Found Deceased UK - Leah Croucher, 19, Emerson Valley, Milton Keynes, 14 Feb 2019 #5

[Woodburnbay]

No the Premier Inn is on Furzton Lake. If you are referring to the night she claimed to be at Jury’s Inn but wasn’t, that turned out to be the Travellodge at the bottom of the city centre

she could have been heading to the premier Inn though at Furzton on the morning she went missing.

 

[Woodburnbay]

I find this response from the police very interesting:

The officer in charge of the search, Chief Inspector Neil Kentish, said:

"Frankly, our officers who are investigating Leah's disappearance have never dealt with a case like this before. "

'It is extremely rare for someone to go missing without leaving a trace, but this is what has happened to Leah."

This came from the following MSM article:

Brother of missing Leah Croucher is accused of threatening a man the 23-year-old was dating | Daily Mail Online

Is it really that rare for someone to go missing without trace?

At this point in time, there are 3 "Missing without trace" within UK being dealt with by the following Police forces:

North Yorkshire-Claudia Lawrence
Sussex-Georgina Gharsallah
Buckinghamshire-Leah Croucher

All female.
There must be something to be learnt by all 3 forces working together.

 

[SaintGertrude]

The

I find this response from the police very interesting:

The officer in charge of the search, Chief Inspector Neil Kentish, said:

"Frankly, our officers who are investigating Leah's disappearance have never dealt with a case like this before. "

'It is extremely rare for someone to go missing without leaving a trace, but this is what has happened to Leah."

This came from the following MSM article:

Brother of missing Leah Croucher is accused of threatening a man the 23-year-old was dating | Daily Mail Online

Is it really that rare for someone to go missing without trace?

At this point in time, there are 3 "Missing without trace" within UK being dealt with by the following Police forces:

North Yorkshire-Claudia Lawrence
Sussex-Georgina Gharsallah
Buckinghamshire-Leah Croucher

All female.
There must be something to be learnt by all 3 forces working together.

Georgina Gharsallah who you mention also vanished in broad daylight and missed a planned appointment at the job centre. Her disappearance was changed to a homicide investigation. If Leah Croucher was completely out of character and there are suspicions surrounding the case then why is this not a homicide investigation.

 

[JuicyLucy]

Is it really that rare for someone to go missing without trace?

<snipped for focus>

As a proportion of the total number of missing episodes, yes.

There are over 350,000 missing episodes reported in the UK each year. On average someone is reported missing every 90 seconds.

Missing-without-trace cases may seem to be an appreciable fraction of the long-term missing cases we tend to focus on here, but long-term missing cases themselves represent only a very small fraction of the missing phenomenon.

Key information and statistics about missing - Missing People

 

[Woodburnbay]

As a proportion of the total number of missing episodes, yes.

There are over 350,000 missing episodes reported in the UK each year. On average someone is reported missing every 90 seconds.

Missing-without-trace cases may seem to be an appreciable fraction of the long-term missing cases we tend to focus on here, but long-term missing cases themselves represent only a very small fraction of the missing phenomenon.

Key information and statistics about missing - Missing People

Did she go missing because she was running away from Mr X who abused her

 

[Woodburnbay]

I may have mentioned this before but there has been very little mention as follows:

My understanding is that Leah was last seen by family members when she returned to her room on Valentines night and ordered herself a take away that she ate upstairs.

It was reported that the last time members of Leah's family was the evening of 14th February as they believe that she must have got up and left the house after they had left themselves on the morning of 15th February.

There are 2 scenarios that play in my mind that haven't been discussed:

1. That when the family went to bed on evening of 14th, Leah left the house and met up with someone, perhaps at a Hotel or somewhere else. The CCTV footage of her on 15th showed her coming from somewhere other than her home, on the way to work.

2. That any CCTV footage was actually from the morning of 13th of her going to work.

Can anyone provide some factual evidence that can dispel the above scenarios or perhaps support them?

 

[WiseOwl]

1. Leah lived in Quantock Crescent, her family said she often walked that way to work (via Buzzacott Lane).

2. The CCTV footage was time-stamped.

New video from police shows route Leah Croucher took to work in Milton Keynes before vanishing

 

[Woodburnbay]

1. Leah lived in Quantock Crescent, her family said she often walked that way to work (via Buzzacott Lane).

2. The CCTV footage was time-stamped.

New video from police shows route Leah Croucher took to work in Milton Keynes before vanishing

Thank you, but I have an issue with Time Stamping.

If you watch the cctv footage from the article you have just posted, Leah walks past the private CCTV camera at 10:03 on the 15th February ??????? Not the time reported of

Secondly, The article states that the Video starts with her clocking into work the day before she disappears, and the cctv footage start at a time of 08:16 on 15th February. The afternoon of the day she disappeared. This I believe was from another private camera separate from the one where she appears to walk slowly (CCTV footage slowed down).
Ok so the date may have been wrong by a day but the time is way out on one of the cameras.

