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BRIEFS Newspaper March 20, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Staff | Page: 3A | Section: Local 94 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1040, grade level(s): 6 7 8

Sheriff's Office seeks car owner The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office is seeking information about the whereabouts of a car's owner after finding the vehicle, but no one in it, off Mount Baker Highway on Saturday. The car obviously had been in an accident, but no one reported seeing the accident or any sign of people near the car, officials said. The ed owner is Leah T. Roberts, 23. Authorities hope anyone with ideas about Roberts' whereabouts will call 911. "We are unaware of both her location or her condition," said Sgt. Scott Rossmiller.

Missing woman's relatives arrive to help Newspaper March 22, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Kari Thorene | Page: 3A | Section: Local 292 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1150, grade level(s): 9 10 11-12

BY KARI THORENE THE BELLINGHAM HERALD The brother and sister of a missing North Carolina woman flew into Bellingham Tuesday to assist Whatcom County sheriff's deputies with their investigation. Leah T. Roberts, 23, is still missing after her 1993 white Jeep Cherokee was found wrecked on an abandoned logging road near Mount Baker Highway Saturday. Roberts left her Raleigh, N.C., home March 9 for a crosscountry road trip. "It doesn't surprise me that she would go off and try to find herself," said her brother, Heath Ro-berts, 30. "I was concern-ed about her, but I wasn't very worried until we got the phone call that they had found her car." Leah Roberts dropped out of North Carolina State University just weeks before her road trip, Heath Roberts said. She would have finished her Spanish and anthropology degrees in May. "I think there are two things," he said about his sister's decision to drop out in February. "Finding herself and doing something creative were more important than going off and ing working society." But, he added, that's only his perception.

Leah Roberts did not call her brother or sister, Kara Roberts, before she left. They found out about her trip from friends. Heath Roberts said his sister likes talking to people and recently started taking guitar lessons. She is described as white, 5-feet-3, 135 pounds with short dark hair with a hint of blonde. She has a beauty mark above the right side of her lips and may be traveling with a kitten named "Bea." Family and friends say Leah Roberts frequents coffeehouses, is vegetarian and likes live music. She has a strong Southern drawl, smokes cigarettes and is fluent in Spanish.

Have you seen Leah Roberts? Newspaper March 23, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Mark Porter | Page: 1A | Section: Local 980 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1230, grade level(s): 11-12

PEOPLE: Missing woman apparently was at Bellis Fair mall. BY MARK PORTER THE BELLINGHAM HERALD Detectives are asking the public's help to piece together information about a North Carolina woman whose Jeep

was found Saturday wrecked and abandoned east of Glacier. The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office is distributing an informational flier and picture of Leah T. Roberts, 23, who is still missing after leaving her Raleigh, N.C., home on March 9 for a cross-country road trip. Four days and 2,500 highway miles later, a ticket stub found in her 1993 Jeep Cherokee shows Roberts apparently attended the 2:10 p.m. showing on March 13 of the Oscar-nominated film "American Beauty" at Bellis Fair mall. Then last Saturday - five days later - a Whatcom County man and his girlfriend discovered Roberts' Jeep down an embankment on the remote Canyon Creek Road off Mount Baker Highway. While investigators are still classifying Roberts' disappearance as a missing persons case, the nearly weeklong gap of information is of concern, said Whatcom County Sheriff's Office Detective Sgt. Kevin McFadden. "It (foul play) is always in the back of our mind," McFadden said. Roberts' credit card records show purchases in Texas, Albuquerque, N.M., and then Oregon, where she apparently last used the card in the early hours of March 13 in Brooks, Ore., just north of Salem, McFadden said.

