle of December going into the holiday you know approaching Christmas holiday shopping is a priority
00:44:31
for most people at this time so this would be a busy shift this would be a a busy store she doesn't arrive for this
00:44:38
shift and she's worked there for five or six months at this point later supervisors and managers went on record
00:44:46
saying it was completely out of the norm for Leah to not show up for work number
00:44:53
one number two she would call if she was just going to be a minute or two late right so when she doesn't show up and
00:45:01
there's no communication at all this is the big major red flag here and I'm sure
00:45:06
that this was for the family as well because look if you return to the apartment there's a high
00:45:13
probability that there's been many times that sister returns to the apartment and
00:45:18
the other sister is not there there's probably been even a one or two times that maybe she gets back to the
00:45:23
apartment and her sister's car is there but her sister is not there right and so
00:45:28
you look around you're trying to call everything's going to voicemail again it may just be frustration oh well she's
00:45:35
she's probably with one of her friends somebody probably picked her up and damn it she left this back door unlocked I
00:45:41
wish she would pick up her phone so we could figure it out but then boom she doesn't go to work and now you're
00:45:46
starting to go well she's probably not with a friend she's probably not just out doing something now it appears that
00:45:52
she's missing yeah it's probably time for the family to hit the panic button well and during the course of this time
00:45:58
period this is going to take us into that Sunday now what we do know that happens is that Leah's mother Sher
00:46:05
Russell attempted to place a missing person's Report with the West Virginia State Police they encouraged her to make
00:46:15
the report with on the more local level in Huntington so it's on that Sunday where we have mom sister and two friends
00:46:25
all present when the missing person's report is filed this is what you want to happen right in these cases we see so
00:46:31
many times where there's a a huge delay in reporting that somebody's missing or there's a not much of a we give a damn
00:46:39
factor from the police but this is this is about as close as you can get it I would prefer that she had been
00:46:46
officially reported missing that Saturday night but it takes place that Sunday so again it's relatively quickly
00:46:52
the police clearly they care they're in there taking the report report and to top that off you have four individuals
00:47:00
that are rather close to our missing person that are there to answer questions and flesh out a timeline for
00:47:07
police right there when the report is being taken absolutely over the course of the next few days we're going to have
00:47:13
police doing everything that we would expect them to be doing they're going to be inter interviewing people closest to
00:47:19
Leah they're going to be canvasing the area around the apartment probably checking in even with the university and
00:47:27
with Leah's work at the Dress Barn talking to all persons involved we do get the Dress Barn that announces a
00:47:36
$10,000 reward for information about Leah Hickman's whereabouts this comes out on that Wednesday so things are
00:47:43
getting Bleak right things are getting dark where they were once concerned for a missing person now they're starting to
00:47:49
fear the worst has happened unfortunately it looks like a lot of those suspicions were conf firmed
00:47:57
on Friday December 21st and this is when the Huntington Police find the body of a
00:48:04
white female in the laundry room area of Leah Hickman's apartment building of course the authorities at the time at
00:48:13
this discovery believe that it is in fact Leah's body but until she is conclusively identified they are not
00:48:22
making that announcement to the public yeah this it kind of upsets me a little bit about law enforcement and and hear
00:48:30
me out on this what I've learned and again I'm not even the second smartest guy in this room but what we've learned
00:48:39
through these cases look at the John B Ramsey case you show up it's a missing person report you check that house
00:48:47
thoroughly and they could have done that and they they would have I think they would have had a little more
00:48:53
information and could have been more on top of this situation if they would have
00:48:58
found her body on December 16th I can understand anyway why it went down the way that it did but it's very
00:49:07
disappointing because it's obvious that she was killed in that building somewhere right to me the concealing the
00:49:17
body inside the building itself is whoever killed her had a big problem and that big problem was hiding the body
00:49:24
hiding the body was a big problem because you got to get it out of the building you got to transport it for
00:49:30
whatever reason whoever is responsible decided that their best bet or the safest way for them to try to
