Leah Hickman ////// 635 | Forensic Files

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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] it never seems to get any easier does it
doesn't get any easier telling these stories nor does it get any easier to hear them
we listen and we ask ourselves so many questions along the way questions like why her or why him
what would I have done in this situation and of course could this have been avoided
sometimes the why her or him is answered in the story the what would I have done part
well that's up to you and could this have been avoided I'll fill you in the answer
is almost always yes the overwhelming majority of these cases simply boils down to
very bad and horrible person does something very wrong and horribly bad to a good person
but even with answers doesn't get any easier for seven years we have been researching writing and
telling these true crime stories and all of us have certainly learned some very profound things along the way
but often we still can't make any sense out of this violence wherever get over the Innocence Lost
since lost is really the most honest way to summarize this week's True Crime Story
the victim was a 21 year old college girl a young woman that was well liked hard-working
and just straight up a very good person almost too innocent to be 21 years of age
she didn't seek trouble and she didn't start trouble she was close with her family and
friends she got good grades and even though she was a young independent woman she still checked in with Mom and Dad
she looked to her older sister for guidance after leaving her parents home and going off to college
she regularly told her parents her sibling and friends what she was up to where she was going
and with whom she'd be going with no problems here right you would think that would be the case
but we've been doing this long enough to know that the wolf is always at the door
today's True Crime Story is about a young woman who should have had the world at her
feet she was packing up and preparing to head home for the holidays until she became lost and stolen away
forever Innocence Lost and it doesn't get any easier this is a tragic Cold Case story of Leah
Hickman and this is True Crime garage [Music] 21-year-old Leah Hickman was a journalism student at Marshall
University Marshall is located in Huntington West Virginia and in 2020 had more than 11
000 students now this week's True Crime Story however takes place back in 2007. our first real true sign of
trouble here Captain is when Leah Hickman goes missing in December of 2007. now at the time Leah shared an
apartment located on 8th Avenue in Huntington with her older half-sister Jessica Vickers Jessica was Aaliyah's
mother's daughter from her first marriage when our story kicks off in 2007 Leah's father Ron or Ronnie was
separated from Leah's mother Leah was close with her half-sister as they not only lived together but also spent a lot
of time together as we will see E when we get into the timeline leading up to The Disappearance but she was also close
with her father and close with her mother as well Leah is described as a pretty regular
college student but I thought she was much more impressive than just a regular college student who tries hard
Leah was outgoing she had a lot of friends she was studious cared greatly about her grades and education she was
driven and focused she worked hard both at work and at school Leah worked at the
Dress Barn the thing here Captain the thing that makes this case 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 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 close with her half-sister Jessica she was close with
her father and her mother as well 21 year old Marshall University student Leah Hickman
Leah Hickman was reported missing on December 16 2007. and this is a pretty thorough
report when the missing persons report is filed in this case considering that we have four persons present when the
report is filed present we have Leah's mother Sherry Russell Leah's half-sister Jessica Vickers Leah's best friend
Caitlin Starkey and another friend who is not named in the reports she's reported missing to the Huntington
Police Department on Sunday December 16 2007. being reported on this day however
the alarm was actually raised the previous day on the 15th this when her half-sister and roommate Jessica Vickers
went to the apartment that the two shared looking for her sister this is going to be leading into the winter
break leading into the winter break for Marshall University and its students but
also we have Leah's half-sister and roommate Jessica Vickers who was planning to go and stay with her
boyfriend for what is an indeterminate amount of time I don't know how many nights she was intending to stay there
there was some talk that Jessica may be going home for the holidays as well so while we have this these two living
together in this apartment in Huntington West Virginia we also have the fact that both of them are getting
ready to leave and take a break 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 Leah was reported missing on the 16th but alarms were already raised on the 15th
and like Nick was saying we have four individuals that end up making this phone call so they they did their due
diligence to try to track her down themselves and were unsuccessful yeah the trouble Starts Here captain on the
15th when Jessica vicker's roommate half-sister Julia is sent to the apartment looking for her sister and she
sent there at the request of their mother now there once she gets there Jessica has already gone and stayed the previous
night at her boyfriend's home when she gets to the apartment that they shared there she finds Leah's car parked
out front of the apartment this is typical behavior from my understanding and I'm going to do my best as we go
through this story to describe the apartment the layout and how it's situated on the street
because I believe that that is very important to this case so you have street parking
right in front and on the side of this apartment the apartment building itself is located on a corner and it's on 8th
Avenue she parked right in front of the apartment on the street however there is a small parking area
that is designated for the apartment's occupants and residents right behind the building itself
but from my understanding that it is that Leah typically would park on the street in front of the apartment and
this seems to be her preferred parking space so when Jessica Vickers gets to the apartment on that Saturday looking
for her sister the first thing she's going to notice is Leah's bright yellow Chevy Cavalier parked in street parking
right in front of the apartment she gets into the apartment quickly discovers Leah's purse and car keys inside of the
apartment the back door there's a back door to this apartment 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 goes to a stairwell a two-story stairwell well I
guess it would be a three-story stairwell I apologize it's a common space that anybody that has an apartment
inside this building can access that door from their apartment to the stairwell Jessica says that she found this door to
be unlocked and in fact many of the reports out there say that the door was slightly open again let me describe this
apartment a little bit more thoroughly here Captain because this is the key I believe to understanding this week's
case I believe that damn near everything about the apartment also would tell us that our suspect pool
in this case is probably not that large right with this case in all cases we cover we'll be posting some of the
pictures so you can see this apartment building more in detail on social media it's a all brick apartment with multiple
apartment units in this building the address was 403 8th Avenue Huntington West Virginia and as we said it's
located at an intersection this is 8th Avenue and 4th Street like the captain said it's a red brick building it's
brick from head to toe out front where Leah would typically Park facing 8th Avenue you have a two-story open porch
and if you're looking from the street there you can see a door once you go up a few steps you can see a
