Leah Croucher — Unsolved

SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Where is Leah Croucher now? How did she simply vanish?

Missing Milton Keynes woman, Leah Croucher was 19 years old when she disappeared from the very busy streets of the urban area that she called home. Milton Keynes is a huge urban settlement in Buckinghamshire, UK.

It seems pretty clear that this young woman intentionally left home, despite taking very little with her as far as we have been able to ascertain. Thames Valley police undertook an extensive investigation into this disappearance but she has never been seen since.

Interestingly and probably most curiously there are reports of just a few possible sightings of Leah Croucher on the day that she vanished, but nothing at all since.

We have been looking at this case for two years and have really begun to dig our heels in over more recent weeks. We want to know what happened to the 19-year-old and how she disappeared from such a busy area during a ‘school run’ and commuter movement time of the day.

Leah Croucher (left) and Leah with her brother Haydon (right)

Leah Croucher had her first job working in a local office and it is widely known that at some time there she had been involved in a relationship with an Asian male who cannot be named for legal reasons so we will refer to him as Mr. X.

It was suggested by someone in a recent communication that there was no such ban on using his name, but Her Majesty’s Court Services have confirmed otherwise, stating that an injunction remains in place.

Leah appears to have taken her usual walk home from work in the late afternoon of February 14th, 2019 and during that journey, it seems that she turned off the GPS locator setting on her mobile telephone. The locator was never switched back on. According to her telephone service providers, this had never happened before. So why was the locator switched off and who by? It seems most likely it was Leah herself, but there is no way to confirm this absolutely.

There have been whispers that there could have been someone else responsible for the locator being suddenly switched off but, to be fair Leah had her mobile when she arrived home at approximately 5.45 pm and did not seem upset or flustered in a way.

It is suggestive that she would have been distressed or even shown signs of having been upset if she had had her phone forcibly tampered with. Did she, therefore, want the locator switched off on her phone so that someone could not track her movements? The simple answer would seem to be yes, but once again we cannot be sure.

If anyone reading this has any reliable information to tell me what caused the locator to be turned off on 14th February 2019 please do get in touch and let me know.

Leah Croucher seemed almost innocent

I am of the opinion that Leah Croucher was not the “innocent” girl that she has been portrayed as. She was in a relationship that was somewhat a secret, she had started going out on “girly nights” that were not actually girl’s nights out at all. Even the evening before her disappearance is clouded in secrecy.

According to Leah’s family, she was a home bird and rarely went out socially, she preferred to stay home reading and watching TV, yet on the evening before she disappeared she came home from work, changed her clothes, and went out again from around 6 pm for about 75 minutes until 7.15 pm. Not something she normally did, but it seems she told a plausible story to her parents by saying that she was going to meet a friend that the family knew so they accepted what their daughter said.

As many people will know, Leah did not meet the person she had said she was going to, but no one knew this until she disappeared. There seems to be no intelligence to indicate where Leah went or who she was within that 75 minutes, but I guess it could be suggested that maybe she went to meet someone to exchange gifts or intimacy as it was Valentine’s day, but who?

There was also an incident approximately 2 weeks before Leah vanished when she had claimed to be going on a girly night but when her bank statements arrived the story was somewhat different

Leah’s father had dropped her off at a local hotel called Jury’s Inn in Central Milton Keynes where Leah had told him she was spending the night with some female friends of hers. However, when the teenager’s bank statement popped up in the mail the family found out that Leah had actually waited for her father to drive away on February 3rd, 2019 before walking back out of the hotel and making her way to the local Travel Lodge.

Due to the passing of time, when the incident came to light the CCTV for the hotel had already been wiped over, but none of Leah’s friends recalled anything about a girly night at a hotel and so it seems that she may well have spent the night with a man or woman that was unknown to her family or indeed. it could have been the infamous engaged male, Mr. X whom she had told her parents she had finished with but, of that, we cannot be sure.

Once again I say here; If you were at The Travel Lodge in Central Milton Keynes on the night of February 3rd, 2019, or indeed early on the morning of February 4th then please come forward and speak to the police, your information could help to find Leah. If for some reason you really do not want to speak to the police there is always the confidential service, Crimestoppers or you are welcome to contact us and we will pass it on.

So who did she actually meet that night? Why did she lie to her family by saying she was going “out with the girls” and was staying at one hotel when in fact she was staying elsewhere? Was this connected to the disappearance? If anyone reading this has answers please come forward.

Leah enjoying happy holiday times. Does this place have any connection to where Leah may have gone?

As previously stated Leah had been seeing a male from work known here as Mr. X, he has been traced and claims that they were only ever friends and that anything between them had ended before the dates concerned but not everyone is convinced.

According to Leah, any “relationship” had come to an end, but I am not sure whether I accept that. As I said before, we have shown that Leah told a fair few untruths so there is a debatable point as to whether she ever fabricated the whole relationship.

It has been suggested that Leah may have met the mysterious Mr. X on the evening of February 14th but why when they worked together and it seems many people at their work knew of their “relationship” If it was to exchange Valentine’s gifts but why not do that at work or at least after work before walking home?

I am more of the opinion that Leah went to meet someone in order to finalise plans for her disappearance the next day. We cannot dispute that Leah had every intention of leaving of her own volition and was not abducted, at least in the sense of physical force.

A gentleman that has done a great deal of investigation into the disappearance (Michael Nolan) has recently published an article on the case which you can read here https://mikeywomble.wordpress.com/

A good deal of his writings make sense, but also raise a number of further questions. One thing seems almost certain and that is Leah set out on the morning of February 15th, 2019 with the knowledge that she was going to meet someone rather than go to work as she was supposed to.