00:49:38
conceal this crime is to conceal the body inside the building itself so this makes it sound like right when you when
00:49:46
you first hear this statement that I just read to you it makes it sound like wow the cops and the family and and the
00:49:53
friends they didn't do a very good job her body's found in the laundry room well it's a little more I shouldn't even
00:49:59
say a little it's quite more complicated than that yes yes and and this is where
00:50:05
I give them a little bit of a pass but again like I said I think if I'm law enforcement and I'm showing up just
00:50:12
knowing what I know from doing this podcast I am searching high and low in that residence so I've received a very
00:50:23
good description of this basement because I think that this is one of the keys to this case so in the basement you
00:50:31
have a crawl space which this crawl space is located in the front portion of that basement so the portion that is
00:50:40
closest to 8th Avenue then in the larger portion which is open it's an open area
00:50:46
accessible to all that live in the apartment building for washing machines and dryers so people can do their
00:50:54
laundry there in the basement this crawl space is accessed through a door so there's
00:51:02
these doors on this front wall of the basement one of the doors is a crawl space and now this again I already
00:51:10
pointed out that this is a spacious this is a big building that these apartments
00:51:15
appear to be quite spacious the information I have Captain is that the cross space was about onethird of that
00:51:21
basement area and 2/3 of the basement was that laundry area so we're talking about a good amount of space as far as a
00:51:30
crawl space goes but the crawl space is in the front towards 8th Avenue and there it's about the door itself is
00:51:40
about 40 to 48 in above the basement floor we have an opening that's only about 28 in by 36 Ines so not not a very
00:51:52
big opening but also you have it goes back for several feet I've been told that it goes back anywhere from 15 to 30
00:52:01
feet from that little door so what what is on record is that they opened that door and looked in those doors that were
00:52:10
at the front of that basement at least one or two times before she was eventually discovered in one of the
00:52:17
crawl spaces everyone saying the same thing if you opened up the door and you looked in you would not have been able
00:52:24
to see her from the door in fact the the space itself probably looked like it was
00:52:31
empty and it was not until after a week's time pass from the Friday that they start worrying about
00:52:40
Leah that her body is discovered because somebody eventually got into the space and went back in and crawled to it
00:52:48
somebody whoever placed her in that crawl space Not only placed her there to hide her but she was wrapped up in
00:52:53
plastic and then concealed all the way to the very front of that crawl space closest to the 8th Avenue but furthest
00:53:04
from the crawl space door right and basically everything I've heard is they weren't able to see her until they
00:53:12
actually lit up that crawl space and so in their defense you know you go in that
00:53:18
room and you look around and even look into the crawl space you're not going to see her until you you're able to shine
00:53:24
some light onto that area but this creates for an interesting aspect of the crime itself right one it's been said by
00:53:35
many people that you wouldn't know that that space even exist unless you had some good information extensive
00:53:43
information and knowledge about the building itself what we have here Captain is you you sit there and we've
00:53:50
told so many of these stories we've reviewed so many of these cases my mind first went to to where I'm sure your
00:53:56
mind went to she went to McDonald's some creep Soler decided to follow her figured out how to get in the apartment
00:54:03
and then did something terrible and and then fled the scene however you factor in the aspect of well she's concealed in
00:54:11
an area where everybody's saying that you had to have extensive knowledge of the building to to know to even put her
00:54:18
there that a a more random suspect and random attack seems much less L yeah I I think it seems less likely but it's not
00:54:28
out of the realm of possibility that somebody goes into her apartment murders her in her apartment and then freaks out
00:54:37
and says well now I got to do something to conceal the body which makes not a lot of sense to me no if it's a random
00:54:46
person because why wouldn't you just leave the body there yeah they would just leave yeah and so unless the attack
00:54:53
took place in the laundry area which is a possibility because like you said she's coming home she's going to eat her
00:54:58
food maybe she's going to toss something in the dryer real quick or maybe she's going to do a load of laundry real quick
00:55:05
that that's one of the things I'd like to know do they find any of her laundry in the laundry room well and that's the
