Could Joyce LePage’s Personal Letters Hold an Important Clue? | Forensic Files

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. >> And I'm Brett. >> And the story I have for you today
starts almost 55 years ago. But don't call this a cold case because things, even all these years later, are heating
back up. Everything centers around one July night on the campus of Washington State University. A co-ed and a big
swath of carpet go missing from a residence hall that no one was supposed to be in. where her car ended up, where
her keys are found, and where her body was left are all clues that point to different people. There have been many
theories over the years, but six strong ones remain. And maybe our sleuths out there can help us see what is missing as
we try to figure out who killed Joyce Leage. I'm about to take you back to a time
that we and a lot of our audience have only ever witnessed in the movies. The early 1970s. Now, what you might know
about the time was that President Nixon has just declared the war on drugs. Some
of the Pentagon papers are being released. And many Americans are taking to the streets to protest the Vietnam
War. For some, these issues were part of the everyday fabric of July 1971. And for others, they probably felt a whole
world away. Take for instance Joyce Leage, a 21-year-old farmer's daughter in Eastern Washington whose focus that
summer was on young love, meditating, skydiving, and school. >> I'm sorry, Ashley. When are we going to
take our own advice and like stay out of Washington for once? Listen, every time
we cover a case there, it leads to another one, which is actually how we found Joyce's story. So, [music] back to
the summer in 1971. Joyce is subleasasing a room in an off-campus apartment while taking summer courses in
chemistry and German at WSU in Pullman, which is on the eastern side of the state. Now, I've always said college
roommates are a coin toss. I found both of mine on Craigslist. It's a story for another day, but you're either going to
like be absolute best friends or you'll want nothing to do with one another. There's not a whole lot of in between. I
actually had both. And for Joyce and her roommate Bruce Beerbomb, they fall into
that second category, at least as far as Joyce is concerned. She finds Bruce kind
of annoying. So much so that she had actually been avoiding sleeping at her own place. In a letter scrolled in her
messy handwriting, Joyce explained to a friend where she had been crashing instead. [music] Steven's Hall is being
worked on this summer, so I have taken over the building. [music] I play their piano, watch TV, sleep, shower, even
bathe in there. It's my private hideaway for the rest of the summer. It wasn't a
secret among Joyce's friends that she was spending time at Steven's Hall, but concerns had been expressed about her
getting caught. So, she writes in that same letter that she was taking precautions.
I even used their hidden parking place that the police can't see from the road. Yesterday morning, a workman stumbled
upon me accidentally. I had spent the night in the head resident's room. He thought I was the head resident, I
guess, because he asked me if I knew where the storm windows were, [music] then apologized and left. This letter
isn't dated, so we aren't sure when that worker stumbled upon Joyce's hiding place, but it's not like she got kicked
out. The arrangement seemed to be working for her. And on weekends, when she could, she would try to go back home
to visit her family a few hours away in Pasco, Washington. In fact, in another letter written by Joyce in the case file
and dated July 20th, she wrote to her family telling them that she would be home that upcoming weekend for a
doctor's appointment and to attend the waterfalls, which was this like annual boat race that the town put on.
>> Love it. >> But before she hit the road, she had skydiving lessons to attend.
>> Would you mention skydiving before? And I was like, >> I am telling you, Joyce was one in a
million. She was into writing, meditation. She played piano, loved getting her hands dirty, like helping on
the family farm, and before skydiving, she took up flying. Like, she got her pilot's license at 18 years old. So, she
is no novice when it comes to aviation. And she was actually taking these lessons alongside her friend, this guy
named Hal Wood. So, fast forward to Thursday, July 22nd. This is just 2 days after she sent her parents that letter.
This is when Joyce and Hal had a lesson planned. >> [music] >> So Hal and his then girlfriend Patty hop
on their motorcycle. They ride over to Joyce's apartment. >> Wait, her actual apartment or the dorm
she was like hiding out in. >> They meet her at the apartment. It's just a few blocks away from campus and
she's there and everything is good. They all pile into Joyce's car, drive about 4
miles to the Pullman Moscow Regional Airport for the lesson. After the three friends go to Spruce Tavern in Moscow,
they share a picture of beer before heading back. So, it's about 10:00 p.m. when they pull up to her apartment
complex and they say goodbye to Joyce in like the front yard area of her place [music]
and that is where she is still standing when they take off on their bike. And this would become the last confirmed
sighting of [music] Joyce Leage alive and well. We really don't know anything else about the rest of her Thursday
night after 1000 p.m. But this is what we know about the next day, Friday, [music] July 23rd. At 8:22 a.m., campus
police get a call from a custodian who is doing rounds at Stevens Hall where Joyce had been crashing. And the janitor
says that there is this big piece of green carpet in the lobby that has been cut out from the floor. And we're not
just talking like a little piece. This is like a 5x5 ft swath. And the contractors had no reason to remove it.