The questions here are fairly obvious:

1. Who was she going to meet?
2. Why was she meeting someone on a day when she was supposed to be reporting for work?
3. What was the plan once she had met that someone?

I am of the opinion that Leah knew she wasn’t coming home at least for a while but, whether she knew she was never to return to her family is another thing entirely. I have to say that I do not see a teenage woman leaving absolutely everything of her life behind if she knew she was leaving for good.

I mean there would be sentimental possessions that she would want with her, some clothes to change into perhaps unless, of course, she was lead to believe she was going off to a “new life” with everything she could possibly want when she got there.

Mike’s recent blog suggests that the whole disappearance has direct links to Mr. X but I am really not so sure as he has never really left Milton Keynes and despite having direct links to his homelands there is nothing to indicate that Leah ever left the UK with him.

There has been a recent suggestion on the social media platform, Twitter that Leah may have been taken to Pakistan or India, but I really do not see that as likely. Whilst we must not rule anything out, this seems very, very unlikely. I think that the person who suggested it based the thoughts on Leah’s associate being Asian, but he was not a Pakistani.

WHERE DID LEAH GO FROM?

Based on various reported sightings of Leah on February 15th, 2019 it seems almost definite that Leah was in the Furzton Lake area of Milton Keynes on the morning that she vanished and was not seen again, so it would be fair to say that she may have left Milton Keynes from that area. However, having visited the lake and its surrounding streets simply does not seem that easy.

The last sighting that was reported seems to have been close to the Furzton Lake sports pavilion which is on the edge of a housing estate but it is hardly the “ideal area” to run away or indeed abduct someone.

1. The area is densely populated and many domestic homes with windows looking out directly onto the streets surrounding the pavilion.
2. There are pretty large speed humps on all of the roads close to and leading away from the clubhouse, thus making it very difficult to get any speed in a vehicle and making it easy for passing pedestrians and vehicles to spot anyone in vehicles.

THE LAST SIGHTINGS

0815 Leah is seen on CCTV walking to work as she always did

Leah was caught on CCTV walking toward work as she always did

0930–0945: Leah is seen outside the Furzton Lake Pub and Premier Inn Hotel, she was allegedly talking on the telephone and was agitated and upset.Two questions here:

a). Why is there no CCTV footage to confirm this, particularly as there is a camera on a tall lamp post right at the entrance to the hotel car park?

b). There was a young woman in an agitated and upset state, why did no one approach her and check if she was alright?

c). Leah’s phone was switched off around 0845 so what phone was she using?

1030 A woman answering Leah’s description is seen by the lake texting on a mobile phone, again where did she get the phone? Apparently, by then she was much calmer and relaxed so what changed the mood so much in just 45 minutes?

Both Furzton Lake and another nearby lake, known as Blue Lagoon were both searched by police divers

1100–1115 Another sighting of a woman matching Leah’s description, this time by the Furzton Lake sports Pavilion, this is the last one so some would assume that is where she was collected by a vehicle but as said above it doesn’t seem that likely. Almost certainly if Leah was picked up from here then she got into a vehicle that she knew and did not complain or resist getting in.

There was one other possible sighting and that was at 1051 when a person took a photo of the area of Furzton Lake in which a black figure shows up which is believed to have possibly been Leah, Let me have your thoughts on this, please.

Was this black figure Leah Croucher?

I have read that apparently Leah’s brother found a pregnancy test in the bin at home just a couple of days after she left. It seems that the result of the test was showing as negative so if that is true then it is ruled out that Leah did not “run away” because she was pregnant. I am not really a believer that this pregnancy test was “found” as this would mean that the brother must have gone digging through the bin, why would he do that? Was he possibly looking for evidence of his sister’s possible whereabouts?

One thing that concerns me is that there is such an obvious lack of interest in people coming forward to offer help and intelligence in the search for Leah. Why is there such a “blanket of silence”? I’m sorry but I refuse to accept so few people saw Leah either on the evening of February 14th, 2019, and more importantly so few sightings on the day that she actually disappeared.

This is a young woman, not the smallest of young ladies dressed pretty much all in black yet no one saw her or indeed anyone that she may have been meeting. I mean to be fair, it is suggested that the teenager went to meet someone in order to leave the area, so even if we accept that story and we believe the alleged sightings then why was she always alone?

If Leah went to meet Mr. X or whoever her accomplice/abductor was then why have there been no sightings of him or indeed of them together?

DESTROYED POSTERS

One point that seems to have come to light in more recent times is that posters and banners appealing for information about Leah’s disappearance have been vandalised, particularly around the area of the hotel and pub close to Furzton lake. This area is where Leah was allegedly seen last and in particular where she was seen using a mobile phone in a distressed state.

Now I have spoken with a person who has spent some time reviewing the Croucher case and he is convinced that the damage to posters and banners is just vandalism by drunks but I have to say I am not convinced.

The posters are laminated and it is clear that they have been cut with a sharp knife or scalpel as opposed to just being ripped up, the picture below shows the method of damage.

Look at the way this poster has been deliberately cut and one of the photos removed

I think I have rambled on enough but I will close by saying that I have a great production team ready to make a reenactment of Leah’s last movements and a documentary about her strange disappearance but we need information, people that are happy to talk to us about the case.

We really feel that this is a very important case and must be kept in the public eye as much as possible. A family has lost their daughter and deserves to know the truth, whatever that may be

I will be back with another case and updates on this case very soon.

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