Found Deceased UK - Leah Croucher, 19, Emerson Valley, Milton Keynes, 14 Feb 2019 #4

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'It's time to stop protecting the person responsible,' says dad of missing Leah Croucher from Milton Keynes
In an anguished Father's Day plea, the dad of Leah Croucher is urging the person who knows what happened to his daughter to finally have the courage to speak out.

(Sorry, I can’t link the article in)
 
Frivolous said:
I have a few thoughts & ideas, some ideas have already been bought up, but I'd like to add to them and try to understand it from my viewpoint;

On Feb 14th, at around 5:45pm (following the timeline: Missing Leah Croucher, 19, was having affair with engaged man, family reveal | Daily Mail Online) the location setting was turned off. 15 minutes later, Leah returns home.

(According to the following article: Missing from Milton Keynes: Leah Croucher the timeline, everything we know so far) Her location settings has never been turned off before.

So from 5:45 on her way home, her location is switched off. Why? Is it ahead of plan for the 75 minutes where her whereabouts are unknown?

When she arrives home at 6, she leaves after telling her mum she's seeing a friend, which we later learn is a lie. At around 7:15, she returns home.

Not only does she lie about seeing her friends, hours before, her location has been switched off. Simply, this just looks like a well thought out plan IMO.

It's Valentines day, she's clearly not going out for dinner or anything as her choice of clothing on that evening was tracksuit bottoms and a long sleeved top. Choice of clothing just looks like a quick talk somewhere outside or in a car.

She leaves the house on foot. 75 minutes is a long time. I think it would be safe to assume she later went in a car.

I get the impression X called the shots of a while ago. By that, I mean he ended any possible relationships with her.

This is where it gets tricky.

Feb 3rd. Leah books a room at Travelodge. Sexual encounter? Or somewhere to talk? She tells her parents she was going to book a hotel room and have a girlie night with two female friends, drinking alcohol and gossiping, which again we learn is a lie.

Summer 2018, she meets X. She sees him evenings, paying 13 quid to go see him. With that, I get the impression she's smitten with him. But I would assume he would at least pay. Maybe he did, and gave her the money beforehand. How far does 13 quid get you from Milton Keynes via a taxi?

I've vaguely worked out that from Milton Keynes to Wolverton the price is around 12 quid via taxi. Could be entirely unreliable (prices may have changed etc,).

If Leah switches off her Location for her 75 minute encounter hours before in advance, it can only be assumed that she knows what she was doing, which points to the fact that she did not want anyone to know about it. Her intention was to return home after that period of time, which she did.

On both Feb 3rd and Feb 14th she tells her parents she's seeing friends. If Leah voluntarily went missing, then that's rather sloppy. She must know that they would be questioned and it would be revealed she wasn't with them. But these two separate occasions where its thought that she went to see X just show that her intentions were to come back home, which she did. Using her friends as a cover-up to her parents show that they did not think much of him and quite frankly she did not want anyone to find out what she was doing and who she was with.
But I would think that she would tell her friends in advance that she was going out to see someone. If you're using someone to cover you, then you would tell them so they're aware if her parents ask. Leah doesn't do this, which makes me believe she wasn't close with her friends to the extent she could share these things. Perhaps she was and this information hasn't been released.

But the phone location is the thing that confuses me. At 5:45 on her way home it's turned off, 6 she arrives home, she leaves almost immediately after. Simplicity is important, reinstating, it looks thought out, the clear message being, no-one should know where you were from 6 to 7:15. And it worked, we don't know where she was for that time frame.
Did she turn it off herself, or was she told to turn it off ahead of the meeting? If so in both matters, why? There is secrecy, because she does return home, she doesn't go missing then, she goes missing the next day.

Feb 15th, 8am she leaves for work like any other day. She take a small black rucksack. Change of clothes?
8:13am she's seen on CCTV walking along Buzzacott Lane in Furzton. That was the last confirmed sighting of Leah.
8:34am her phone is switched off.
21 minutes since she's seen on CCTV, 34 minutes since she leaves home.

Buzzacott Lane is quite a secluded area with several houses everywhere and no CCTV in sight.