00:55:11
problem with this case there's been very little information that's been put out and and it's now unfortunately coming up
00:55:17
on 15 years the 15year anniversary of this sad day of when she was noticed to be missing is coming up this week here's
00:55:27
a couple things couple details that we know one she told her friend she told at least one other person that she would be
00:55:34
doing laundry that evening right two when the apartment is found empty the following day she already has one
00:55:43
bag one piece of luggage that is packed up so she was going to return home leave
00:55:49
the apartment visit mom and dad and keep in mind they live separate so she's probably making more than one stop and
00:55:56
she's going to be gone for several days several nights was the original idea and
00:56:02
I know that when I'm going away on a trip or a vacation or anything like that I'm usually the day before I leave I'm
00:56:09
busy doing some laundry because I need to get clothes together for the upcoming days or week that's ahead and so we know
00:56:17
that she said she was going to be doing some laundry there's a chance that she was given that the back door was found
00:56:23
unlocked and and a jar and later the sister Jessica she's telling police and and family and friends look it was not
00:56:32
uncommon for us because it's cumbersome right you're trying to take baskets of laundry down two flights of stairs to
00:56:38
the basement to do your laundry there and she said it was very common for us to leave the door unlocked but also
00:56:46
leave it so it's just open enough that you could kick it open with your foot when you're coming back up the steps
00:56:52
with all of your clothes right so so there's everything's in place to be setting the table for her to be doing
00:57:00
laundry that evening one thing that's a little weird to me though it seems like okay maybe she threw some clothes in
00:57:07
before she went to McDonald's and that's why she had to come back and didn't just
00:57:10
eat on the way to the mall that she needed to change her clothes or needed to get something out of the dryer when
00:57:15
she returned to the apartment so maybe she she gets back and boom she's in the laundry room rather quickly but the
00:57:21
other thing that's interesting here is that's such a small window of time for when she was supposed to be to the
00:57:27
mall so if everybody's telling us the truth and if everything was supposed to play out the way that it didn't play out
00:57:33
right she she should have been leaving her apartment relatively soon after she got back from that visit to the
00:57:39
McDonald's and but it's difficult because she's 21 years old and is it possible I've done this before hey I'm
00:57:46
going to see my family tomorrow or in a couple days or whenever I'm going to go spend some time with him I don't need to
00:57:53
go on this mall trip or I've changed my mind I don't want to go right but but again makes a lot of sense then you're
00:58:00
attacked in the laundry room and then that laundry room is connected to this other room that has the crawl space and
00:58:06
that's where you're ultimately placed but what do we know from when they found her I mean she's wrapped in this plastic
00:58:14
and and she is strangled to death right well and that's another thing that's interesting to this investigation as
00:58:22
well is later the police would be telling us that we we being law enforcement they are pretty convinced
00:58:30
they know who is responsible or the the persons responsible in this case and so they even though this was a
00:58:40
a case that was getting some national attention this case was getting some some national attention in the time
00:58:48
frame that she was missing when she was still missing even though they had the the national attention you know missing
00:58:55
school girl college girl goes missing and it's certainly a big story in West Virginia because they thought
00:59:03
that they knew who was responsible or and I think this is probably the the better thing to say here because this is
00:59:10
where my suspicions go I think that they had narrowed it down to a very small suspect pool right and I think the
00:59:18
apartment tells us and dictates why that is and we'll get into that in just a second but they actually refused to give
00:59:26
any information they did confirm that it was the body of Leah Hickman that they had found but they didn't give any
00:59:33
information for several days I don't think it was until the second week or middle of January the following month
00:59:41
that they tell that they come out and hold a press conference and say look she was strangled to death and there was no
00:59:48
sexual assault that took place in this case that she was strangled to death and somebody tried to conceal her her body I
00:59:56
think that they probably kept that out of the papers in the beginning hoping that because of the situation like we
01:00:03
you and I just discussed some creep following her home from McDonald's or some creep accessing the