I have attached screen shots from the Daily Mirror article having played the footage.

This is not the first case that I have investigated where time and date stamping have been quite dodgy or even in some cases changed or removed.

 

[BrianJohnson]

Thank you, but I have an issue with Time Stamping.

If you watch the cctv footage from the article you have just posted, Leah walks past the private CCTV camera at 10:03 on the 15th February ??????? Not the time reported of

Secondly, The article states that the Video starts with her clocking into work the day before she disappears, but why does the cctv footage start at a time of 16:54 on 15th February. The afternoon of the day she disappeared.
Ok so the date may have been wrong by a day but the time is way out.

I have attached screen shots from the Daily Mirror article having played the footage.

This is not the first case that I have investigated where time and date stamping have been quite dodgy or even in some cases changed or removed.

Are they even from the same day?

In pic 2 it has been snowing as you can see footprints in the snow, I was not aware it was snowing the day she went missing

 

[Woodburnbay]

Are they even from the same day?

In pic 2 it has been snowing as you can see footprints in the snow, I was not aware it was snowing the day she went missing

The dates and times are wrong IMO and I believe that it may not be snow but a heavy frost.

It was stated that Leah would leave home at c08:00. It is a 40 minute walk to work and she was captured on the private house cctv at 10:03 according to the timestamp. Police reported this time though at 08:16? Even accounting for clocks going back and forward this doesn't make sense.

Her home to the private cctv camera at Buzzacott lane is a 10 minute walk.

The clip at the very beginning of CCTV does not appear to come from either her home street or pace of work, that is the timestamped one.
The work cctv appears to start as she rushes into reception, not something she is doing on the morning of her disappearance.

Also, Im not convinced that the cctv footage of Leah in the morning is clear enough to identify Leah, the girl in this clip appears to be of a smaller frame. I have blown it up and attached.

 

[WiseOwl]

Thank you, but I have an issue with Time Stamping.

If you watch the cctv footage from the article you have just posted, Leah walks past the private CCTV camera at 10:03 on the 15th February ??????? Not the time reported of

Secondly, The article states that the Video starts with her clocking into work the day before she disappears, but why does the cctv footage start at a time of 16:54 on 15th February. The afternoon of the day she disappeared.
Ok so the date may have been wrong by a day but the time is way out.

I have attached screen shots from the Daily Mirror article having played the footage.

This is not the first case that I have investigated where time and date stamping have been quite dodgy or even in some cases changed or removed.

The TVP have said it was 8.16 am when Leah was seen on the CCTV footage in Buzzacott Lane.

If they or anyone else have changed the time or date on the footage then I have no idea why.

I know that time stamps can be notoriously incorrect, I remember the Soham murders where the time was incorrect on the footage of the two girls walking around the town.

 

[WiseOwl]

The dates and times are wrong IMO and I believe that it may not be snow but a heavy frost.

What time was it said that Leah left for home and started work and what time has it been stated that she was captured on this cctv?

The clip at the very beginning of CCTV does not appear to come from either her home street or pace of work, that is the timestamped one.
The work cctv appears to start as she rushes into reception, not something she is doing on the morning of her disappearance.

Also, Im not convinced that the cctv footage of Leah in the morning is clear enough to identify Leah, the girl in this clip appears to be of a smaller frame. I have blown it up and attached.

Yes it was reported to be a heavy frost on the morning of the 15th.

Her family said that she normally left for work around 8.00 am and I believe took around 45 - 50 minutes to walk to work.

The clocking in at work CCTV was said to be the day before Leah went missing, the 14 February. I don't know what time it was supposed to be although I would guess around 8.50 - 9.oo am?

 

[Woodburnbay]

Yes it was reported to be a heavy frost on the morning of the 15th.

Her family said that she normally left for work around 8.00 am and I believe took around 45 - 50 minutes to walk to work.

The clocking in at work CCTV was said to be the day before Leah went missing, the 14 February. I don't know what time it was supposed to be although I would guess around 8.50 - 9.oo am?

The proximity of a Premier Travel Inn to the offices Leah worked at would require her to almost pass the hotel.

I understand that Leah's workplace was an international Debt Management company and if some of her colleagues / senior managers had been visiting from overseas or other parts of UK, may they have stayed at this Hotel??
I'm sure that the police would look into visitors to her work offices.

Perhaps if a sleuth on here worked with Leah they may know of a visitor who may have either been for a while or during the period of her missing and her reported staying at the Travelodge hotel.

I attach a map of her route from Home to work and passing Buzzacott where she was sighted by cctv.

 

[JuicyLucy]

The film linked was intended as a memory-jogger. Whether it did a good job of that or not is debatable, but that doesn't make what it shows suspicious.