"9.30am - 11.15am: Three different witnesses report seeing a girl matching Leah's description walking by Furzton Lake. She was looking 'visibly upset' and crying while talking on the phone. Police have never been able to say definitely that this was Leah."
Outline - Read & annotate without distractions

Buzzacott Lane to around Furzton Lake is 20 minutes by foot. Her last confirmed sighting is on a CCTV at 8:13am.

If we assume that it is Leah, with a 20 minutes time frame to get from last location to the lake would mean that she left wherever she was at around 9am.

Which brings another question, where was Leah from 8:13am to 9am?

9:30 -11:15 again is quite a long time to be walking around a lake seen on a phone by 3 different people. It's clear witness 1 saw her around 9:30, and witness 3 around 11:15, witness 2 saw her somewhere in between.
Furzton Lake is actually quite secluded, quite a narrow walking path. She was waiting for someone here, did they cancel last minute? Might explain the crying and being upset.

So where to from Furzton Lake?

She was involved with X since the Summer of 2018, he was an engaged man.
How naive was Leah?

Supposing AC is X, Leah's brother makes quite a bold statement;
"Was suppose to have court today as I’m attacking Leah’s ex-boyfriend, 27-years-old, married and Muslimwho in our opinion groomed and mistreated her he had mk finest in his name, he *advertiser censored**ed with the wrong people.”
Missing Leah Croucher's brother warned over threats to her married boyfriend after blaming him for her disappearance
Groomed and mistreated is quite a heavy statement to make. Was Leah really that naive or was her brother just exaggerating?

If he did groom her, location services turned off, journeys to him, hotels, hush meetings make sense.
But I find it hard to understand, Leah is 19, despite the books she read and how she's been portrayed by the media, surely she would of differentiated love/grooming/sexually objectified.

If Leah was pregnant, the meeting on Feb 14th could of been the perfect day to let X know. Does he act like its great news and he can't wait?
The following day she's missing. Has X put on a front and got rid of her? The idea of having a baby whilst being married, perhaps also cultural views is utterly horrific in his eyes. Honour killing, therefore more people would of been involved?
But she's crying and upset when being spotted on CCTV by witnesses. Why? is she perhaps talking to X's wife or X himself who suddenly realises in presence of his wife that she must leave him alone. An act again?
What about the phone? Did X give her another phone to contact him on. Untraceable? No evidence of communicating with each other?

It's been a year since she met X, actually being more specific summer of 2018 right up to Feb 2019 is 9 months, why wait that long? She knew he was married, engaged from the get go of meeting him. If anything she found out, or he made it clear. So what was the problem? Did the wife find out? Did Leah threaten to expose him? She has the upper hand if his wife was unaware of his 'affair'. Was he intimidated by this and decided to rid her?

But in both cases, X knew what he was up against. Surely knew that Leah would know that he has a wife, Leah vice versa. Was pregnancy the pushing point?


Or did she find out something else entirely?
Click to expand...


Only just noticed we have a new thread for Leah, so apologies am catching up now.

Just wanted to add a few notes to the above.

Leah's location settings were turned off at 5.20pm, not 5.45pm. So this was on her way home from work and she was in the area of Furzton Lake at that time, dependent on the route she chose to walk home.

5.45pm is the time she arrived home.

The travelodge booking is another date issue. The police have said, many times, that Leah booked the room for the night of February 3 and have asked people to try and remember anything, if they were in the area of central MK on that date.
However, we have also been told, by her parents, that Leah stayed at the hotel on the Saturday night. That would have been February 2.

I find it so annoying ( not you, the reports ! ) that this anomaly has still not been corrected in any reports and I worry that there may be people looking at the date and saying, nope I wasn't out on that Sunday night, when the reality is that it was the Saturday night that matters.