01:00:09
apartment somehow and and finding Leah there and it being a random attack I think they wanted to leave some of those
01:00:15
details to themselves in case they had someone coming out of the woodwork that really had nothing to do with it
01:00:22
somebody that comes off the streets and says yeah I killed that college girl yeah I agree and disagree with you on
01:00:29
the the Crux of this case lies in that laundry room I agree on one level because I think what this layout of the
01:00:39
laundry room and the layout of this apartment tells us is that this person would have to have a certain level of
01:00:47
physicality to take a body wrap it in plastic one if I'm law enforcement where the F did this plastic come from right
01:00:58
did it come from in the building did it come from out of the building to me that
01:01:01
you know points to you maybe a maintenance worker I mean if you Google student killed and then Google gives you
01:01:09
some suggestions one of the things is it will say uh student strangled by roommate okay if I'm law enforcement I'm
01:01:16
looking into that angle student murdered by maintenance worker looking into that
01:01:22
angle student murdered by homeless man looking into that angle and and then the other one that becomes a little more
01:01:29
difficult is student killed by stalker and like I said when you're on campus you have a lot of interactions with
01:01:37
multiple people and is there somebody that was just you know infatuated with Leah that we just don't know about the
01:01:45
other thing that we don't know about and this is not throwing shade at Leah at all but she's home alone and she knows
01:01:53
that her she knows that her half sister is going to be spending the night with the boyfriend and is there somebody that
01:02:00
she was having a relationship with that was kind of on the on the DL and that's why I would want to know what the
01:02:08
communication was through my space it could be as simple as some guy she was talking to online says hey yeah we
01:02:15
should hang out well I'm going to be going home soon hey well why don't you swing by you know cuz nobody's home and
01:02:22
and I don't really have plans that would make sense on some level of why she' break plans with her mother and why she
01:02:28
would break plans to go see her friend that night well and that is exactly right Captain the devil is in the
01:02:35
details the devil is hiding in those details or may be now as far as the Myspace thing goes it could simply have
01:02:43
been to log on and just check her page again without us having a timestamp for that and here's a concern I have I'm not
01:02:51
going to lie I wonder if we're not being provided at time time stamp because maybe they don't know and I'll get into
01:02:58
my questions about the investigation here in a minute but it could it just be she logged in that morning that Friday
01:03:05
morning and and the MySpace login has nothing to do with anything but that's also why I think law enforcement says a
01:03:11
suspect or possible suspects because again the physicality you have to then if this attack even if it took place in
01:03:22
the laundry room you have to then move that body to a separate room and then you have to lift that body up into a
01:03:30
cross space and then you have to be able to push that body back far enough that people aren't going to be able to see it
01:03:37
unless it's illuminated yes there's lots of difficulties with putting the body where it was later
01:03:44
discovered there's a lot and that's why I wanted to get detailed information about that the opening to the crawl
01:03:50
space the crawl space itself and the basement because we review her missing persons poster and they have Leah listed
01:03:59
at 52 to 53 120 to 130 lbs so to lift that weight 40 to 48 in and that's an approximate
01:04:17
mhm I spoke to several people that's the approximation that I was given on the distance between the base floor and the
01:04:25
opening for that crawl space now the people I spoke with they agreed that 40 Ines some people in that group thought
01:04:34
it could have been higher that the opening would have been higher up off of the floor right 40 in is the very
01:04:41
minimum amount that I was given many believe that it was at least 48 in from the floor to possibly even 5T from the
01:04:52
floor I I could ALS also see a reason for somebody other than the sister being responsible and placing the body where
01:05:00
it was later found you're you may just simply be hoping to create a a period of time where nobody has found her yet
01:05:09
you're really just trying to add a buffer getting as much between you and the investigation as possible and so the
01:05:19
thing that's tricky about this case and I'm glad that you brought up the half sister because when you really start to
01:05:26
look at the case and look at the words that the the detectives are saying here in this case again very little
01:05:33
information coming out but what they're choosing to tell the public makes it sound like they've really narrowed it to
01:05:41