He said the Jeep obviously had been in an accident, but no one reported seeing the accident or any sign of people near the vehicle. Several windows had been smashed, and someone used blankets to cover them. There were bags with personal items strewn outside the Jeep, including a guitar, checkbook, Roberts' port, compact discs and other personal belongings. There have been no attempts by Roberts to locate the Jeep or belongings, which were impounded by authorities after Saturday's discovery, McFadden said. No one has called law enforcement, and Roberts hasn't walked into a hospital or care clinic with medical needs, he added. There was no sign of blood or a struggle at the scene, he said. Lionel "Link" Paquet, a Bellingham man who owns a chalet near Glacier, said he and his girlfriend were jogging up Canyon Creek Road Saturday afternoon at about 1 p.m. when he saw a dark piece of cloth on the left side of the road suspended from a twig about a foot off the ground. There was another piece of clothing under it - possibly a coat dampened by rain - and Paquet decided to stop and check it out. He saw the Jeep down an embankment, and the pair went down to investigate. "The car was sitting parallel to the road and it was upright," Paquet said. "But stuff was strewn all over the place, mostly clothes."

"I was expecting to see something worse, because the windows were a bit dark. There wasn't anyone in there, but there were a lot of clothes in there as well as hampers and baskets." The couple yelled out for a while, but no one returned their calls, he said. Outside the Jeep, Paquet and his girlfriend found personal items, including a checkbook belonging to Roberts and her port. They also found the movie ticket stub in an ornate wooden box with a crocodile on it, still inside the Jeep, he said. They then left the scene and immediately called authorities, he said. The missing persons probe is a t investigation of the Sheriff's Office and the FBI, which has jurisdiction on federal land. The Jeep was found on U.S. Forest Service land. The responding deputy did a 200-yard perimeter search on Saturday, and Sheriff's Office Deputy Mark Joseph and FBI agent Chris McMurray did a more extensive search of the area earlier this week, McFadden said. There are a lot of downed trees and debris at the accident site, making movement difficult, he said. Since the Jeep wasn't too far from the paved road, investigators believe Roberts would have gone back up to the roadway instead of trying to traverse through thick brambles.

Her brother, Heath Roberts, and sister, Kara Roberts, flew to Bellingham Tuesday to help deputies. They said Leah Roberts didn't tell either one about her trip before she left. They found out about the trip by word of mouth from friends. Roberts told a roommate in a scribbled note not to worry about her. She also mentioned beat author Jack Kerouac's landmark 1957 book "On the Road" in reference to her trip. "No, I'm not suicidal. I am the opposite. Jack Kerouac?" Heath Roberts characterized his missing sister as "very easy-going." He doesn't believe she had any conflicts with anybody. There is no indication she left with anybody from Raleigh, he said. Leah Roberts dropped out of North Carolina State University just weeks before her road trip she would have finished her Spanish and anthropology degrees in May. She has a couple of very close friends, and always kept in with them and her family, especially with her sister, Heath Roberts said. Their mother died about three years ago, he said, and their father died last April. Both siblings went to the accident scene on Wednesday to get a mental picture of the scene. "I wouldn't say that taking a trip to get life experiences would not be like her," he said. "But we were a little

surprised when she left without communicating to anyone." Leah Roberts is described as white, 5-feet-3, 135 pounds with short dark hair with a hint of blonde. She has a beauty mark above the right side of her lips. She might be traveling with a blonde kitten named "Bea." Family and friends say Leah Roberts frequents coffeehouses, is vegetarian and likes live music. She has a strong Southern drawl, smokes cigarettes and is fluent in Spanish. In addition to the flier, detectives also are working with friends and relatives in North Carolina, McFadden said. "We're also trying to determine what she did prior to leaving North Carolina, and why she said she wanted to explore and find herself - and then just zipped across the country in four days," McFadden said.

