Whenever I see a case that's especially strange on Disappeared, I always end up looking it up on here, and I just saw Leah's. I think it's pretty likely she met w. foul play. i think it was a crime of opportunity for the purpose of sexual assault of some sort...it obviously wasn't robbery or her leaving on her own to disappear because the money wouldn't have been left. I've seen some really bizarre explanations for the circumstances of her disappearance on here that I just had to comment on (even though some of them were from quite a while ago and I don't expect a response)
1. Leaving her mother's ring behind: By all accounts, the ring had sentimental value and she never took it off, yet it was left behind. Two explanations I've seen was she took it off after the crash because her hand was swollen, or she had the ring off to take a shower and then hid it when a man (who i guess we are assuming to be the perp) offered to look at her car engine after she had trouble. both of these are ridiculous IMO- if she had gotten in an accident and her hand swelled, there is NO way she was taking that ring off, unless it was extremely loose. i'm allergic to mosquito bites, and when i get bit the area around the bite swells to larger than a half dollar- recently i was bit on my ring finger, and as soon as i noticed, i tried to take the ring off, and my finger had already become swollen enough that it was virtually unable to come off. i imagine swelling from an accident may even make it harder to take the ring off. the shower explanation makes no sense to me- so she took it off to take a shower, remembered to leave the hotel w. it, but didn't immediately put it back on, yet it was close enough to grab and hide when someone approached the car? makes no sense.
2. Speculation she was delivering a large amount of drugs cross country, then killed upon arrival: My problem isn't w. the delivering drugs cross country and ending up dead part...serious drug dealers aren't known for having a high regard for human life, and killing someone to avoid paying for the drugs would be exactly something they'd do. My problem is that this theory explains the tampering but ignores the other evidence, and seems to hinge a large part of the theory on the misspelling of Jack Kerouac in the note to her roommate...saying that the note was an explanation she was told to give to explain her month long absence, and if he was her favorite author, she'd know how to spell his last name. If you look at the note, she spelled Kerouac how it's pronounced, which is definitely believable- if she was leaving a note that a drug dealer demanded she leave and she'd never heard of the author, one would assume she'd look up the spelling. Not knowing how to spell his name (which is not the easiest to spell in the first place) doesn't mean anything other than she can't spell...my fiancé spelled my last name wrong for years after we started dating, even after i finally noticed and corrected him. my last name isn't the easiest to spell, and he made the same mistake leah did- spelled it exactly how you would assume to spell it after hearing the way it was pronounced. that being said, her family would have definitely known something was up if she had never mentioned kerouac to them prior to her disappearance. instead, they said she was interested on finding her spirituality, and spent her days in a coffeehouse writing poetry and journaling. i also find it unlikely she'd take her cat on a cross country drug deal. Also, the drug dealers would have certainly taken any valuables out of that car after the crash, that's a given. they just killed someone to avoid paying for drugs, yet failed to take the $2500 in the car? Not a chance, they'd have ransacked the vehicle for sure. She was definitely emulating kerouac's life, or trying to, i have no doubt about that
3. Disappearing in a state of fugue after the crash: there was no blood in the car, and from what i understand LE believe that car was tampered with. If she hit her head hard enough to give herself an injury so severe she'd have been in a state of fugue or amnesia to the point she could not remember anything about herself or where she was, there's no way there was no blood in that car somewhere- even if it was only a small amount. I find it extremely difficult to believe that she was in the car when it crashed.
What I believe happened is Leah took off cross country on a spiritual journey like Kerouac. She was probably naive and trusting, and never thought of the danger a woman would be putting herself traveling cross country alone and sleeping in her car. She probably thought nothing of what a vulnerable position she'd put herself in by telling strangers she was on a journey alone to find herself like Kerouac had been. She tells the wrong person and they target her because she's vulnerable. Clearly robbery wasn't a motive, so one would then assume the only other motive would be sexual assault. It clearly didn't happen in the car, so she was probably abducted, sexually assaulted, and then killed. The person who took her likely staged the accident. Sad case all around