a small suspect pull so it it says here this is the exact words verbatim investigators believe Hickman died in a
01:05:48
targeted attack carried out by someone familiar with the layout of her ath Avenue Apartment they have a working
01:05:56
theory about the person's identity but they lack evidence needed to prove guilt Beyond A Reasonable Doubt so they have
01:06:05
said we have physical evidence forensic physical evidence in this case that one day we believe will lead to an arrest
01:06:14
and a conviction however we need technology to catch up to what we have in this case to help us put away the
01:06:23
person that We Believe or persons that we believe are responsible somebody that had that was familiar with her apartment
01:06:32
building is one thing to say there are other reports that they have said that the person would have had to had
01:06:37
extensive knowledge of that building to have carried this out in the manner that
01:06:42
it was carried out well think about that immediately that takes us to only a small amount of people right we have the
01:06:50
half sister we have the man that owns the building we have his brother or whoever was overseeing the property for
01:06:57
him in his absence we have the renovations or maintenance or work that was being performed in the building
01:07:04
itself so those individuals I would believe even if they just were new on the job that week or the week before
01:07:11
would probably have some extensive knowledge about the building itself and the workings of the building because
01:07:16
they are there to repair things or renovate things they very likely would have been aware of this crawl space and
01:07:23
then you have anybody that had previously lived there or visited there a lot and here's the thing when you go
01:07:29
visit somebody at their apartment rarely do you find yourself in the basement laundry room poking around and and know
01:07:35
about this this cross space so one thing that's weird here Captain is we have a previous
01:07:43
boyfriend now I've been told by several people that Leah at the time was not dating anybody and she wasn't known to
01:07:52
have any types of serious relationships and I think that that is why unless there was some kind of secret rendevu
01:07:59
that we don't know about that police are pretty firm in their belief that the building the apartment building itself
01:08:06
is what connects the attacker to the victim here now one potential person that we haven't discussed yet is an
01:08:14
ex-boyfriend of Leah's half-sister Jessica this ex-boyfriend lived with Jessica at one point in the apartment
01:08:23
for this report says two years now I did a little checking on this individual and
01:08:29
I'm going to leave his name out of it for now but I did a little checking on this individual and he actually lived in
01:08:36
that building prior to seeing and dating Jessica so he lived in this apartment he's older Jessica is older
01:08:46
than Leah by a few years right and this ex-boyfriend of Jessica's was older than
01:08:51
Jessica and he had lived in this apartment building for years before the two of them end up in a relationship so
01:08:59
that guy had years worth of knowledge about the building itself now how does he factor into it here well he was
01:09:09
shipped off overseas to serve this country he comes back and from my understanding the breakup between
01:09:17
Jessica and him took place while he was overseas after he had been shipped out he still had some personal belongings
01:09:25
that were being kept at that apartment the way that it's reported is as such that these personal belongings were
01:09:32
boxed up and they were placed in that common area in the laundry room area of the building for him to pick them up and
01:09:39
retrieve these items it's also been reported that he did not get along with Leah because she
01:09:47
did not approve of the way that he treated her sister and it's believed that she was really the one pushing
01:09:56
Jessica to end the relationship with this guy now regarding his personal property the reports are varied and they
01:10:05
get a little weird and it was too difficult for me to decipher which one is true so I'll give it to you they're a
01:10:11
little wonky donkey yeah little little catty Wampus as they say In The Biz many reports state that these items were
01:10:20
eventually thrown out that they were placed in this common space and when work started going on in the
01:10:26
building that when Leah was asked she said hey he hasn't picked up this stuff yet just go ahead and throw it out and
01:10:33
that the workers may have thrown thrown out these items the other report is that
01:10:38
those items were still there and they were boxed up in that laundry room area but again all all reports state that
01:10:46
it's believed that this guy in Leah did not get along it's also reported that he
01:10:50
still had keys to the apartment so there are people out there that have posed this Theory and I think it's one that we
01:10:59
should discuss not just discuss I'm sure it's one that hopefully the Huntington Police looked into it but the theory has