door and you can see a big large window for each one of the four apartment units so this building
has four apartment units in it you have two on the second floor two on the ground level floor two on the right two
on the left it looks to be rather spacious for apartments now from my understanding
and from what I've been told because there are no pictures available online that I could find of the interior of the
layout anyway of this building so that door that you would see from 8th Avenue if you go in that door there is a shared
space where you would then go and access your front door to your apartment then remember at the very back of the
building we also have four doors from each one of the four apartments that goes into that enclosed stairwell
which again is another common space why do we need this these two different ins and outs to each apartment well
you have this really nice front porch area if you're on the second floor you have a balcony that oversees that front
porch and then once you're inside you you access that common area you can go into your your front door from there
your back door to your apartment goes to that stairwell that stairwell's key because that stairwell will lead to the
basement and in the basement level you have a shared space with washers and dryers so
that's the laundry area for the four apartments in this building now this is not
from my understanding Captain it's not part of a larger apartment complex this is simply a one building unit
I'm sorry this is simply one building with four apartment units inside of it the other thing that's key to this case
too is the other residents because at the time there's practically nobody else living
in this building you 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 the other two units were unoccupied at the time and from some Reports most reports it's a
little confusing because some reports state that there was repairs going on inside the building other reports state
that there were Renovations going on in the two empty units but both can be true
one could be described as repairs where it's the same thing that's going on and they're actually renovating those other
units from my understanding Captain the man that owned the building he's the only other resident that shares
a unit in this building with Leah and her sister 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 on record stating that yes we checked this other dude out that lived
there that owned the building and he was gone 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 that up because since the owner lives part-time in another state he has
maintenance workers and there was maintenance being done on the apartment during that time period that Leo went
missing yes I've seen reports that state that his brother was in charge of overseeing things while
he was gone I don't know if that meant that the brother was living there staying nights there my guess is
probably not but also that doesn't mean that his brother was responsible for actually doing the repairs it might just
be hey if you get a call you need to call one of my maintenance workers yes my understanding the way that it's
described is that he was overseeing the building and that this was a regular thing he would oversee the building when
his brother would be gone for these extensive periods of time and he operated as
you know a property manager mostly when his brother was gone and like you said yes there are reports of repairs reports
of Renovations maintenance so there were other people that would be in and out of
this apartment building around this same time let's dive into a detailed timeline
of Leah's disappearance let's start with Sunday December 9th so roughly about a week before she goes missing we have
Leah Hickman's final week of school which started off routinely okay this is this is a routine thing for her and her
sister we have Leah and her sister Jessica they would go I found this to be very
interesting and I think that it pointed out to me how close these two likely were which makes the set this story even
more heartbreaking but not only do they live together they have a weekly breakfast that they regularly did
together at Bob Evans and this takes place on that Sunday December 9th they would typically go and drink hot
chocolate Leah would usually order pie while they were there and she had some of her favorites maybe get a cheesecake
or A Slice of Cheesecake while she was there so on that Sunday business as usual the Two Sisters go out for a nice
breakfast together at Bob Evans the next day December 10th we have classes that resumed at Marshall University and the
students were in the process of taking finals this week let's fast forward a little bit to December 13th this is that
Thursday that day was a trip for Leah to go visit her mother Sherry Russell she went to visit her mom as she would
regularly but I guess this was somewhat of a a less routine visit because it was
for her to check up on her mother I guess her mother had some health tests recently and they were all kind of
worried about what the results of those tests would be on this Thursday Leah also spoke with her best friend Caitlyn
Starkey they discussed making plans for Friday night that leads us to Friday December 14th according to Jessica
Vickers Leah's half-sister she says that she woke Leah up on that Friday morning this in
preparation for a trip together to the Huntington Mall the sisters ate breakfast and then
headed out for Christmas shopping they were going to do some Christmas shopping together
the sister Jessica she reports that they arrived at the the mall promptly around
9 00 A.M about two hours later around 11 A.M they left the mall and returned back to their
apartment Jessica said that the trip back was special as she would go on to describe for the
papers a recent email that Leah had sent Jessica praised her sister for improvements in her writing skills so
they're having this moment they went Christmas shopping together and they're having a bit of a bonding moment she
says or recalls on the way home from the mall that Friday 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 they did speak
briefly Leah spoke to her mom about coming home that evening even though she had scheduled work the following day
her mother convinces her to meet her at the Huntington Mall later that evening now around 3 P.M Leah calls her father
Ron Hickman he's at work and he would later describe the phone call this conversation as Leah checking in
unfortunately this would be their last telephone conversation at 3 30 Jessica returned home for lunch
she packs up a few things for a weekend stay at her boyfriend's she said that when she's there at the apartment she
sees Leah Leah is in the kitchen washing dishes she said that they spoke briefly
Leah seemed excited about her grades that she was getting good grades at the time and so she was excited about
putting in the hard work getting good grades she was looking forward to the holiday season they also discussed their
upcoming Sunday morning breakfast at Bob Evans and then Jessica leaves this is when we really need to start focusing in
on the timeline here because the alarm is raised on that Saturday and Leah is reported missing on that Sunday it's
really at this time when we start backing into events and known events of Leah it's around this time that we're
going to see that she likely whatever happened to Leah went down that evening and she was probably
actually missing starting Friday evening Friday night so let's start with 5 30 P.M
this is when Leah goes to a local McDonald's it's my understanding captain that this
McDonald's is a six minute round trip so roughly three minutes there three minutes back to go pick up some fast
food for a quick dinner that night yeah there's actually a map of this and it's it's very close a couple blocks away
I've also been told that this McDonald's is no longer in existence so if you are
trolling on a map or if you're driving in the area looking for the closest McDonald's to
this 403 8th Avenue Apartment the one that we are discussing right now is no longer there I could be wrong but I