Walking from Buzzcott Lane to Furzton Lake is about 25 minutes, if going as far as the hotel. I can't remember exactly now, will be in the notes somewhere, which house it was that had the cctv, but my vague memory says it was close to the top of Buzzcott.
So, if there was no other diversion from the route, then Leah would arrive at the hotel about 8.40 am.
If there was a meeting arranged, then the person might have said they would be there at 9am - but then didn't turn up on time.
So the 9am to 11.15am timeline, although it seems like a long time, could be covered by;
Leah arrives 8.40am - sits and waits for the person/s to turn up. There is no cctv at the lake other than the immediate vicinity of the hotel and car park and if there was no one else at the lake on a cold February morning, then no way of knowing whether she was there or not at that time.
By- say - 9.15am/9.30am she is getting agitated, as the person/s has not turned up. At this point she might begin to walk round the lake and this is when we have the sightings by the witnesses and the phone call or calls and her looking distressed.
If the person is telling her that they will get there as soon as possible, then it would make sense to me that she is going to wait, even if it is taking longer than she anticipated. That last witness statement/timing did say she looked calmer, so possibly by that point the person had said they were on their way.

There are a few parking areas around the lake which again are not covered by any cctv, so would have been easy enough for her to walk to one of those and leave in a car.
All the above of course is presuming that Leah was the girl at the lake. My belief is that she was, but we don't know for sure.

If the X you are referring to is the same person that Haydon mentioned in his court case, there is no information that tells us he was engaged in summer 2018 when Leah began working at the same Company.
From everything that has been said, she does seem to be quite a young 19, not too experienced in certain aspects of life and I find it very plausible that an older man could take advantage and string her along.
 
Alyce said:
Only just noticed we have a new thread for Leah, so apologies am catching up now.

Just wanted to add a few notes to the above.

Leah's location settings were turned off at 5.20pm, not 5.45pm. So this was on her way home from work and she was in the area of Furzton Lake at that time, dependent on the route she chose to walk home.

5.45pm is the time she arrived home.

The travelodge booking is another date issue. The police have said, many times, that Leah booked the room for the night of February 3 and have asked people to try and remember anything, if they were in the area of central MK on that date.
However, we have also been told, by her parents, that Leah stayed at the hotel on the Saturday night. That would have been February 2.

I find it so annoying ( not you, the reports ! ) that this anomaly has still not been corrected in any reports and I worry that there may be people looking at the date and saying, nope I wasn't out on that Sunday night, when the reality is that it was the Saturday night that matters.

Walking from Buzzcott Lane to Furzton Lake is about 25 minutes, if going as far as the hotel. I can't remember exactly now, will be in the notes somewhere, which house it was that had the cctv, but my vague memory says it was close to the top of Buzzcott.
So, if there was no other diversion from the route, then Leah would arrive at the hotel about 8.40 am.
If there was a meeting arranged, then the person might have said they would be there at 9am - but then didn't turn up on time.
So the 9am to 11.15am timeline, although it seems like a long time, could be covered by;
Leah arrives 8.40am - sits and waits for the person/s to turn up. There is no cctv at the lake other than the immediate vicinity of the hotel and car park and if there was no one else at the lake on a cold February morning, then no way of knowing whether she was there or not at that time.
By- say - 9.15am/9.30am she is getting agitated, as the person/s has not turned up. At this point she might begin to walk round the lake and this is when we have the sightings by the witnesses and the phone call or calls and her looking distressed.
If the person is telling her that they will get there as soon as possible, then it would make sense to me that she is going to wait, even if it is taking longer than she anticipated. That last witness statement/timing did say she looked calmer, so possibly by that point the person had said they were on their way.

There are a few parking areas around the lake which again are not covered by any cctv, so would have been easy enough for her to walk to one of those and leave in a car.
All the above of course is presuming that Leah was the girl at the lake. My belief is that she was, but we don't know for sure.

If the X you are referring to is the same person that Haydon mentioned in his court case, there is no information that tells us he was engaged in summer 2018 when Leah began working at the same Company.
From everything that has been said, she does seem to be quite a young 19, not too experienced in certain aspects of life and I find it very plausible that an older man could take advantage and string her along.
Click to expand...

It's frustrating that the information regarding times are all over the place, it makes it harder to follow a timeline.