Trip no surprise to family, friends Newspaper March 25, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Kari Thorene | Page: 1A | Section: Local 790 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1140, grade level(s): 9 10 11-12

BY KARI THORENE THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

With little notice, Leah Roberts, 23, hopped into her 1993 Jeep Cherokee and drove from her Raleigh, N. C., home to Bellingham between March 9 and 13. Most of her friends didn't think twice about her spontaneous trip until Whatcom County Sheriff's Deputies called with news that her Jeep had been found, totalled, off a logging road near Mount Baker Highway. Her family thought the road trip was one more attempt by Roberts to find herself. The North Carolina State University senior, who grew up in the town of Durham about 15 miles from her college, had been soul-searching for a while. Her parents both died in the last three years, with the father dying last April. "We've had a hard couple of years and it was just time to reflect on stuff and see where she was going to move from here. It's a little unusual to be - she was 22 with no parents," said older sister Kara Roberts. Leah Roberts withdrew from her classes at North Carolina State University after her father checked into a hospital in March, Kara Roberts said. "She didn't have any direction" after his death, Kara Roberts said. "I think she's been like that a lot, especially now." Finding some direction and meaning has been priority No. 1 for Leah Roberts, who started writing poetry and taking guitar lessons earlier this year.

When she dropped out of school, only three months before she would graduate with degrees in Spanish and anthropology, her brother, Heath Roberts, said the decision reflected her desire for more varied life experiences. Since her withdrawal from the university last March, Leah Roberts had been trying to catch up and finish her degree. But she struggled, Kara Roberts said, even though her Spanish was "amazing." To prepare for her plunge back into academia, Leah Roberts spent last summer beefing up on her two majors: studying anthropology in Costa Rica, where she could practice her Spanish. After the class was over, Leah Roberts opted to stay behind while the other students returned to the states, Kara Roberts said. She wanted to soak up the language from native speakers. Decisions like that, along with a previous semester spent studying in Spain and frequent trips with friends, earned Leah Roberts the reputation as an independent, welltraveled and spur-of-the-moment "free spirit." Renee Bollten, a college friend of Leah Roberts, said the 23-year-old travels so often that the seemingly impulsive nature and long distance of the Washington trip did not surprise her.

"Not a single one of her friends raised an eyebrow about her taking a road trip," Bollten said. Bollten said small groups of their large network of friends customarily pick up and go on road trips together. The last time she and Leah Roberts took a trip was to Atlanta for New Year's Eve, 1998. Kara Roberts said she talked on the telephone with her sister the day she left for Washington. "There was no indication (that she was planning a road trip)," Kara Roberts said. "In fact, she said maybe we could do something if I was around for the weekend and she had plans with her roommate to do something on the following day," Kara Roberts said. Even so, Kara Roberts said she found nothing startling about her sister's abrupt departure. She chalked it up to a desire for privacy. To her, a letter written by her sister and left for her roommate, Nicole Greene, confirmed the privacy theory. "She wanted to get away for awhile without having to explain it to anybody and that she didn't want us to worry. She implied that she would be back in the next month she left enough money" for only one month's worth of bills, Kara Roberts said. "That accident threw a crimp in her plans.

"The scary part is, you just don't know what she's thinking," she said. "Since she didn't us before, I think she just wants to be a little out on her own." Roberts letter to roommate Here's the text of a letter left by Leah Roberts for her roommate: March 9, 2000 Nicole This is to cover bills for while I am gone. everyone is together in thoughts and prayers and time es quickly. Have faith in me, yourself. Help Shep with Easter at Latta House for fun for the children. Give Peter my laptop. Give everyone my love. See you soon. Tell Kara don't worry (even though she will) Leah Cookies in the freezer. (Circled and in large letters) April 23 "On the Road" No, I'm not suicidal. I'm the opposite. jack Kerouac?

(Boxed in small letters) Tell Nikki I meant to come but I had no choice. She'll understand. (Boxed in small letters) Tell Melissa she should come stay in my room if she wants to come to Raleigh.