believe that the building is still there but it's not a McDonald's obviously so Leah talked to her friend and it's
always just reported as friend I believe that this is Caitlyn Starkey that they're talking about and I think that
I've seen this in one of the reports that it was in fact Caitlyn Starkey who we've already brought up
so she talks to her friend via her cell phone so Leah has her own cell phone she's talking to her friend about
cleaning supplies and plans that she she planned to spend some time cleaning that
evening and this would be the last conversation between Leah and her friend yeah what a
sad situation around this same time we have Leah's mother and her stepson who arrived at the
Huntington Mall remember Leah is supposed to be meeting them at this mall the plan was for Leah to call when she
arrived at the mall but unfortunately the stepson forgot his cell phone in the car Leah had her mother's phone because
of a bad battery Leah never arrived at the mall so between 6 30 pm and 7 P.M that night
the mother stepson Duo they leave the mall and this is when mother decides to call
her daughter from the car because she's concerned that her daughter didn't show up
and the call goes straight to voicemail so the mother continued to call Leah Hickman over and over again through the
11 p.m hour but gets the same result each time going to voicemail every single time and she said that she just
initially feared that Leah was mad that maybe Leah had made the trip to the mall
gets there tries to call but because the cell phone is left in the car doesn't get a hold of anybody and thinks that oh
they got their wires crossed or she got stood up or whatever happened and people
weren't where they 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 for not understanding technology but
the technology at the time she would have been able to see if Leah called just to 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 part is very tricky about the
story here Captain because this is the only report that says that Leah has her mom's cell phone
other reports state that Leah had her own cell phone but I guess both reports can be right she could have her cell
phone and she could have her mother herself I'm gonna just go out on a limb here if she tried to call her own cell
phone let's say Leah was borrowing that cell phone she tried to call goes straight to voicemail that's a red flag
we don't know if she showed up to the mall so that's a red flag now we're calling it's going straight to voicemail
she probably tried calling Leah's phone as well and if there's a battery issue obviously that would go to voicemail as
well but as a parent I would think that this is bread flag after red flag and I'd be getting pretty worried there are
some people online who have stated they don't understand why the mother didn't drive out to the apartment that night I
don't know I don't get the vibe that we're frantically calling over and over and over again I get the vibe that it's
more of I'll give her a call here here at seven I'll give her a call at eight uh maybe nine nine thirty a handful of
times she is a grown woman she's 21 years of age and we also don't know their relationship
could it be a situation where we have mom who says I just figured she was mad that could be something that's fairly
normal maybe they've had plans that got busted up before and and Leah didn't take it too well but what we do know to
happen is is the phone calls take place but also that same night Captain we have
Leah Hickman who has plans they're kind of loose plans loosey-goosey plans here with her friend
Caitlyn Starkey right and Leah does not arrive for those plans as well from my understanding on that Thursday the day
earlier when Starkey and Leah Hickman spoke Caitlin Starkey works at a local nightclub Leah had said hey on Friday
night you know I'm gonna I'm gonna be doing some cleaning I'm gonna be packing up
some clothes to go home for the winter break but I'm probably not coming home until or not going home until the
following day so regardless of what I got going on this Friday I'll swing by where you work and drop in and see you
briefly Friday night that doesn't happen and so the friend Caitlyn tries reaching
out to Leah as well and of course she's getting the same result she's getting Leah Hickman's voicemail
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[Music] all right we are back ladies and gents cheers everybody cheers to you captain
and happy holidays to everybody out there when we left off we have family and friends who are
trying to get in touch with Leah Hickman they are unsuccessful trying to get in touch with her now we do have Leah
Hickman who is on social media at the time she was on the old MySpace back in 2007 and it is
reported that Leah Hickman last logged on to her Myspace page sometime on that Friday unfortunately for these
reports no specific time is given I do want to Circle back to the McDonald's visit because there's a couple things
here we had pointed out that it's about a three minute drive to McDonald's and a
three minute drive coming back one of the reports out there and I think that this is probably the more likely report
because it's a similar report it's just a little more detailed it says at 5 40 pm
Leah's on the phone with her friend on a cell phone call to her friend saying that she 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 Leah's phone and what what again is difficult is we have the report of well
she was borrowing her mother's phone so 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 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 she made it home successfully from the McDonald's because later police would
find the McDonald's bag food consumed and the receipt for the purchase and the receipt time is 5 40 PM
so that goes along with the idea that she's on the phone with her friend at that same time while she's going through
the drive-through 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 away but to me this is the most important time period because
let's say a little bit before six is when I think whatever happened happened and that's when you need to start
looking at the Inner Circle their Alibis for around that time period I'd say around that time period to an hour to a
two hour window and look at the Inner Circle and then start looking at her Outer Circle of
Friends the difficult thing here for law enforcement is always going to be one the neighborhood
you know Act of random violence and also that she went to college and so her interactions with how many students were
she was she in class with how many students did she have interaction with on a weekly basis well
and it looks to me Captain that from her Eighth Avenue apartment to the Huntington Mall
we're talking about an 18 to 20 minute drive and pay attention to our timeline here we're saying 5 40 she's got a
receipt time stamp from the McDonald's restaurant that is three a three minutes drive from her apartment the timeline
states that between 6 30 and 7 P.M her mom and Stepbrother are leaving the mall they've left the mall and
they've started to call Leah at this time to figure out what happened you know did we oh we're sorry we screwed
things up we left the phone in the car where are you that sort of thing those calls are going to voicemail you have to
believe given the time frame it would take her to get to the mall she likely was going to be leaving her apartment
rather soon right to make it to the ball in time to meet up with her mother yeah
she she returned home but if everything had gone as planned it would stand a reason that she would have left the
apartment so I think you have to be right here that something happened between 5 40 p.m you know you would say
6 30 7 o'clock when they start to call Leah but you could probably push that back to 6 10 6 15. we have a really
short window of time where something happened something went down that stopped and prevented Leah from going
about her business yeah and and real quick and I don't know if you can answer this
off the top of your head or if you can find in your notes real quick but so we roughly have this a little bit before