Plus, if they did, they probably would have used like precision cutting tools. This looks like somebody took a pair of
scissors and just like went to town. Yeah. >> So, they're calling to report this
basically as a burglary. Now, nothing else besides the carpet is missing, but they do find things that don't seem like
they belong there. this woven basket type purse containing a headscarf, a German 350 textbook, and several cards
and letters from someone named David Arthur to another person named Joyce Leage. And there's even an unmiled
letter from Joyce back to David. Now, David Arthur is Joyce's boyfriend, who at the time is back home in South Africa
for the summer. Obviously, he didn't take their carpet, but they figure this Joyce might know something since clearly
her purse is there in the building. >> So, police locate Joyce's address. They head to her apartment to question her
about the missing carpet. [music] But Joyce isn't there. In fact, she ends up being MIA to every scheduled thing she
had that day. a German class that was scheduled from 10:30 to 11:30, another skydiving lesson with Hal at 4:30, and
she supposedly had been entertaining the idea of going to a dance in Oakdale, Washington with this guy named Mike
Finch. Mike was a friend of Joyce's that she had kind of like she dated on and off at some point. He's a teacher. He
was like literally chaperoning like a high school dance and had invited Joyce as [music] his date. But Joyce was a
no-show to all of it. Her professor said she didn't come to class. Hal says she didn't show up for the lesson. Mike says
he waited and waited. Thought Joyce just blew him off for the dance. Come Saturday, Joyce also didn't show up to
her childhood home as planned. [music] She missed the boat race and her eye doctor appointment. Of course, her
family had no idea of all the things she had already missed back at school. So, they just tried calling her, thinking
maybe that her plans had changed, but there was no answer. And Joyce was one that didn't really talk on the phone a
lot to her family or really to anyone very often. I mean, combing through her letters, it seems like mail was her main
form of communication. So, her family decided to kind of just wait a beat, see if she showed up, see if she would call
with an explanation for her absence. But she didn't. And after a few more days, her parents try calling her
apartment again. And this time, they at least get a hold of her roommate Bruce. But he said like they're basically ships
passing in the night. They don't really see much of each other at all, >> which makes sense if she's been like
dodging him. >> Yeah. And he says that he hasn't seen Joyce since the weekend before and he
doesn't know where she is. Now, when Monday, August 2nd, comes and there is still no word from Joyce. Her dad,
Walter, calls campus police bright and early to report his daughter missing. And first stop police make is again to
Joyce's apartment, but no one is home. her light green 1966 Dodge Coronet that her dad told them she had isn't there
either, which at first might seem like a good sign. But by 1:15 that very afternoon, after checking the local
hospital, after checking student health center, and checking their own arrest records without success, [music] they
locate Joyce's car parked at 1704 Opal Street, right outside a fraternity house, about 7ish blocks from her
apartment. People they talked to at the frat house say that the car has been out
there for like a week. There's even like a parking ticket on the windshield dated
July 29th. So, it's for sure been there at least 4 days, but likely more like people are saying. But even though
people have seen the car a lot, they haven't seen anyone around it. Now, the car is locked up and peering through the
windows, officers only see some books and papers, a wallet, some women's shoes, nothing that screams foul play or
anything. But they do at least still have some analysts with the Washington State Crime Lab come and process Joyce's
car right there on Opal Street. But the report says that they don't find anything.
>> Not even fingerprints. >> That's the thing. So reports don't get that specific. They just say that
nothing of significance was found. But Whitman County Sheriff Brett Meyers, who oversees the case today, he says he
doesn't think they dusted for fingerprints. Okay, then why have it processed at all if you're not going to
do that? What What does processing mean? >> Yeah, like what are you looking for if
not at least fingerprints? >> I don't know. I assume they're like looking for blood or like in her trunk.