Clues elusive for missing N.C. woman Newspaper March 25, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Kari Thorene | Page: 1A | Section: Local 742 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1250, grade level(s): 11-12

ACCIDENT: Cell phone records, camera fail to produce any answers. BY KARI THORENE THE BELLINGHAM HERALD The search for a missing North Carolina resident off the Mount Baker Highway is plugging along, despite numerous unanswered questions. Leah Roberts, 23, is the ed owner of a white Jeep Cherokee that was found wrecked off an abandoned logging road near Mount Baker Highway last Saturday. Roberts' belongings were strewn outside the vehicle and inside, but minus a March 13 movie ticket stub from Bellis Fair mall, there was no indication of her whereabouts.

On Friday morning, Whatcom County Sheriff's deputies borrowed an airplane from the Border Patrol to scour the Canyon Creek Road area from above. After an hour of flying over the area between Mount Baker Highway and a mile north of the accident site, investigators returned empty-handed. From this point, Deputy Mark Joseph said he will investigate leads called in to the sheriff's office by people who say they recognize Roberts from flyers. "We've been getting some calls from people who say she looks like someone they may have seen," Joseph said. Some of those reports are from Bellis Fair Mall employees. Deputies found a movie ticket in Roberts' Jeep from the mall's theater, dated March 13. In the small town of Glacier, near the place Roberts' Jeep was found, the missing woman is a topic of daily conversation. But no one has said they seeing her. "It's just really strange," said Marcella Dobis, who works at the Mount Baker Snowboard Shop. "I have been here (in the store) for the last 10 days or so and I haven't seen or heard anything suspicious." Jonelle Morrison, clerk at Graham's Store, the general store in Glacier, agreed. "I haven't talked to anyone around here who's seen her. It's not a very big town and you notice people."

Last Wednesday, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office sent two search and rescue teams to the accident site. "They didn't have any indication that she went further into the wood line than the vehicle," Joseph said. "Whoever left the vehicle walked back toward the road where the vehicle went in, and from there, there was no indication" of which way they went. One of the many unanswered questions in the investigation is why Roberts drove so fast - covering the South and West in four days - to get to Mount Baker. Joseph said detectives are starting to look at the works of Jack Kerouac for possible answers. Roberts, described by her friends as a poetry lover and frequent traveler, referenced Kerouac's landmark 1957 book "On the Road" in a letter written to her roommate on March 9. The letter is the only information found so far about her plans. Kerouac followed "On the Road," a book about his travels back and forth across the country, with two books that mention Whatcom County. "Dharma Bums" and "Desolation Angels" both referenced the area and Kerouac's 1956 summer at Desolation Peak in the north Cascades. Joseph said he is trying to find out if Kerouac mentioned specific places in Whatcom County or dates, in hopes of deciphering the clue left in Roberts' letter.

In the meantime, investigators are trying to cobble together a clearer picture of Roberts' travels from North Carolina to Mount Baker. Through credit card records, investigators pinpointed Roberts' last gas purchase in Brooks, Ore., just north of Salem. They are waiting for surveillance video from the station. "We just want to see if she had anyone with her," Joseph said. "Not only did she not say if she was going with anyone, she did not say that she was coming at all." Other leads that suggested information about her route or possible travel companions turned up fruitless. Deputies did not find Roberts' cellular phone in the vehicle or at the site of the accident, and Sprint records show no calls since she left North Carolina. "We are not sure that she even brought it," Joseph said. The last two calls Roberts made on the phone were not to this area, he said. The next lead for detectives was a camera found near the Jeep with undeveloped film. While some hoped the film would paint some kind of picture of the days leading up to the accident on Canyon Creek Road, Joseph said the results fell short. "We developed the film and her brother and sister both looked at it. These were pictures taken last winter," Joseph

said. "There doesn't appear to be any photos taken since she left."

