Missing Leah Croucher
Leah Croucher was just 19 years old when she vanished from the busy streets of Milton Keynes, a massive urban settlement in Buckinghamshire. The date was February 15th, 2019, despite extensive investigation she has never been seen or heard of since.
We have been looking at this case for two years and digging our heels in over more recent weeks. We want to know what happened to the 19-year-old and how she simply disappeared from a massive area during a ‘school run’ and peak travel time in such a massive place.
This young woman worked in an office locally and it is suggested that 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
She had returned home from work in the late afternoon of February 14th, 2019 and during that journey home the GPS locator setting on her mobile telephone was switched off and has never been switched back on. According to her telephone service providers, this had never happened before. So why was the locator switched off and who by?
There has been a suggestion that it could have been someone else 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 she might have if she had had her phone messed 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 we cannot be sure?
THE NIGHT BEFORE LEAH VANISHED
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 o 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?
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.
It has been suggested that Leah may have met the legendary Mr. X on the evening of February 14th but why when they worked together and it seems many people there knew of their “relationship”? If it was to exchange Valentine’s gifts but why not do that at work? To be fair it seems very likely that Leah went to meet someone or to finalise plans for the disappearance the next day.
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:
- Who was she going to meet?
- Why was she meeting someone on a day when she was supposed to be reporting for work?
- 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.
There has been a recent suggestion on the social media platform, Twitter that Leah may have been taken to Pakistan, 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 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.
- The area is densely populated and many domestic homes with windows looking out directly onto the streets surrounding the pavilion.
- 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
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?
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, what do you think?
I am not going to ramble on after this last sighting as the rest is all supposition and hearsay.
What does concern me is that this young woman simply vanished from the streets of a huge urban area and no one knows anything about it.
Many posters and banners have been put around the area since Leah’s disappearance but in more recent times there has been a spate of vandalism on them which is unexplained as nothing else in the area appears to have been harmed.
WHY WOULD ANYONE TRY TO DESTROY A MISSING PERSON POSTER?
To answer this question simply, someone does not want information getting out there that may help to find out what happened to Leah Croucher and it is my belief that if we find out who is responsible for the vandalism and wanton destruction of the missing persons posters and banners we may well have a link to a person or persons directly linked to the disappearance.
SOCIAL MEDIA MISFITS
Social media can be very useful in helping to locate missing persons and gather evidence but it can also be a problem when strangers come along claiming to be “in the know” yet when challenged they have nothing to offer or come up with silly excuses as to why they can’t share what they apparently know.
My personal appeal to you is: If you have GENUINE intelligence that could lead to finding Leah or indeed identifying those who may have been responsible for her disappearance then please get in touch with the police on 101 or in confidence via Crimestoppers.
DOCUMENTARY & RE-ENACTMENT
The next step is for a documentary and re-enactment to be made and we are hoping to use the great talents of our colleagues at Liquid Bullet Productionz, so if you have anything at all that will help with this please get in touch.
The Croucher family deserves closure on this case and to know what happened to their daughter so. . . .
- Stop chatting nonsense on social media unless you actually know what you are talking about
- Come forward and tell what you know and do not live in fear of being harmed by whoever is behind this
I will close by asking this: If this is a run of the mill missing persons case/run away, why was the case handed to the Major Crimes Unit just days after Leah Croucher went missing, and why have even they hit a wall of silence and have a three-year-old unsolved case on their files?
Think on that one and I will be back with more very soon. Here are a couple of pictures of Leah just to jog your memory
Thank you for your time. Please share this far and wide