They're like looking for obvious signs that something bad happened, but like I'm with you. To me, this would be a
huge miss because the car just ends up getting returned to Joyce's family. And it's probably because investigators
don't know what they have on their hands yet. I mean, this is weird for sure. They've got a co-ed who hasn't been seen
for almost 2 weeks, who lives on Oak Street, but whose car is parked on Opal Street, but whose stuff is found inside
Stevens Hall, where a carpet went missing around the time that Joyce was last seen. But no one can say what it
means. >> I mean, a crime junkie could tell you some ideas. >> And listen, it's not like they're
totally writing her off. I mean, they launch an investigation and they interview pretty much everyone. Joyce's
friends, her professors, roommates, boyfriends. And I think part of what confuses them or the situation is that
they get some one-off sightings of her maybe being seen after 10 p.m. on Thursday. So, it's like, you know, this
isn't normal, but is it sinister? Well, the more time that passes without any word from Joyce and without any real
confirmed sightings of her, the more they begin to believe that something bad happened to Joyce at [music] the hands
of someone else. But what? Well, it took nine full months before everyone got the
answer that they were dreading. On April 16th, 1972, a teenage boy and his mom showed up at a police station in Kfax,
Washington with some bones in tow. They said that they'd been out in Hawaii Canyon looking for gemstones when they
found what they think are human remains. And it is unbelievable that these were ever even found. I mean, to recover the
rest, Whitman County deputies have to tie a rope to the bumper of a patrol car and like repel down a steep cliff to get
to the location where the rest of the bones are. >> Okay. How were the boy and his mom even
down there if the spot was so hard to get to? >> I don't know if they both were. So,
reports say that the teenager was the one who actually found the remains. His mom was like a higher up. So, I assume
this kid is just like young and nimble and like climbed down easily. >> And mom is like on the edge being like,
"I'm watching." Yeah, I know. >> But like that's how they got down there. How did this body, how did these remains
get down there, though? >> I wondered the same thing. And we asked Sheriff Myers, he actually volunteered
to like go out there with his drone and shoot some photos and video for us that kind of like give you a feel for the
area. And if you take a look, you'll see there's this like canyon road, and they're thinking that maybe someone
drove up there and then like pushed her down the canyon to where she landed. And
I actually do like along with this drone footage, I have some of the original scene photos that the sheriff gave us as
well. And I know it's like kind of hard to like know what you're looking at because they're in black and white.
They're like film. They're pretty close up, but like they're in the brush. >> Oh, is that is that the the carpet?
[music] >> That's the carpet. Yeah. When they get down there, deputies do find a partial
mostly skeletal body wrapped in a green carpet. Now Joyce isn't completely intact
anymore. Like the bundle of carpet that she's in is found about 3 feet above a seasonal creek. So between like that and
animal activity, I'm sure like some of her remains were found more scattered. >> And how far away is this from Pullman
and WSU? >> Close enough that I mean they know about Joyce Leage because while this is a very
rural area, it's only like 25 minutes southwest of campus. [music] So people in these parts are well aware
that a student has been missing for the better part of a year at this point. Now
they have to enlist the help of the FBI and it takes some time but it's eventually confirmed through dental
records that that was Joyce. What's left of her remains can't tell them how she died definitively. But their best guess
at the time was that she was stabbed because there were markings on some of her bones that like look like they could
be knife punctures. But interestingly, if she was stabbed, it wasn't while she was laying on that carpet [music]
because apparently there's no blood on it. Her remains were also wrapped in some blankets, including a military US
Army Medical Corps blanket, and none of that has blood on it either. Now, there's a pair of women's floral
underwear that they found too, either like wrapped up in it or like somewhere nearby. and the underwear had been like
sliced on either side. And the only other item of evidence that they find is this fishing wire like twine that was
like wrapped around the pelvis. Now this obviously [music] is not the outcome that the Leage family was hoping for,
but in a way it is a relief. [music] We interviewed Joyce's brother, Bruce Leage, for this episode. Totally
different than her roommate Bruce. This is her brother. And he told us by that time, I mean, this is like nine months
out, like they had accepted [music] the fact that Joyce was likely gone. And her
remains being found did allow them to have a funeral and to grieve and to celebrate who she was. This [music]
daughter, sister, friend. She was a hardworking farm girl with a freaking pilot's license who liked skydiving and
listening to her favorite Stephenwolf record and who by the way contained multitudes because she was also studying
English lit and attending summer school to be able to graduate faster. [music] Her brother told us that if Joyce had
lived, she would have had a full life. He guessed as a teacher or maybe a journalist or a pilot even and probably
a mom. Cuz just 2 days before she vanished, Joyce wrote a letter to her parents talking about a friend's baby
who had just turned 6 months old. And in it, she mused that maybe someday she'd have a baby of her own. Like, who knows?
She said the world felt like her oyster. But someone took all of that away from her, from her family, from everyone who
loved her. And to this day, they've gotten away with it, but not for a lack of trying on the part of investigators.
Because Joyce's case file is robust. I mean, I could spend hours walking you through every step they took, every
person they looked at, every lead that they ran down. Lots of it went nowhere. But after 55 years, there are several
theories that still carry a lot of weight. And I think that says something. So, I want to walk you through the
different scenarios and the six different suspects whose names have endured [music] decades.