01:11:06
been maybe this dude shows up to retrieve his items and he interacts with Leah because
01:11:15
Jessica's not there the two already don't get along does she go oh well we put your stuff down in the laundry room
01:11:23
let's go down there and see if we can find it and then boom it's not there and it's oh I told the guys they could throw
01:11:27
it out you never came to pick it up and then they get into some kind of fight or
01:11:31
again I mean the other thing too is it takes a lot normally for somebody to say I don't
01:11:38
like your boyfriend I don't approve of your boyfriend I don't approve of the way he's treating you so to me again we
01:11:45
have no evidence of this but you know a boyfriend being too controlling maybe being verbally abusive Maybe be
01:11:53
physically abusive where I think her half sister could help this investigation and I'm sure she's talked
01:12:01
to police about this individual but what was his interaction with her and what were the things that her sister didn't
01:12:09
approve of the the direction of your investigation needs to be this one we need background checks on anybody that
01:12:17
would have been working in that building two we need to confirm if the possibility of of ex-boyfriend Jessica's
01:12:25
ex-boyfriend still having keys to the apartment if that is in fact true you know check with the building owner check
01:12:31
with anybody that's in charge of running the apartments did he ever turn in keys to
01:12:39
to the owner or to the landlord do we have the sister or anybody else saying that he turned in Keys how how factual
01:12:47
is that statement that this guy still had access to the apartment building well I agree with that but I also so
01:12:54
would state if you are Leah and this guy shows up and knocks on your door you know he's been gone for a while he comes
01:13:03
back he's going to retrieve his stuff he knocks on the door I don't see any reason why she wouldn't let him in and
01:13:10
then they would go through the the back door so they can go to the laundry room to retrieve his items and then where did
01:13:17
the attack take place so I did reach out to the Huntington Police Department and
01:13:21
the detective Bureau and I was armed with a few questions that I had about the evidence and about the investigation
01:13:30
itself unfortunately nobody has returned my call so I don't have any answers for
01:13:37
those questions and I and I'm going to State this and usually I'm backing the women and men in blue here and I'm not
01:13:44
saying that they've done anything wrong I reached out to them last week and for all I know we could turn off the
01:13:49
microphones and my phone rings right away and it's HPD calling to to ask me why I called
01:13:57
about the Leah Hickman well it might take him over a week to find the message well let's hope that's not the case if
01:14:03
they're in charge of solving homicides but the statement that they've released to the public says the Huntington Police
01:14:09
Department wants to ensure Leah's family and the community as a whole that the investigation into the events
01:14:16
surrounding her death and the person or persons responsible remains active this case also has been reviewed extensively
01:14:24
during the past 14 years by various detectives in an attempt to allow a fresh set of eyes to review the facts
01:14:32
and evidence that has been obtained any tip or lead received on this case always
01:14:38
have been and always will be pursued vigilantly that is a statement directly from the Huntington Police Department
01:14:45
before I get into any more of my thoughts and feelings on the case I do want to make sure that we point out that
01:14:51
police ask anyone with information about the case to call the Huntington Police Department at 304 696
01:14:59
4420 we will include that number in today's show notes and you can also submit a tip anonymously through their
01:15:06
tip line at 304 696 4444 will include that number as well so here's the questions that I have Captain we talked
01:15:15
about all the stuff that were found in the apartment we talked about her her it was a beautiful bright yellow Chevy
01:15:22
Cavalier that was parked out front of the apartment building we talked about the
01:15:27
items that were found in the apartment but there were a couple of items that have been reported it's been reported
01:15:32
that these items were missing one Leah's cell phone which we already know how complicated that is because there's talk
01:15:38
about her borrowing her mom's phone but the reports are that Leah's cell phone is missing I've never seen a description
01:15:46
anywhere of what kind of cell phone it is what kind of brand it is nothing like that I did a little bit of snooping
01:15:54
around boots on the ground type investigation and I found one statement that it was a flip phone that's the best
01:16:01
description I've received on her phone the other item that has been reported as missing was a brown jacket or coat of
01:16:11