BRIEFS Newspaper March 28, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Staff | Page: 3A | Section: Local 361 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1300, grade level(s): 11-12

Search widens for Roberts The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office has issued a multistate bulletin about the disappearance of Leah Roberts, a North Carolina woman whose Jeep Cherokee was found wrecked off an abandoned logging road near Mount Baker Highway March 18. The Sheriff's Office is issuing an advisory message to law enforcement agencies in Washington and Oregon about the case, said Detective Sgt. Kevin McFadden. The agencies also can a photo of Roberts that will be put on the Sheriff's Office's Web site, he said. Detectives received one anonymous tip from a caller who claimed to have talked to a woman fitting Roberts' general description in Everett, McFadden said. The caller, who didn't leave a name or number, said the woman claimed she didn't know where she lived, he said. Roberts is described as white, 5 feet 3 inches tall, 135 pounds, with short dark hair with a hint of blond.

Family offers $5,000 reward Newspaper April 5, 2000 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Staff | Page: 3A | Section: Local 173 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1260, grade level(s): 11-12

THE BELLINGHAM HERALD The family of missing North Carolina woman Leah Roberts is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts or, in the event of foul play, for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. Roberts' white Jeep Cherokee was found rolled off of an abandoned logging road near Mount Baker Highway March 18. The 23-year-old left a note to her roommate in Raleigh, N.C., on March 9 saying she was going on a crosscountry road trip she did not mention a destination or any specific plans. Saturday, Whatcom County sheriff's deputies oversaw an all-day search for Roberts to no avail. Roberts is described as white, 5-feet-3, 135 pounds with short dark hair with a hint of blonde. She has a beauty mark above the right side of her lips. She might be traveling with a blonde kitten named "Bea."

Leah Roberts' disappearance everpresent in family's minds Newspaper March 19, 2001 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Kari Thorene Shaw | Page: 1A | Section: Local 936 Words | Readability: Lexile: 990, grade level(s): 6 7

PEOPLE: North Carolina woman's Jeep found one year ago near Glacier. BY KARI THORENE SHAW THE BELLINGHAM HERALD Kara Roberts hoped her little sister would call and wish her a happy birthday. It was March 19, one year ago, and she hadn't heard from 23-year-old Leah for 10 days - not since Leah had left a scribbled note in her Raleigh, N.C., apartment announcing that she was off on a solo, soul-searching road trip. She would call, Kara promised herself. It wouldn't be like Leah to miss giving a birthday wish. When the phone finally rang, it wasn't Leah calling from the road, but a Whatcom County Sheriff deputy way on the other side of the continent in the dense Mount Baker forest. Leah's Jeep had been found tumbled off of an abandoned logging road near Glacier. Leah was missing.

"It was a shock," Kara Roberts recalled. "We didn't have any clue what was going on." A year has ed and still no one knows where Leah Roberts is or what happened to her. Whatcom County Sheriff Det. Mark Joseph confirmed there are no new leads or sightings. There were precious few to begin with. Today, Kara Roberts turns 27. Like last year, she plans to have dinner with her grandparents and uncles in Durham, N.C. Like last year, she would love to hear from Leah. "I've been a year without talking to my little sister," she said. "That's hard." When Leah Roberts hopped into her 1993 white Jeep Cherokee with her kitten "Be" and headed west on March 9 last year, she left little mention of her plans other than a scribbled note to her roommate, Nicole Bennett, promising rent money and a swift return. Such an impulsive trip was normal for Leah Roberts, who had just dropped out of North Carolina State University's Spanish and cultural anthropology programs. She was "trying to find herself," her siblings would say again and again. Both of her parents had died recently, and Leah Roberts had struggled to cope with the loss.