Before I jump into the six theories that have lasted through all these years, let
me get something out of the way because if I don't bring it up, I know the crime
junkies are going to come for me. The boyfriend. So Joyce's boyfriend, David Arthur, was for sure in South Africa
when she was murdered. No funny business. He isn't even on the table here. And he didn't hire someone or want
to take her out. Like from Joyce's letters, it seemed like she was pretty smitten with David. And actually, some
people even say that they were low-key engaged to be married. So he had zero means, motive, opportunity. But there
was someone in Joyce's recent dating history who had for sure two of the three of those. Mike [music]
Finch, and he's the teacher guy who invited her to chaperone the dance with him that Friday night. He was supposed
to see her the very night that she was likely killed. So obviously that's a guy you got to look at.
>> Yeah. But on top of that, police had gotten a tip that said that Mike had a habit of hanging around outside Joyce's
chemistry lab and like disrupting class so often that the teacher was about to ban him from coming back.
>> Also, he's like a grown man with a career. Like what's he doing like hanging around?
>> Well, he's like he he's kind of a grown man. So like he had done a stint in the
army and he had just graduated WSU like the year before. So he's not like way older than Joyce or anything. He's 27.
Kind of a full grown man. Still, you know, she's in her 20s, too. Anyways, police interview Mike, who tells them
that he's known Joyce for 2 years. They had gone out about 10 times. He says, in
the year or two before, so he knows her pretty well. And he says that it wasn't just the dance that they were supposed
to go to together. They were going to spend the whole weekend together. So, he says that he last saw Joyce on Thursday,
July 22nd. He was on campus for some reason and he asked Joyce to chaperone this dance with him and then go to the
waterfalls thing together in Pasco. But Joyce didn't outright say yes. She said like, "How about you call me tomorrow?
We can like talk about the plans." But he says he called the next day between like 6:30 and 7:00, right? Like it's the
' 70s. No one has you have to schedule when to call somebody. [laughter] That's when she said she would be home from her
skydiving lesson. >> But he couldn't get a hold of her. And he makes a point that he called her from
a friend's place in Spokane. Except she didn't answer. So he called her again [music] and again, but all three times
he never got in touch with her. And he tells police that he went to the dance on Saturday as planned. Chaperon thought
maybe she would like show up at some point. So he waited, but Joyce never showed up. So he sucked it up and went
along with weekend plans without her, which was to go to the waterfalls and then go to Bellingham, Washington for an
a teachers conference where he said he remained for like almost the whole next week. But I don't know about this. Like
can I be honest for a second? >> So [laughter] in early iterations of like putting this
story together, the Mike Finch section of this was actually like pretty short. It was like he called her. He went to
Waterfalls, drove to his conference, and spoiler, even though he wouldn't take a
polygraph in the 1970s, he did take one in 2013 and he passed. So, police don't really consider him a suspect anymore.
But I am a details gal. >> I mean, always go a little deeper. >> I don't know if you [laughter] know this
about me. Like, and not everywhere in my life for sure, but like for case details
like >> a thousand%. >> I don't care what the final line in the report says. I want to dissect
everything [music] and I cannot make this man's timeline make sense. Now, people before me kind
of chocked it up to the fact that Mike was a drinker and I'll get more into that in a minute. And they're also like,
well, you know, like he didn't have a calendar in front of him. Sometimes it's a little unclear exactly like when he
left for Pasco, like was it Friday? Was it Saturday? Even the dance, like sometimes in the reports the dance reads
like it's Friday. Most of the time when Mike's being explicit, he says the dance
is Saturday. And determining what is sus and what is typos in old reports is hard
because there's literally one part where it says that he left for Pasco Saturday
morning at 1000 p.m. Ironically, not in the morning, >> which cannot be correct. And on top of
that, I think everyone is like, oh, you know, whatever. Like everything we're talking about is Friday, Saturday. Like
Joyce was killed on Thursday, >> right? So like these days don't even matter. But I think it could matter a
wholeing lot because here's what I've pieced together. Mike's story changes and there's a lot of weird details in
between. [music] His first statement was given to police on August 3rd, 1971. This is the day after Joyce is reported
missing. And the report [music] states that in a phone call with police, Mike says that he visited Joyce on campus on
July 22nd and invited Joyce to the dance. They made arrangements for him to call her at her apartment the next
evening to like make solid plans. But the loose plan, he says, was for them to attend the dance and then drive to the
Tri Cities for the boat races. But Mike says that when he called Joyce on the evening of the 23rd, she didn't answer.