Leah's that had a fur collar these items again according to the newspapers are missing I wanted to learn more about
01:16:18
these items I wanted to learn more about the plastic like you pointed out earlier
01:16:23
and those were going to be my primary questions for the detective now again they've been very hush hush in this case
01:16:30
so who knows if they would have answered any of them at all again it does appear
01:16:35
to be a very active case so maybe they're not going to answer those questions but I also I also wanted to
01:16:41
know a few things about cell phone technology right I mentioned earlier I wanted to know how factual were those
01:16:49
phone calls those supposed phone calls from The Stepbrother and and from mother from their visit to the mall that night
01:16:56
to Leah's phone did those did those calls actually happen you pointed out something very obvious but also very key
01:17:04
if Leah had attempted to call her stepbrother there would have been indication on her phone on his phone
01:17:10
that she tried to call them and then the other thing is I wanted to know did they
01:17:15
ping her cell phone Leah's cell phone at all because if whoever is responsible for her murder and I'm with you you
01:17:23
given where her body was found I think it would have taken two people to put her there number one so at least one
01:17:31
other person knows what happened but did anybody bother to Ping her cell phone if
01:17:36
it was truly missing since the time that she's been one she's been missing herself and two
01:17:44
even after they found the body we know sometimes these guys you look at a case like Long Island serial killer we know
01:17:51
that that person was accessing a victim's phone well after the fact could this creep have been calling and and
01:17:58
listen to listening to her outgoing message could this creep have been calling and checking her voicemail and
01:18:04
listening to the messages that were left for Leah while these people were looking
01:18:08
for her did this cell phone ping anywhere of interest cuz you would look very guilty if you were in possession of
01:18:14
that phone or did this individual make a huge mistake and and give that coat to somebody as a gift I I think given the
01:18:24
attack no sexual assault the strangulation I think given the attack it looks to me and again this is just my
01:18:32
assessment from 30,000 ft you know over an overview of everything here but it would look to me like this is probably
01:18:40
something that might have been spontaneous unplanned something happened something went down that that caused a a
01:18:48
fight between Leah and somebody else and in a fit of rage somebody Str strangled
01:18:53
her and then may have had to reach out to somebody else to come and help them clean up a messy situation later there
01:19:00
are reports out there that not only do they have physical evidence you know we've already kind of covered that and
01:19:06
and and they've not gone into great detail about this but they have physical forensic evidence that they say that
01:19:13
they believe will solve this case one day once technology C catches up to it the other question I had for the police
01:19:20
department is well where was that physical evidence collected from was it collected from the crawl space from the
01:19:27
plastic from the laundry room or from her apartment because you're right Captain if the attack and the murder
01:19:33
went down in the apartment now getting her to where she was placed is even more cumbersome and even more difficult now
01:19:42
we got flights of stairs involved and we also have to lift up 40 to 48 in maybe even as high as 60 in off of the
01:19:51
basement floor and then put push all the way back to the front of this crawl space yeah and as far as law enforcement
01:19:58
goes it's like look if if their hand is strong and they're just waiting to get certain tests
01:20:05
done cuz you got a feel for this family for a while she's missing there's hope that they're going to find her then they
01:20:13
find her in the crawl space of her apartment building and it with law enforcement it drives me insane because
01:20:22
the longer this goes even though we're getting new technology all the time to me the family loses
01:20:31
hope and if you say that this case isn't cold then unless your hand is so strong
01:20:38
that you know that one day you're going to definitively solve this case and you're not so worried about it then
01:20:43
maybe don't share so much information but after 14 years it's like come on maybe maybe share a little bit
01:20:52
to get get you closer to help you build a stronger case well and that's one thing that I found to be rather
01:20:57
frustrating and frankly I think almost unacceptable in this case because what we have here is we have
01:21:11
they have quite a bit of more information they're unwilling to share any of that information and a big part
01:21:18
of my phone conversation was going to be it's been 15 years if there was a time to come up off of some detailed
01:21:26