six o'clock a little bit after six o'clock that's the time window of when we think something happened when is it
that her half-sister gets to the apartment it's the following day right that's correct that's correct 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 that part so
without sounding too suspicious of family members here right because that's a that's a tightrope that I do not enjoy
balancing on but I've always wanted to know more about that I'm using air quotes here
that phone call or those phone calls going from mother to daughter from stepbrother to step sister the calls
trying 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 part in our timeline I am very curious I was very curious to see what
cell phone information and Technology the Huntington Police Department accessed in this case to verify
statements given to the police you could easily check to see if those phone calls
were made if those phone calls weren't made we got a whole different set of circumstances here well one also could
argue that were still in the infant stages of social media 2007 we were definitely in
the beginning stages so I wouldn't put it past law enforcement to not check that information because a
lot of people at that time that were on MySpace were using that as a text message device
so is it possible that she was communicating with somebody through Myspace and not through her her cell phone or
through her mother's cell phone and listen to what goes on that day so on the Saturday December 15th we have the
sister who comes back to the apartment looking for Leah we don't have an exact time of when she arrives there again
it's reported as the morning time she arrives at the apartment this is when she finds her sister's purse and keys
and car are all where she would expect them to be however her sister is nowhere to be found at the apartment and then
she finds this back door unlocked in a jar that goes to the stairwell at 101 PM Jessica the half-sister post a
message on Leah's Myspace page that reads Oh Sister where are you triple question mark whatever time she arrives
there that morning she has enough time to investigate the situation the apartment and such and then have enough
time to sit stew and worry and then make this post onto her Myspace page that says Oh Sister where are you I know 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 respect
for their loved one that they have lost if somebody in my family was murdered or
missing look at us look at the family first rule Us in or out and then you can move on with the
investigation and I would hope that my family members would be as Cooperative as they could be with law enforcement so
they could start looking in the correct direction I find this post to be kind of silly and suspicious oh sister
can you can you read it again so we have it for verbatim again oh sister where are you triple question mark this seems
a little strange to me where you could just put hey we're looking for you or hey answer
your phone or something like that but this oh sister seems a little bizarre to me again if she's
extremely concerned if she's panicking she's probably not really worried about choice of words here right the other
thing too when I read it it almost sounds like frustration like oh I've looked high and low for the last couple
of hours for my sister this doesn't make any sense it almost sounds a little frustrated I think the big red flag here
goes down at five or goes up if you will at 5 p.m on that Saturday this is when she does not show up when Leah does not
show up for her scheduled work shift at the dress bar right she was only supposed to be
working about four or five hours that night now keep in mind this is middle of December going into the holiday you know
approaching Christmas holiday shopping is a priority for most people at this time
so this would be a busy shift this would be a busy store she doesn't arrive for this shift and she's worked there for
five or six months at this point later supervisors and managers went on record saying it was completely out of the norm
for Leah to not show up for work number 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 there's no communication at all this is
the big major red flag here and I'm sure that this was for the family as well because look if you return to the
apartment there's a high probability that there's been many times that sister returns to the apartment and the other
sister is not there there's probably been even a one or two times that maybe she gets back to the apartment and her
sister's car is there but her sister is not there right and so you look around you're trying to call everything's going
to voicemail again it may just be frustration oh well she's she's probably with one of her friends somebody
probably picked her up and damn it she left this back door unlocked I 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 starting to go
well she's probably not with a friend she's probably not just out doing something now it appears that she's
missing yeah it's probably time for the family to hit the panic button well and during the course of this time period
this is going to take us into that Sunday now what we do know that happens is that Leah's mother Sherry Russell
attempted to place a missing person's Report with the West Virginia State Police they encouraged her to to make
the report with on the more local level in Huntington so it's on that Sunday where we have mom sister and two friends
all present when the missing persons report is filed this is what you want to happen right in these cases we see so
many times where there's a huge delay in reporting that somebody's missing or there's a
not much of a we give a damn factor from the police but this is this is about as close as
you can get it I would prefer that she had been officially reported missing that Saturday night but it takes place
that Sunday so again it's relatively quickly the police clearly they care they're in there taking the report and
to top that off you have four individuals that are rather close to our missing person that are there to answer
questions and flesh out a timeline for police right there when the report is being taken absolutely over the course
of the next few days we're going to have police doing everything that we would expect them to be doing they're going to
be interviewing people closest to Leah they're going to be canvassing the area around the apartment probably checking
in even with the university and with Leah's work at the Dress Barn talking to all persons involved we do
get the Dress Barn that announces a ten thousand dollar reward for information about Leah Hickman's whereabouts this
comes out on that Wednesday so things are getting Bleak right things are getting dark where they were once
concerned for a missing person now they're starting to fear the worst has happened unfortunately it looks like
a lot of those suspicions were confirmed on Friday December 21st and this is when
the Huntington Police find the body of a white female in the laundry room area of
Leah Hickman's apartment building of course the authorities at the time at this discovery believe that it is in
fact Leah's body but until she is conclusively identified they are not making that announcement to the public
yeah this kind of upsets me a little bit about law enforcement and and hear 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 through
these cases look at the JonBenet Ramsey case you show up it's a missing person report you check that house thoroughly
and they could have done that and they they would I think they would have had a little more information
and could have been more on top of this situation if they would have found her body on December 16th I can understand
anyway why it went down the way that it did but it's very disappointing because it's
obvious that she was killed in that building somewhere right to me the concealing the body inside the
building itself is whoever killed her had a big problem and that big problem was hiding the body hiding the body was
a big problem because you got to get it out of the building you got to transport
it for whatever reason whoever is responsible decided that their best bet or the