He then waited around until like 1000 p.m. and she didn't show. So he says he went to the boat races solo. And then
from there he drove to Bellingham, Washington where he attended a vocational agricultural teachers
convention. When police interviewed Hal and Patty, they're the ones who saw Joyce Thursday night. They said that she
was planning to go to the dance on Friday. When they interview Joyce's roommate, Bruce, he too knew about the
dance, which he said Joyce was planning to go to on Friday. These are all people
who are being interviewed like the day after she's reported missing. >> And Joyce is the one telling them all
this. Is she just mixed up? >> But why is Mike then saying that too in his first interview? And someone from
the school ends up telling police that dances are always on Saturday, never Friday. So, the mixup seems even more
strange to me. [music] So, then fast forward to after Joyce's remains are found, but before she's been officially
identified. They do a more formal interview with Mike Finch. And his story is a little different and has a lot more
details. And pay close attention to the details. So he makes it sound a little more like he just happened to run into
Joyce that Thursday morning and he told her he's going to the waterfalls and he asked her if she like wanted to go down
because you know I'm already going. She says yes. They make plans for him to call the next day to verify. He does
from Spokane, Washington. He clarifies this is the first time this comes up. He says he calls from his buddy's place
there. She didn't answer. He tries her a few times from Spokane. He wants to make
sure he mentioned that. >> Okay. Okay. And then he drives back to his place in Oakdale and they go back
and forth to verify like dates a little bit. And they get back to the 23rd when he called Joyce between 6:30 and 7:00
p.m. from >> from Spokane, I'm sure. Right. Okay, we get it. >> Then on Saturday, he says he didn't
leave for Pasco to go to the waterfalls until really late, like 12:30 at night. I mean, technically Sunday, but before
he drove there, he just stopped by Pullman to drive by Joyce's apartment. >> What? He He Listen.
>> Okay. Why? >> Listen, it's not totally out of the way, but you don't drive through Pullman to
get to Pasco. That's for sure. He said he just passed, saw that all the lights were off. It looked like no one was
home, so he didn't stop. I mean, or everyone was asleep. It's midnight. Well, he's asked if her car was there
when he drove by and he's like, "Oh, I can't really remember. Like, I wasn't paying attention."
Anyways, he says from there he left. He went to Pasco, but they do press him on something else that doesn't make sense.
They say, [music] "Okay, so she's going to ride with you to the waterfalls and then you were going to go to that
teachers conference in Bellingham cuz that is still part of his story here." And he's like, "Yep." So they say,
"Well, then how was Joyce going to get back to Pullman for classes on Monday >> if you were her ride?" Yeah.
>> Yeah. And he's like, "Oh, like you know, get back. I guess I would drive her back
to Pullman and then I would drive to Bellingham." >> And the timing and the geography of this
makes zero sense to me because if you're looking at a map, you have Pullman like
all the way on the right >> on the eastern part of the state. Pasco is 2 hours southwest and Bellingham is
>> way up northwest, right? >> Way up northwest. Yeah. It's like another 5 hours. So, it makes sense to
go from Pasco and the Waterfalls right to Bellingham. It makes no sense, however, to drive back to Pullman and
then to Bellingham. Now, we do lots of things for love, but this wasn't his girlfriend. I mean, maybe all the more
reason though cuz it feels like he's like very into her. >> Like, I think there had to have been
something there, right? But like the thing is he is saying to them that they're just friends. Like yeah, they'd
gone out a few times before, but they both decided it was mutual. They were just friends. But like Mike like come
on. Come on. Like why else are you asking her to be your date to like spend the weekend together
>> and hang around all of her classes all the time when you no longer go to school
there? >> He Well, he did. He I think he was like taking a summer class at one point. So,
like he had a reason to be on campus, but but like he denied the accusation about disrupting her chemistry class,
but he did admit to hanging around campus on occasion. For people in Joyce's life who knew Mike Finch,
opinions are mixed. Some say that he's a big teddy bear. Others say he is crass when he drinks, which he does a lot. And
both can be true. >> I think both probably were true. Joyce's friend Jan, who had also dated Mike, by
the way, is quoted in the case files saying, "The more you knew Mike Finch, the less you liked him."
>> That's ominous, >> but there's no elaboration. She [music] just said that when Mike was drunk, he
was very foul-mouthed beyond belief. Now, police [music] also interviewed the principal at
Oakdale High, where Finch was an agriculture teacher. Lost art, by the way. And the principal says that Finch
does a good job at school, but he said it's no secret that he is a heavy drinker.
>> And if your boss knows you have a problem, then sir, you might have a problem.
>> But he says the only time he's seen him have a violent temper was when he was
sober, [music] >> which okay, but that's not helping the situation. But again, no elaboration
where I wish there was one. You know what else? There is no mention of whether or not his alibis check out.
And I should be clear like he doesn't have an alibi for Thursday. Like the real night in question because Friday
morning is when the carpet goes missing, right? >> She's found in the carpet. So presumably
she's already dead by Friday. For the life of him, he cannot remember what he was doing that [music] night.