The 9-11:15 am timeline you mention above is definitely possible. I really do wonder if she actually ended up going to work that day, or if she called off ahead of that day to say she wouldn't be coming in.
 
Frivolous said:
I really do wonder if she actually ended up going to work that day, or if she called off ahead of that day to say she wouldn't be coming in.
Click to expand...

It was reported that Leah didn't arrive at work. That pic of her in the entrance the previous day I wonder if she had to swipe in for security or as an electronic timecard. And IIRC didn't her parents get a call from work to say Leah hadn't been in?
 
Alyce said:
Only just noticed we have a new thread for Leah, so apologies am catching up now.

Just wanted to add a few notes to the above.

Leah's location settings were turned off at 5.20pm, not 5.45pm. So this was on her way home from work and she was in the area of Furzton Lake at that time, dependent on the route she chose to walk home.

5.45pm is the time she arrived home.

The travelodge booking is another date issue. The police have said, many times, that Leah booked the room for the night of February 3 and have asked people to try and remember anything, if they were in the area of central MK on that date.
However, we have also been told, by her parents, that Leah stayed at the hotel on the Saturday night. That would have been February 2.

I find it so annoying ( not you, the reports ! ) that this anomaly has still not been corrected in any reports and I worry that there may be people looking at the date and saying, nope I wasn't out on that Sunday night, when the reality is that it was the Saturday night that matters.

Walking from Buzzcott Lane to Furzton Lake is about 25 minutes, if going as far as the hotel. I can't remember exactly now, will be in the notes somewhere, which house it was that had the cctv, but my vague memory says it was close to the top of Buzzcott.
So, if there was no other diversion from the route, then Leah would arrive at the hotel about 8.40 am.
If there was a meeting arranged, then the person might have said they would be there at 9am - but then didn't turn up on time.
So the 9am to 11.15am timeline, although it seems like a long time, could be covered by;
Leah arrives 8.40am - sits and waits for the person/s to turn up. There is no cctv at the lake other than the immediate vicinity of the hotel and car park and if there was no one else at the lake on a cold February morning, then no way of knowing whether she was there or not at that time.
By- say - 9.15am/9.30am she is getting agitated, as the person/s has not turned up. At this point she might begin to walk round the lake and this is when we have the sightings by the witnesses and the phone call or calls and her looking distressed.
If the person is telling her that they will get there as soon as possible, then it would make sense to me that she is going to wait, even if it is taking longer than she anticipated. That last witness statement/timing did say she looked calmer, so possibly by that point the person had said they were on their way.

There are a few parking areas around the lake which again are not covered by any cctv, so would have been easy enough for her to walk to one of those and leave in a car.
All the above of course is presuming that Leah was the girl at the lake. My belief is that she was, but we don't know for sure.

If the X you are referring to is the same person that Haydon mentioned in his court case, there is no information that tells us he was engaged in summer 2018 when Leah began working at the same Company.
From everything that has been said, she does seem to be quite a young 19, not too experienced in certain aspects of life and I find it very plausible that an older man could take advantage and string her along.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing this up. Very good points too
 
July 15 2020
Could a 'lying boyfriend' know what happened to Leah Croucher from Milton Keynes?
''John Croucher describes the past 17 months as "torturous" and is more determined than ever to discover what has happened to Leah.

He is convinced Leah did not vanish unaided or deliberately as she walked to work on the morning of February 15 2019.

And he has previously revealed his suspicion that Leah, who was 19 when she went missing, had been romantically but secretly involved with an older man''.

''He said today: "If you are reading this and you know where Leah is, call 101 or Crimestoppers. Let us have our daughter back. Collect your reward. Give us peace. Stop protecting a lying boyfriend. Give us closure."

''Leah's family is asking that people share this story as far and wide as they can. If anybody sees Leah, they should call 101 immediately, asking for Thames Valley Police and quoting reference 43190049929.''
 
dotr said:
July 15 2020
Could a 'lying boyfriend' know what happened to Leah Croucher from Milton Keynes?
''John Croucher describes the past 17 months as "torturous" and is more determined than ever to discover what has happened to Leah.