safest way for them to try to conceal this crime is to conceal the body inside the building itself so this makes it
sound like right when you when 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 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 say a little it's quite more complicated than
that yes yes and and this is where 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 knowing what I know from doing this podcast I am searching high and low
in that residence so I've received a very good description of this basement because I think that this is one of the
keys to this case so in the basement you have a crawl space which this crawl space is located in the
front portion of that basement so the portion that is closest to 8th Avenue then in the larger portion which is open
it's an open area accessible to all that live in the apartment building for washing machines and dryers so
people can do their laundry there in the basement this crawl space is accessed through a door so there's these
doors on this front wall of the basement one of the doors is a crawl space and now this again I already pointed out
that this is a spacious this is a big building that these apartments appear to be quite
spacious the information I have Captain is that the crawl space was about one third of that basement area
and two-thirds of the basement was that laundry area so we're talking about a good amount of
space as far as a crawl space goes but the crawl space is in the front towards 8th Avenue and there it's about the door
itself is about 40 to 48 inches above the basement floor we have an opening that's only about 28 inches by 36 inches
so not not a very 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 feet from that little door so what what is on record is that they open that door and looked in
those doors that were at the front of that basement at least one or two times before she was
eventually discovered in one of the crawl spaces everyone's saying the same thing if you opened up the door and you
looked in you would not have been able to see her from the door in fact the the space
itself probably looked like it was empty and it was not until after a week's time pass from the Friday
that they start worrying about Leah that her body is discovered because somebody eventually got into the space
and went back in and crawled to it somebody whoever placed her in that crawl space Not only placed her there to
hide her but she was wrapped up in plastic and then concealed all the way to the very front
of that crawl space closest to the 8th Avenue but furthest from the crawl space door right and basically
everything I've heard is they weren't able to see her until they actually lit up that crawl space and so
in their defense you know you go in that 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 some light onto that area but this creates for an interesting aspect of the
crime itself right one it's been said by many people that you wouldn't know that that space even
exists unless you had some good information extensive information and knowledge about the building itself what
we have here Captain is you you sit there and we've told so many of these stories we've reviewed so many of these
cases my mind first went to where I'm sure your mind went to she went to McDonald's some creep solar decided to
follow her figured out how to get in the apartment and then did something terrible and and then fled the scene
however you factor in the aspect of well she's concealed in an area where everybody's saying that you had to have
extensive knowledge of the building to to know to even put her there that a more random
suspect and random attack seems much less likely yeah I I think it seems less likely but it's not out of the realm of
possibility that somebody goes into her apartment murders her in her apartment and then
freaks out 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 person because why wouldn't you just leave the body there yeah they would just leave yeah and so
unless the attack took place in the laundry area which is a possibility because like you said she's coming home
she's gonna eat her 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 that that's one of the things I'd like to know did they find any of her laundry in the
laundry room well and that's the problem with this case there's been very little
information that's been put out and and it's now unfortunately coming up on 15 years the 15-year anniversary of this
sad day of when she was noticed to be missing is coming up this week here's a couple things a couple details that we
know one she told her friend she told at least one other person that she would be
doing laundry that evening right two when the apartment is found empty the following day she already has one bag
one piece of luggage that is packed up so she was going to return home leave the apartment visit mom and dad and keep
in mind they live separate so she's probably making more than one stop and she's going to be gone for several
days several nights was the original idea and 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 busy doing some laundry because I need to get clothes together for the
upcoming days or week that's ahead and so we know 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 unlocked and and
ajar and later the sister Jessica she's telling police and and family and friends look it was not uncommon for us
because it's cumbersome right you're trying to take baskets of laundry down two flights of stairs to the basement to
do your laundry there and she said it was very common for us to leave the door unlocked but also 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 with all of your clothes
right so there's everything's in place to be setting the table for her to be doing laundry that evening one thing
that's a little weird to me though it seems like okay maybe she threw some clothes in before she went to McDonald's
and that's why she had to come back and didn't just eat on the way to the mall that she needed to change her clothes or
needed to get something out of the dryer when she returned to the apartment so maybe she she gets back and boom she's
in the law laundry room rather quickly but the other thing that's interesting here is that's such a small window of
time for when she was supposed to be to the 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
right she she should have been leaving her apartment relatively soon after she got back from that visit to the
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
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
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
attacked in the laundry room and then that laundry room is connected to this other room that has the crawl space and
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
and and she is strangled to death right well and that's another thing that's interesting to this
investigation as well is later the police would be telling us that we we being law enforcement they
are pretty convinced they know who is responsible or the the person's responsible in this case
and so they even though this was a case that was getting some national attention
this case was getting some some national attention in the time frame that she was
missing when she was still missing even though they had the the national attention you know missing school girl
college girl goes missing and it's certainly a big story in West Virginia because they thought that they
knew who was responsible or and I think this is probably the the better thing to
say here because this is where my suspicions go I think that they had narrowed it down to a very small suspect
pool right and I think the apartment tells us and dictates why that is and we'll get into that in just a second but
they actually refused to give any information they did confirm that it was the body of Leah Hickman that they had
found but they didn't give any information for several days I don't think it was until the second week or
middle of January the following month that they tell that they come out and hold a press conference and say look she