I think CCTV from private sources having the wrong timestamp is probably of no significance, as it would rely on the homeowners setting the time correctly in the first place and resetting it correctly after power cuts etc. People commonly don't do those things. I would think the time showing was cross-checked against the time showing on the device at the time the police acquired the recording. In any case there's a second image of her at that same location caught on a different camera from what may well be the same house or one very nearby (shown at the very beginning of that 8-minute film) that has the correct time.

I agree that the way the different pieces of footage of her are spliced together (private CCTV from that morning/workplace from the day before/private CCTV/general shots of places she apparently didn't get as far as) is a very confusing way of presenting things, but I don't see why that would arouse suspicion that the images were from a different day entirely.

JMO

 

[Woodburnbay]

The film linked was intended as a memory-jogger. Whether it did a good job of that or not is debatable, but that doesn't make what it shows suspicious.

I think CCTV from private sources having the wrong timestamp is probably of no significance, as it would rely on the homeowners setting the time correctly in the first place and resetting it correctly after power cuts etc. People commonly don't do those things. I would think the time showing was cross-checked against the time showing on the device at the time the police acquired the recording. In any case there's a second image of her at that same location caught on a different camera from what may well be the same house or one very nearby (shown at the very beginning of that 8-minute film) that has the correct time.

I agree that the way the different pieces of footage of her are spliced together (private CCTV from that morning/workplace from the day before/private CCTV/general shots of places she apparently didn't get as far as) is a very confusing way of presenting things, but I don't see why that would arouse suspicion that the images were from a different day entirely.

JMO

I just don't feel that the person in cctv footage on morning of 15th looks like Leah.

 

[lollipop63]

Are they even from the same day?

In pic 2 it has been snowing as you can see footprints in the snow, I was not aware it was snowing the day she went missing

I just checked the weather for 15/02/2019 around 8.00am and for Milton Keynes there was a chill,temperature was 3 degrees but no mention of heavy frost or snow.

 

[DeadStick]

Thank you post posting the route she would have taken this looks like the most plausible one. If that was Leah captured on the cctv, I had assumed this would have been confirmed to be her by her family for the police to release it or is that wrong to assume?I am still learning about Leah’s case I concur that the way it’s been put together does seem disjointed but maybe they had to because those snippets of footage was better than nothing at all?

The proximity of a Premier Travel Inn to the offices Leah worked at would require her to almost pass the hotel.

I understand that Leah's workplace was an international Debt Management company and if some of her colleagues / senior managers had been visiting from overseas or other parts of UK, may they have stayed at this Hotel??
I'm sure that the police would look into visitors to her work offices.

Perhaps if a sleuth on here worked with Leah they may know of a visitor who may have either been for a while or during the period of her missing and her reported staying at the Travelodge hotel.

I attach a map of her route from Home to work and passing Buzzacott where she was sighted by cctv.

 

[DeadStick]

All personal experiences are valid but very different. I walk around MK daily very very rarely do I see anyone hanging around at underpasses particularly during the day, just people using the redways to go about their business, I have never felt unsafe.

Lucky you!

 

[DeadStick]

This is fascinating so you think the cctv of her walking into work on the frosty morning at 8:16 may have been from another date that the 15th? It hadn’t occurred to me that’s she may not have travelled into work from her home if she had gone back out!!!Wherever she had gone on the evening of the 14th she can’t have eaten if she ordered herself a takeout after returning. Is the consensus on here that she had met up with AC that night before returning home?

I may have mentioned this before but there has been very little mention as follows:

My understanding is that Leah was last seen by family members when she returned to her room on Valentines night and ordered herself a take away that she ate upstairs.

It was reported that the last time members of Leah's family was the evening of 14th February as they believe that she must have got up and left the house after they had left themselves on the morning of 15th February.

There are 2 scenarios that play in my mind that haven't been discussed:

1. That when the family went to bed on evening of 14th, Leah left the house and met up with someone, perhaps at a Hotel or somewhere else. The CCTV footage of her on 15th showed her coming from somewhere other than her home, on the way to work.

2. That any CCTV footage was actually from the morning of 13th of her going to work.

Can anyone provide some factual evidence that can dispel the above scenarios or perhaps support them?

 

[Woodburnbay]

This is fascinating so you think the cctv of her walking into work on the frosty morning at 8:16 may have been from another date that the 15th? It hadn’t occurred to me that’s she may not have travelled into work from her home if she had gone back out!!!Wherever she had gone on the evening of the 14th she can’t have eaten if she ordered herself a takeout after returning. Is the consensus on here that she had met up with AC that night before returning home?

Perhaps she was supposed to meet Mr X for dinner on night of 14th but he couldn't make it as he had to be with his wife. She came home, hungry and had a takeaway.
As soon as family went to sleep she went out late at night to meet as perhaps arranged earlier that night but then was captured by relatives of Mr X or a hitman who had been paid to deal with what may be a family embarrassment for Mr X.