>> But he definitely knows the time he called her from Spokane when he left for Pasco,
>> where he stopped for gas. He knows all the stuff about the following two days,
but that particular night, nothing. They did verify with that friend in Spokane that Mike was there Friday night and
that he thinks Mike tried calling a girl, but the guy says that Mike had no special feelings for [music] Joyce. They
also tried to talk to someone at the school to verify that Mike had chaperoned the dance.
>> Yeah. They confirm there was a dance on Saturday, but the person they're talking
to doesn't know if they kept records on who was Shaperon because again, they're not like really looking into this until
like a year out after her body's been found. The guy says basically he's going to have to check and get back to
detectives, >> but there's [music] no follow-up in the file. >> Okay. Was he at the waterfalls? Did he
go to the conference? Like there's other things. There's only there's mentions of
police like saying they want to find out about these like a few years down the line, but I don't see in the case file
where they ever got any answers. I do see where they looked up his criminal history though, they found that he did
have public intoxication and resisting arrest charges from 5 years before. And interestingly, a few weeks after Joyce
vanished, Mike got into a rollover accident while driving and he like totaled his car. Now, back in the day,
police asked Mike to take a polygraph in Joyce's case. He initially agreed, but instead he got an attorney and then
declined further participation, which only makes him more suspicious to some investigators. Other things make them
suspicious of him, too. Like, remember the military blanket that Joyce was wrapped in? Mike was in the army. This
makes some investigators keep their sights on him as the primary suspect for years, though they never seem to be able
to pin anything on him. Now, there is a moment though when they wonder if they've got it all wrong. [music] And
that's in 1977 after a certain Pacific Northwest serial killer is arrested and begins confessing
to [music] murders of college co-eds. >> Enter one Theodore Bundy. His name is in
Joyce's case file as a person of interest, but not until after his arrest. So, he was first arrested in
1975. And then in 1977, a tip made its way to police that said Bundy had supposedly stayed on WSU's campus the
weekend that Joyce was killed. But there was no way to prove that 6 years later.
Also, people kept saying that there was like VW bugs around campus, which like some say lent credence to this series,
>> right? Because Ted Bundy drove a VW bug, but so did everyone in 1971, >> literally including Mike Finch. So,
>> okay, but isn't Joyce's case a little early for Ted Bundy, though? >> Maybe. So, Bundy's first confirmed
killing was in 1974, but authorities have speculated that he may have started murdering people like in the '60s. So
that leaves the door open. [music] And because we're talking about a victim who was like his profile type in the Pacific
Northwest, which was like a hunting ground for him, >> his name, I think, will always come up
until they can rule him in [music] or out. But if you believe the word of a serial killer, it should be out because
before Bundy was electrocuted in 1989, he was asked about Joyce's murder and he denied any involvement.
It's still totally possible that he was involved, but of the few theories that have survived, I think it's the least
probable, and Sheriff Meyers agrees with that. Bundy would have had to have just
been like randomly passing through campus late at night on July 22nd, 1971, >> right? Like it's much more likely it was
someone that Joyce knew >> or someone who for sure knew where she was going to be.
>> So maybe for that reason, Mike Finch stayed on police's radar for a very long
time. They would try to revisit him, but he pretty much stopped cooperating once
he got that lawyer. [music] But just in 2013, they finally broke through. Mike agreed
to be reintered. And that time is when he took a polygraph. And his memory then as he is interviewed is a little bit
different. So by 2013, he's saying Joyce asked him if he was going to go to Pasco
for the boat races. And when he said yes, she asked if she could hitch a ride with him. He told her that's fine as
long as she could find her own ride back because he had to go to that ACT teachers conference the next day. This
time he doesn't mention calling her on Friday, but he does say that Saturday he drove to pick her up. She wasn't home,
so he drove to the airport to see if she was still at her skydiving lesson. >> Wait, what time is this?