was strangled to death and there was no sexual assault that took place in this case that she was strangled to death and
somebody tried to conceal her body I think that they probably kept that out of the papers in the beginning hoping
that because of the situation like we you and I just discussed some creep following her home from McDonald's
or some creep accessing the apartment somehow and and finding Leah there and it being a random attack I think they
wanted to leave some of those details to themselves in case they had someone coming out of the woodwork that really
had nothing to do with it somebody that comes off the streets and says yeah I killed that college girl yeah I agree
and disagree with you on the the Crux of this case lies in that laundry room I agree on one level because I think what
this layout of the laundry room and the layout of this apartment tells us is that this person would have to have a
certain level of physicality to take a body wrap it in plastic one if I'm law enforcement where the F did this
plastic come from right they come from in the building did it come from out of the building to me that you know points
just you know maybe a maintenance worker I mean if you Google student killed and
then Google gives you some suggestions one of the things is it'll say uh student strangled by roommate okay if
I'm law enforcement I'm looking into that angle student murdered by a maintenance worker looking
into that angle student murdered by homeless man looking into that angle and then the other one that becomes a little
more difficult is student killed by stalker and like I said when you're on campus you have a lot of interactions
with multiple people and is there somebody that was just you know infatuated with Leah that we just don't
know about the 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 that her she knows that her half-sister is going to be spending the night with the
boyfriend and is there somebody that she was having a relationship with that was kind
of on the on the DL and that's why I want to know what the communication was through Myspace it could be as simple as
some guy she was talking to online says hey yeah we should hang out while I'm going to be going home soon hey well why
don't you swing by you know because nobody's home and and I don't really have plans that would make sense on some
level of why I should break plans with her mother and why she would break plans to go see her friend that night well and
that is exactly right Captain the devil is in the details the devil is hiding in
those details or maybe now as far as the Myspace thing goes it could simply have
been to log on and just check her page again without us having a time stamp for that and here's the concern I have I'm
not gonna lie I wonder if we're not being provided a timestamp because maybe they don't know and I'll get into my
questions about the investigation here in a minute but it could just be she logged in that morning that Friday
morning and and the MySpace login has nothing to do with anything but that's also why I think law enforcement says a
suspect or possible Suspects because again the physicality you have to then if this attack even if it took place in
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
crawl 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 unless it's illuminated yes there's lots of difficulties with putting the body where it was later discovered
there's a lot and that's why I wanted to get detailed information about that the
opening to the crawl space the crawl space itself and the basement because we review her missing persons poster
and they have Leah listed at five two to five three 120 to 130 pounds so to lift that weight
40 to 48 inches and that's an approximate [Music] I spoke to several people that's the
approximation that I was given on the distance between the basement floor and the opening for that crawl space now the
people I spoke with they agreed that 40 inches some people in that group thought it
could have been higher that the opening would have been higher up off of the floor right 40 inches is the very
minimum amount that I was given many believe that it was at least 48 inches from the floor to possibly even
five feet from the floor I I could also see a reason for somebody other than the sister being responsible
and placing the body where it was later found you're you may just simply be hoping to create a period of time where
nobody has found her yet you're really just trying to add a buffer at getting as much between you and the
investigation as possible and so the thing that's tricky about this case and I'm glad that you brought up the
half sister because when you really start to look at the case and look at the words that the the detectives are
saying here in this case again very little information coming out but what they're choosing to tell the
public makes it sound like they've really narrowed it to a small suspect pull so it says here this is the exact
words verbatim investigators believe Hickman died in a targeted attack carried out by someone familiar with the
layout of her 8th Avenue Apartment they have a working theory about the person's
identity but they lack evidence needed to prove guilt Beyond A Reasonable Doubt so they have said we have physical
evidence forensic physical evidence in this case that one day we believe will lead to an
arrest and a conviction however we need technology to catch up to what we have in this case to help us
put away the person that we believe or persons that we believe are responsible somebody that had that was familiar with
her apartment building is one thing to say there are other reports that they have said that the person would have had
to had extensive knowledge of that building to have carried this out in the manner that it was carried out well
think about that immediately that takes us to only a small amount of people brain we have the half-sister we have
the man that owns the building we have his brother or whoever was overseeing the property for him in his absence we
have the renovations or maintenance or work that was being performed in the building itself so those individuals I
would believe even if they just were new on the job that week or the week before
would probably have some extensive knowledge about the building itself and the workings of the building because
they are there to repair things or renovate fate things they very likely would have been aware of this crawl
space and then you have anybody that had previously lived there or visited there
a lot and here's the thing when you go visit somebody at their apartment rarely do you find yourself in the basement
laundry room poking around and know about this this crawl space so one thing that's weird here Captain is we have a
previous boyfriend now I've been told by several people that Leah at the time was not dating
anybody and she wasn't known to have any types of serious relationships and I think that that is why unless there was
some kind of secret rendezvous that we don't know about that police are pretty firm in their belief that the building
the apartment building itself is what connects the attacker to the victim here now one potential person that we haven't
discussed yet is an ex-boyfriend of Leah's half-sister Jessica this ex-boyfriend lived with Jessica at one
point in the apartment for this report says two years now I did a little checking on
this individual and 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 that building prior to seeing and dating Jessica so he lived in this apartment he's older
Jessica is older than Leah by a few years right and this ex-boyfriend of Jessica's was older than Jessica and he
had lived in this apartment building for years before the two of them end up in a
relationship so that guy had years worth of knowledge about the building itself now how does he factor into it here well
he was shipped off overseas to serve this country he comes back and from my understanding
the breakup between Jessica and him took place while he was overseas after he had
been shipped out he still had some personal belongings that were being kept at that apartment