The letter asked Bennett to "Tell Kara not to worry - even though she will." Nine days later, her Jeep was found with its windows smashed and towels draped over the doors. The keys were in the ignition her checkbook was on the ground. Local law officers searched for days, but turned up nothing. Her siblings and friends were devastated, but put all of their energy into looking for her. Kara Roberts and her brother, Heath, 31, flew to Bellingham to see the Jeep and distribute fliers. Bennett and a friend, Melissa Horne, came to Bellingham in May. They went to Stuart's Coffee House on Bay Street it was like Cup O' Joe, Leah's favorite place to sip cappuccino and write poems back in North Carolina, Bennett said. It felt better to be in Bellingham, Bennett would say later. It felt closer to Leah. Back in North Carolina, the Roberts' childhood neighbors set up the Find Leah Fund at a local bank, and offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts. Bennett and Horne organized a benefit concert. Leah's friends and Kara and Heath Roberts took every chance they could to get her picture back in the news and,

hopefully, in front of someone who might the petite blonde with the fearless smile. But as the months dragged by, there was less and less to do. The "Missing Person" flier with Leah's grinning photo, posted on the wall at Stuart's Coffee House for nearly a year, has been replaced by announcements for yoga classes and art shows. "We kind of don't know what to do now," Heath Roberts said. "We are at a point where we've done all we can do." Kara Roberts gets together with her sister's friends about twice a month. They talk about Leah's love of poetry, how she just started taking guitar lessons, how she could make a friendship with just about anybody. They her big smile and her clever jokes. "She's not there and it feels weird," Kara Roberts said. "You're constantly thinking about where she could be or what might have happened. It plays mind games with you." Kara Roberts insists there's more that can be done to find her sister. She sent a video to the TV show "America's Most Wanted," asking the producers to run a segment on Leah's disappearance, but got no response. She collected signatures to send to national newspapers urging a story. Maybe with all of those names written

down, the entire nation will hear about Leah Roberts and someone with information will come forward. "I sure would like to have some closure to this," Kara Roberts said. "It's been pretty rough. Leah's disappearing is always in the background. It's always kind of hanging over your head." ROBERT WILLETT THE NEWS AND OBSERVER PHOTO FRIENDS STILL HOLD OUT HOPE: icole Bennett (left) holds a photograph of her missing friend Leah Roberts in the living room of the apartment they shared in Raleigh, N.C. Suzie Smith (right) was also a friend of Roberts. Roberts' tumbled Jeep was found March 18, 2000, off an abandoned logging road east of Glacier. How to help Leah Roberts, 24, is white, 5 feet 3 inches and 135 pounds. She has short dark hair with hints of blond and a beauty mark on the right side of her lip. She has a strong Southern accent and frequents coffeehouses and live concerts. She has been missing since March 9, 2000.

Missing woman's family boosts reward Newspaper June 21, 2001 | Bellingham Herald, The (WA) Author: Kari Thorene Shaw | Page: 3A | Section: Local

266 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1150, grade level(s): 9 10 11-12

PEOPLE: Relatives say they hope $10,000 will ferret out information. BY KARI THORENE SHAW THE BELLINGHAM HERALD The family of Leah Roberts, the North Carolina college student whose wrecked Jeep was found near Mount Baker Highway last spring, has increased its reward from $5,000 to $10,000 for information leading to her whereabouts. Roberts has been missing since March 18, 2000, when a jogger found her car rolled off a logging road just north of Glacier. Roberts had left her Raleigh, N.C., apartment on March 9 for a solo road trip. Since then, her family and friends have traveled to Bellingham several times to search for Roberts, to no avail. "There's not a whole lot going on right now," said Kara Roberts, Leah's older sister. "We were up there a couple weeks ago putting up posters and meeting with detectives." In the past year, Kara Roberts said reports of sightings of Leah Roberts have been minimal. She was reportedly seen in Glacier, at the Nooksack Casino and in Everett, but none of those leads went anywhere. Whatcom County Sheriff's Office Detective Mark Joseph did not return phone calls for comment.

Kara Roberts hopes the increased award brings new information. "Maybe somebody who is holding back could have a little more incentive to come forward," she said. Leah Roberts is 24 years old, 5 feet six inches tall, blond with blue eyes. She has dimples, a beauty mark above her lip and a strong Southern accent. Her family describes her as very friendly with a love for coffee shops and poetry.