And he has previously revealed his suspicion that Leah, who was 19 when she went missing, had been romantically but secretly involved with an older man''.
Click to expand...

So Leah's mum says "She was talking about this man all the time. It was X this and X that. It was obvious she had a soft spot for him."

Leah Croucher was having secret romance with 'married' man in Milton Keynes before she vanished, say parents

So if X wasn't a secret, who is John referring to?
 
Miss_French said:
So Leah's mum says "She was talking about this man all the time. It was X this and X that. It was obvious she had a soft spot for him."

Leah Croucher was having secret romance with 'married' man in Milton Keynes before she vanished, say parents

So if X wasn't a secret, who is John referring to?
Click to expand...
I think it is X personally. Hypothetically, if you had split up but got back together on the quiet, knowing your family wouldnt be best pleased - that kind of scenario.

JMO
 
Agree with the above - there is only one person that Leah's family are referring to.

The secret element I think refers to the fact that she was not open - at least to her parents and family - about her actual relationship with him. So she may indeed have been talking about him frequently, but perhaps did not reveal his name, or she may have mentioned his name but implied that he was just a good friend - or possibly even a work colleague.
We know that she never told her parents when she went out to see him socially and she lied about meeting him at the hotel on February 2, saying she was spending the evening with girlfriends. I think her parents, or at least CC, were able to read between the lines and probably realised this person was more than just a colleague/mate. But Leah was 19, not a child, so if she chose not to be more open about her boyfriend, then I expect her parents respected this decision.
I think the choice of wording used by Haydon - grooming - was quite apt. She was not a minor being groomed for sex with older men, but she was a young-ish 19 year old being influenced by her older boyfriend into keeping their relationship a secret.
 
Alyce said:
Agree with the above - there is only one person that Leah's family are referring to.

The secret element I think refers to the fact that she was not open - at least to her parents and family - about her actual relationship with him. So she may indeed have been talking about him frequently, but perhaps did not reveal his name, or she may have mentioned his name but implied that he was just a good friend - or possibly even a work colleague.
We know that she never told her parents when she went out to see him socially and she lied about meeting him at the hotel on February 2, saying she was spending the evening with girlfriends. I think her parents, or at least CC, were able to read between the lines and probably realised this person was more than just a colleague/mate. But Leah was 19, not a child, so if she chose not to be more open about her boyfriend, then I expect her parents respected this decision.
I think the choice of wording used by Haydon - grooming - was quite apt. She was not a minor being groomed for sex with older men, but she was a young-ish 19 year old being influenced by her older boyfriend into keeping their relationship a secret.
Click to expand...

IMO you are spot-on @Alyce
 
Hi all,

I’m new to the board and the site (long time lurker)

I agree with jenesaisquoi, I can’t think of an alternative explanation other than X’s involvement.

I’m local to the area so have followed this very closely. The whispers I’ve heard locally are that X or a family member/close friend had something to do with her disappearance and they are also the same that have provided an alibi (sorry if this is already knowledge to the board, there’s a lot of posts!)
The discussion about Leah being pregnant is also something I’ve heard more than once from more than one person - as someone has previously said, news like this would blow someone’s world wide open, especially if that someone was supposed to be marrying someone else.

I hope that we get some leads and answers soon. I think of her family often and can’t even imagine how desperate they must be feeling.
 
Bexicle said:
Hi all,

I’m new to the board and the site (long time lurker)

I agree with jenesaisquoi, I can’t think of an alternative explanation other than X’s involvement.

I’m local to the area so have followed this very closely. The whispers I’ve heard locally are that X or a family member/close friend had something to do with her disappearance and they are also the same that have provided an alibi (sorry if this is already knowledge to the board, there’s a lot of posts!)
The discussion about Leah being pregnant is also something I’ve heard more than once from more than one person - as someone has previously said, news like this would blow someone’s world wide open, especially if that someone was supposed to be marrying someone else.

I hope that we get some leads and answers soon. I think of her family often and can’t even imagine how desperate they must be feeling.
Click to expand...
Welcome to Ws Bexicle, it is always great to get perspective from someone local!
 
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