the way that it's reported is as such that these personal belongings were 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
retrieve these items it's also been reported that he did not get along with Leah because she did not
approve of the way that he treated her sister and it's believed that she was really the one pushing Jessica to end
the relationship with this guy now regarding his personal property the reports are varied and they 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 little wonky donkey yeah a little little cattywampus as they
say In The Biz many reports state that these items were eventually thrown out that they were placed in this common
space and when work started going on in the 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 that the workers may have thrown thrown out these items the other report
is that those items were still there and they were boxed up in that laundry room
area but again all all reports state that it's believed that this guy and Leah did not get along it's also
reported that he 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 should discuss not just discuss I'm sure it's one that hopefully the
Huntington Police looked into it but the theory has been maybe this dude shows up
to retrieve his items and he interacts with Leah because 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 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
it out you never came to pick it up and then they get into some kind of fight or
again I mean the other thing too is it takes a lot normally for somebody to say I don't
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
have no evidence of this but you know a boyfriend being too controlling maybe being verbally abusive maybe physically
abusive where I think her half-sister could help this investigation I'm sure she's talked
to police about this individual but what was his interaction with her and what were the things that her sister didn't
approve of the the direction of your investigation needs to be this one we need background checks on anybody that
would have been working in that building two we need to confirm if the possibility of of ex-boyfriend Jessica's
ex-boyfriend still having keys to the apartment if that is in fact true you know check with the building owner check
with anybody that's in charge of running the apartments did he ever turn in Keys to to the owner
or to the landlord do we have the sister or anybody else saying that he turned in
Keys how how factual is that statement that this guy still had access to the apartment building well I agree with
that but I also 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 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 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 the attack take place so I did
reach out to the Huntington Police Department and the detective Bureau and I was armed with a few questions that I
had about the evidence and about the investigation itself unfortunately nobody has returned my call so I don't
have any answers for those questions and I'm going to State this and usually I'm
backing the women and men in blue here and I'm not saying that they've done anything wrong I reached out to them
last week and for all I know we could turn off the microphones and my phone rings right away and it's HPD calling to
to ask me why I called about the Leah Hickman well I might take them over a week to find the message well let's hope
that's not the case if they're in charge of solving homicides but the statement that they've released to the public says
the Huntington Police Department wants to ensure Leah's family and the community as a whole that the
investigation into the events surrounding her death in the person or persons responsible remains active this
case also has been reviewed extensively during the past 14 years by various detectives in an attempt to allow a
fresh set of eyes to review the facts and and evidence that has been obtained any tip or lead received on this case
always have been and always will be pursued vigilantly that is a statement directly from the Huntington Police
Department and 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 police ask anyone with information about the case to call the Huntington Police Department at
304-696-4420 we will include that number in today's show notes and you can also submit a tip anonymously through their
tip line at 304-696-444 we'll include that number as well so here's the questions that I have
Captain we talked about all the stuff that were found in the apartment we talked about her her it was a beautiful
bright yellow Chevy Cavalier that was parked out front of the apartment building we talked
about the items that were found in the apartment but there were a couple of items that have been reported it's been
reported that these items were missing one Leah's cell phone which we already know how complicated that is because
there's talk about her borrowing her mom's phone but the reports are that Leah's cell phone is missing I've never
seen a description 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 around boots on the ground type investigation and I found one statement that it was a flip phone
that's the best description I've received on her phone the other item that has been reported as missing was a
brown jacket or coat of Leah's that had a fur collar these items again according
to the newspapers are missing I wanted to learn more about these items I wanted to learn more about the plastic like you
pointed out earlier and those were going to be my primary questions for the detective now again they've been very
hush hush in this case so who knows if they would have answered any of them at all again it does appear to be a very
active case so maybe they're not going to answer those questions but I also I also wanted to know a few things about
cell phone technology right I mentioned earlier I wanted to know how factual were those phone calls those supposed
phone calls from The Stepbrother and from mother from their visit to the mall that night to Leah's phone did those did
those call goals actually happen you pointed out something very obvious but also very key if Leah had attempted to
call her stepbrother there would have been indication on her phone on his phone that she tried to call them and
then the other thing is I wanted to know did they ping her cell phone Leah's cell
phone at all because if whoever is responsible for her murder and I'm with you given where her body was found I
think it would have taken two people to put her there number one so at least one
other person knows what happened but did anybody bother to Ping her cell phone if
it was truly missing since the time that she's been one she's been missing herself and two even after
they found the body we know sometimes these guys you look at a case like Long Island serial killer we know that that
person was accessing a victim's phone well after the fact could this creep have been calling and listened to
listening to her outgoing message could this creep have been calling and checking her voicemail and listening to
the messages that were left for Leah while these people were looking for her did this cell phone ping anywhere of
interest because you would look very guilty if you were in possession of that phone or did this individual make a huge
mistake and and give that coat to somebody as a gift I think given the attack no sexual assault the
strangulation I think given the attack it looks to me and again this is just my assessment
from 30 000 feet you know over an overview of everything here but it would look to me like this is
probably something that might have been spontaneous unplanned something happened something
went down that that caused a fight between Leah and somebody else and in a fit of rage somebody strangled her and
then may have had to reach out to somebody else to come and help them clean up a messy situation later there
are reports out there that not only do they have physical evidence you know we've already kind of covered that and
and they've not gone into great detail about this but they have physical forensic evidence that they say that