>> In this version, it's earlier. He says that when she wasn't there, he drove back to his place in Oakdale because he
figured it was too early to go to Pasco. Remember before he said that he drove by
her place, then went like straight there, like really late at night. >> So he says he drives back to his place,
he waits around, has a couple of beers outside his house with a local farmer friend, and then he left. And he says he
didn't know he was a prime suspect all these years. And all that time might have warped his memories, as time tends
to [music] do, but he still says he had nothing to do with her disappearance or murder. And he finally agrees to take
the polygraph, and he passes. Mike Finch [music] died in 2024, and investigators today more or less
consider him [music] cleared. They can't connect him to anything from the scene and they can't put him with Joyce or
around Stevens Hall on Thursday, July 22nd, 1971. So maybe it would be better [music] to
look at someone we know for a fact was near Stevens Hall that night, [music] a man who police had on their radar when
Joyce was still just a missing person. The first indication that anything was a miss on campus wasn't the report that
Joyce was missing. It was that report that they'd gotten of the missing carpet in Stevens Hall. [music] And while Joyce
was an early suspect in the carpet theft because her belongings were found in the
building, there was one other [music] suspect, contract worker named Robert Lauren Johnson, who was laying tile that
summer in what was then Arts Hall, which is a building just like 100, maybe 200 yards from Stevens Hall. And it turns
out he was working late the night of July 22nd and actually ended up working until like 2:30 a.m. [music] and just
stayed the night there. Now, he became a suspect in the carpet theft because an off-campus police officer saw his car
parked outside Stevens Hall in the middle of the night. And the theory for Robert in terms [music] of Joyce's
disappearance is that maybe after Joyce said goodbye to Hal and Patty, she [music] snuck to Steven's Hall like
she'd been doing on previous nights. We know from Joyce's own letters that a worker had stumbled upon her poaching
the head resident's bed. Who was that worker? Was it Robert? Was it someone who maybe told Robert about it?
Someone knew that she was there. More than just the one incident she wrote about in that letter because police
ended up hearing a rumor that had been going around that one of the men working in Arts Hall where Robert was laying
tile had reportedly been messing around with a girl from Steven's Hall that summer.
>> And Joyce is literally the only one staying in Steven's Hall. >> Exactly. But they were never able to
determine where this rumor originated or who it was about. I mean, yes, presumably Joyce, but who was the man?
When police interviewed Robert, he said he had nothing to do with Joyce's disappearance. [music] He did admit that
he was working in the dorms that week, mostly by himself. And the only people he saw was a security guard around 8:00
p.m. the night before. And then the night of the 22nd, he saw a few contractor buddies who came by from
another job after midnight and brought him a burger. He says they left at like 1:00 a.m. He kept working until like 2
or 2:30. And because he was anxious to get the job done, he just like slept on the floor and then continued working a
few hours later when he woke up. worried because a chunk of your night was spent
doing something else or >> Well, Robert, who by the way was married with kids, took and passed a polygraph
in the early days of the investigation. So, that [music] was pretty much that. There weren't really any red flags in
his background for them to like keep pursuing him for any reason. And then he ended up dying just a few years later.
>> Okay. [music] If if he wasn't involved and he's up like all night working, >> most of them most of the night working.
Wouldn't he have heard like screaming or something? If Joyce had been attacked like a hundred yards away if there was
screaming maybe. I mean, Robert talked about hearing a party or like something that night. So, it seems like sound
traveled there. And Sheriff Myers told us that you can like hear parties happening from across town, especially
in the summer. But, I mean, we don't know what happened. Maybe Joyce didn't have a chance to scream. Okay, but she
had to have been attacked in Steven's Hall, right? Like she's wrapped in the missing carpet when she's found. I mean,
to me, it seems like the most likely scenario because I really don't know why else you would go there and take the
carpet if you're not already there. >> I mean, might help to hide and transport the body. Sure, but like I don't think
you kill her somewhere else, then go to this hall, cut out a square of carpet. Like there's no other way.
>> And like go to this hall where she was like kind of secretly known to have been
staying like that she was associated with. And it was taken from the front lobby of the building, right?
>> No. Um, it was taken from it's they called it the lounge, like this hangout area of the [music] building. There's
actually this handdrawn diagram of the room in the case file. It doesn't give like precise details, but our producer
licensed some old photos from WSU of the interior. And one of them shows the room
with a piano in it. And like we know from her letters like she would go she would play piano. So, like I I don't
know. Like it just seems like something happened in that room where she was known to hang out. And this room is like
a decent size and it is kind of at the front entrance on the main floor. [music] But listen, we know Joyce got in
and out of the building through a window in the head residence room where she was
sleeping. Okay, but like we know she's staying there. She has a way in and out kind of. How would Robert have gotten
into Steven's Hall? I mean, like, I don't know if he had a key or anything, but like he could have gotten in the
same way she did. Like, she's sneaking in through a window. Anyone could have snuck in the same way she's getting in.
Or she could have let someone in. But there are a couple of things that make sense for a suspect like Robert. Someone
who maybe had opportunity, but not like a deep motive or history with the victim. So, like, hear me out.
>> So, the place is what would tie him to Joyce, right? like he can't untangle himself from the dorms. People know he
was there. Yeah, he had scheduled work to get done. >> So, he would have to remove Joyce from
the place. Her body can't be found there. Her car cannot be found there. You need people looking elsewhere for
her. But maybe you don't know her enough to know that she told a lot of people about staying there. Like, you don't
know her enough to know that her books and letters are still there in the building.