information to give to the public you reminder you're asking the public for help you're you're you're actively
01:21:34
asking the public for help if there was some bit of information that were to change based off of the known facts by
01:21:41
law enforcement in this case or if there was a detail in that information that they could release think about all the
01:21:49
people that we've mentioned that they've already interviewed that they were working with very closely that first
01:21:54
week when she was missing and then unfortunately the next week after she's found and now we know we're dealing with
01:22:00
a murder you could have one person or many people within that group of people that goes wait a second that detail that
01:22:09
you just informed us about well now that doesn't jive with all the stuff that that I had been told by person a or
01:22:16
person A and B right and now there's a problem with somebody's story there's a problem with somebody's timeline and you
01:22:25
can hone in even more and more closer to the actual suspect if her cellphone truly was missing if this jacket or coat
01:22:33
truly was missing you find somebody in possession of one or both of those items well they just went to the top of your
01:22:40
suspect list right and it's who knows what information you could come into that could lead you to executing a
01:22:49
search warrant later well I hate to admit it but I agree with you well and in their defense we don't know how
01:22:56
sensitive the information that they have is right and it could be something where
01:23:01
you don't want to upset the apple cart and law enforcement knows that hey this this evidence these suspicions that we
01:23:09
have and the things that we have collected that have led us to this one person or this group of
01:23:14
people it's it's sensitive and it's fragile and we are waiting to get the Smoking Gun so to speak to really put
01:23:27
this person away or to tear to tear down this group of people so what we do have
01:23:32
is we know that there were developments that were made in this case in 2008 the Huntington Police were on record saying
01:23:41
quote there is an individual that we believe was involved meaning somebody that they've already talked to they
01:23:49
think is responsible for this and they go on to say that they had interviewed dozens of people trying to find answers
01:23:55
to Leah Hickman's murder but this one name keeps popping up quote it is an individual that we have
01:24:05
contacted and spoken to however this individual keeps coming to the Forefront of someone we're particularly interested
01:24:14
in now the police clearly are not going to be releasing this individual's name or the name of the person or Persons of
01:24:23
Interest in this case or what I would deem to be suspects at this point they did say that they have DNA evidence in
01:24:30
this case that was sent and tested at an FBI lab in Arizona it is something that they are
01:24:38
going to have to hold on to for future testing says that they police are on the record saying that they believe that
01:24:46
results of testing could either lead to an arrest or could clear the name of the
01:24:52
Person of Interest altogether so that that makes it a little bit more clear why this could be sensitive fragile
01:25:00
evidence that they have here right when you give the statement of the evidence that we have once we get the results of
01:25:07
the testing of this evidence it could either lead to an arrest of this person or it could clear the person that we
01:25:15
think we've we've narrowed it down to yeah like you said I think they're wording definitely makes it seem like
01:25:23
they narrowed down to one individual and I do think out of so many cases that we've covered this year this case one is
01:25:33
100% solvable And I do believe it will be solved in the near future and again Captain I think that the wording used
01:25:40
and the choice of words here is very interesting in Leah's case and these are the words again of the Huntington Police
01:25:46
Department saying there are three things that help solve cases confessions Witnesses and physical evidence no one
01:25:55
has confessed and there are no known witnesses to this crime and the police clearly have not and will not release
01:26:03
the names of any suspects or Persons of Interest in this case but did confirm that the police believe the suspect to
01:26:10
be someone with quote close knowledge of the victim end quote and then they go on
01:26:17
to say that we would have hoped for a resolution a lot sooner than we have but the case being as it is it just hasn't
01:26:25
come like we wanted it to and it eventually will very key here though the police go on record saying analysts say
01:26:36
that DNA evidence collected will last up to 40 years for testing so that evidence
01:26:42
that they have it's safe it's secured it's preserved and they believe that it's that evidence that will lead them
01:26:50
to an arrest and conviction hopefully sooner than [Music] [Music] later want to thank everybody for
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