they believe will solve this case one day once technology catches up to it the other question I had for the police
department is well where was that physical evidence collected from was it collected from the crawl space from the
plastic from the laundry room or from her apartment because you're right Captain if the attack and the murder
went down in the apartment now getting her to where she was placed is even more cumbersome and even more difficult now
we got flights of stare errors involved and we also have to lift up 40 to 48 inches maybe even as high as 60 inches
off of the basement floor and then push all the way back to the front of this crawl space yeah and as far as law
enforcement goes it's like look if if their hand is strong and they're just waiting to get certain tests done
because 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
find her in the crawl space of her apartment building and it with law enforcement it drives me insane because
the longer this goes even though we're getting new technology all the time to me
the family loses hope and if you say that this case isn't cold then unless your hand is so strong that you
know that one day you're going to definitively solve this case and you're not so worried about it then maybe don't
share so much information but after 14 years it's like come on maybe maybe share a little bit to get
you closer to help you build a stronger case well and that's one thing that I found to be rather frustrating and
frankly I think almost unacceptable in this case because what we have here is we have they have
quite a bit of more information they're unwilling to share any of that information and a big part 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 information to give
to the public you reminder you're asking the public for help your your you're actively asking the public for help if
there was some bit of information that were to change based off of the known facts by law enforcement
in this case or if there was a detail in that information that they could release
think about all the people that we've mentioned that they've already interviewed that they were working with
very closely that first week when she was missing and then unfortunately the next week after she's found and now we
know we're dealing with a murder you could have one person or many people within that group of people that goes
wait a second that detail that you just informed us about well now that doesn't jibe with all this stuff that that I had
been told by person a or 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 can hone in even more and more closer to the actual suspect if
her cell phone truly was missing if this jacket or coat truly was missing you find somebody in possession of one or
both of those items well they just went to the top of your suspect list right and it's who knows what information you
could come into that could lead you to executing a search warrant later well I hate to admit it but I agree with you
well and in their defense we don't know how sensitive the information that they have is right and it could be something
where you don't want to upset the apple cart and law enforcement knows that hey this this evidence these suspicions that
we have and the things that we have collected that have led us to this one person or this group of 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 this person away or to tear to tear down this group of people so what we do have is we know that there
were developments that were made in this case in 2008 the Huntington Police were
on record saying quote there is an individual that we believe was involved meaning somebody that they've already
talked to they think is responsible for this and they go on to say that they had
interviewed dozens of people trying to find answers to Leah Hickman's murder but this one name keeps popping up quote
it is an individual that we have contacted and spoken to however this individual keeps coming to
the Forefront of someone we're particularly interested in now the police clearly
are not going to be releasing this individual's name or the name of the person or Persons of Interest in this
case or what I would deem to be suspects at this point they did say that they have DNA evidence
in this case that was sent and tested at an FBI lab in Arizona uh is something that they are going to
have to hold on to for future testing says that they police are on the record saying that they believe that results of
testing could either lead to an arrest or could clear the name of the person of interest altogether so that that makes
it a little bit more clear why this could be sensitive fragile evidence that they have here right when you give
the statement of the evidence that we have once we get the results of the testing of this evidence it could either
lead to an arrest of this person or it could clear the person that we think we've we've narrowed it down to
yeah like you said I think their wording definitely makes it seem like 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 100 solvable and I do believe it will be
solved in the near future and again Captain I think that the wording used in the choice of words here is very
interesting in Leah's case and these are the words again of the Huntington Police
Department saying there are three things that help solve cases confessions Witnesses and physical evidence no one
has confessed and there are no known witnesses to this crime and the police clearly have not and will not release
the names of any suspects or Persons of Interest in this case but did confirm that the police believe the suspect to
be someone with quote close knowledge of the victim end quote and then they go on
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
come like we wanted it to and it eventually will very key here though the police go on
record saying analysts say that DNA evidence collected will last up to 40 years for testing so
that evidence that they have it's safe it's secured it's preserved and they believe that it's that evidence that
will lead them to an arrest and a conviction hopefully sooner than later [Music]
foreign [Music] thank everybody for joining us here in the garage make sure you sign up on our
mailing list or subscribe to our YouTube channel at True Crime garage TV and until next week be good be kind and
don't litter thank you [Music] foreign

Leah Hickman ////// 635

Part 1 of 1

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

15 years ago this week a bright young college student vanished from her near campus apartment. Leah Hickman was 21 years old. She was seeking a journalism degree from Marshall University in West Virginia. Her mother, half sister and two friends filed the missing person report with the Huntington Police Department on December 16th, 2007. There are several key elements in this case that suggest a high probability of solving this case. Police ask anyone with information about the case to call the Huntington Police Department at 304-696-4420; you can also submit tips anonymously through their tip line at 304-696-4444.

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Brief Summary

Leah Hickman, a college student, went missing in 2007; her body was found later, and the case remains unsolved.

Key points

Innocence Lost: The Story of Leah Hickman. A tragic tale of a 21-year-old college student who went missing in 2007.
The Unraveling of Leah's Last Days. A detailed account of Leah's final week leading up to her disappearance.
Last Call with Leah. Leah's final conversation with her friend foreshadows a tragic outcome.
Red Flags for Family. Leah's mother repeatedly calls her, but all calls go to voicemail, raising alarms.
Sister's Concern. Leah's sister posts a worrying message on MySpace, highlighting her disappearance.
Discovery of Leah's Body. Authorities find a body believed to be Leah in her apartment building.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was packing up and preparing to head home for the holidays until...

Describing Leah's last moments before her disappearance.

6:39WatchDec 14, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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