>> Well, and I kind of forgot about her car being moved. Well, technically we don't
know that it was moved, but if we believe that she went to Stevens Hall herself and then she was killed in
Stevens Hall, then yeah, how did her car get outside that frat house? >> And what was the parking situation like
back then? Like, was that just a good spot? So, she didn't like draw attention to the fact that she was squatting there
like >> No. No. So, if you like picture a triangle, her car is like at the top, her apartment is like the bottom left,
and Steven's Hall is bottom right. So [music] it's not like you drive past it or it's like on your route driving
there. >> Mhm. >> So to me that like that doesn't make sense for like a place to park
>> for her to like store it there. >> Even if she's trying to get people not to see her just like I don't I don't
know. It doesn't make sense. But since there are no mention of processing fingerprints when they found the car, we
don't know if someone else drove it there. >> But there actually is the option that
she did. I mean, she could have because her car location is actually what leads us to the next [music] theory, the
meditation group. Because even though Joyce didn't know anyone at the frat house, she did know a group of people
just a couple houses away [music] actually. And she was planning on moving into that house right before she died.
And the people in that house, one of them at least, has a dark secret that Joyce recently learned about. And she
had shared it in a letter to a friend. I discovered that one stayed at a mental institution for trying to strangle
people. That's next week in part two of Joyce Lee's [music] story, but you can listen
to that right now if you are a part of the Crime Junkie fan club. Just go to crimejunkie.com
to join. Otherwise, we'll see you next week.

In July 1971, 21-year-old Joyce LePage, a student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, disappeared after spending the evening with friends. The next morning, campus police responded to an unusual report. A large section of green carpet had been cut out of an empty residence hall where no one was supposed to be living. Inside the building, they found Joyce’s purse, textbooks, and personal letters. Joyce was nowhere to be found.

In Part 1 of this two-part Crime Junkie investigation, Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat revisit one of Washington State’s most enduring unsolved murders, a case that has frustrated investigators for more than 50 years and is active once again.

You’ll hear about Joyce LePage’s final known movements on July 22, 1971, the strange discovery inside Stevens Hall at Washington State University, why Joyce had secretly been staying in an empty campus dormitory, the discovery of her abandoned 1966 Dodge Coronet in Pullman, the heartbreaking discovery made nine months later near Wawawai Canyon in Whitman County, Washington, and the first three of six investigative theories that detectives believe still deserve attention today.

This episode also explores Joyce’s life as a chemistry and German student at Washington State University, the confusing timeline surrounding her disappearance, why investigators believe the missing carpet may hold the key to solving the case, and the first two major theories that have survived decades of investigation. Today, investigators believe someone still knows what happened during the night of July 22, 1971. -------- Are you a part of Ashley's Summer Watch Challenge? If you're here for the two-parter stamp, text "BESTIES" to 317-733-7485. If you're watching this episode with your friends, text "FRIENDS" to get your stamp. Not apart of Ashley's challenge and want to join? Text "WATCH IT" to 317-733-7485 to join!

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About Ashley Flowers Ashley Flowers is the top female podcaster in the U.S. and the host of Crime Junkie, the #1 podcast among women and the #1 true crime podcast globally. As the Founder of Audiochuck, she has built a top-tier podcast production company that has garnered over 2.6 billion downloads, captivating audiences with its gripping storytelling through 10+ chart topping podcasts. Ashley and her team are dedicated to creating responsible true crime content that respects victims and their families.

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Check out these other great crime channels: @annieelise What Really Happened to 18-Year-Old Nolan Wells & Who is Lying?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCIFM5gs-Ps @kallmekris The Serial Killer Who Inspired "Scream" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4XXaz3n4A @KendallRae Birthday Trip To Costa Rica Ends In Murder: What Happened To Carla Stefaniak? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPXGOFubCMA @bellafiori The Case of Steven Clayton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25KmwaTbaFI

Brief Summary

Joyce Leage disappeared in 1971; her remains were found in 1972, and multiple suspects remain in her unresolved case.

Key points

The Disappearance of Joyce Leage. Joyce Leage, a vibrant 21-year-old, goes missing from Washington State University in July 1971.
A Chilling Discovery. Months later, human remains are found in a remote canyon, leading to a grim investigation.
Mike Finch's Alibi. Mike Finch's timeline raises questions about his whereabouts during Joyce's disappearance.
Ted Bundy Connection. Joyce's case file mentions Ted Bundy as a person of interest after his arrest.
Robert Johnson's Suspicion. Contract worker Robert Johnson becomes a suspect due to his presence near the crime scene.
The Mystery of Joyce's Room. A room where Joyce was known to hang out holds secrets about her disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The world felt like her oyster.

Joyce's aspirations and dreams before her disappearance.

16:34WatchJul 20, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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