Finding Leah Croucher

 Teenage Girl Who Simply Vanished

19-year-old Leah Croucher simply vanished whilst on her way to work

The morning of February 15th 2019 in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK, should have been just an average working day, but for one family that sadly was not the case.

Leah Croucher set off to make a two-mile walk to work, as usual, and was indeed spotted on CCTV on her normal route walking through an area of Milton Keynes known as Furzton, on Buzzacott Lane at 0816. This was to be the last 'confirmed' sighting of the teenager.

Witnesses also claimed to have seen Leah on Tellytubby Hill at around 0820 and it is assumed that she would then have either followed  and her mobile telephone appears to have been switched off at 0834 and has never been located.

Now interestingly, during the evening of 14th February 2019, Leah's mobile telephone locator was manually switched off on the handset, presumably by her. Why did she turn the locator off? We may never know.

Leah walking to work, the last confirmed sighting

Many theories have been put forward with regard to the locator, including that she was told to turn it off by whoever she was going to meet the next day to she turned it off in order not to be found when she left.

I have to say, I am of the view that there has to have been a definite connection between switching off that locator and the disappearance. I would be interested to hear other people's views on that point.

Looking at the night before Leah vanished; It is known that she arrived home around 1745 on the evening of February 14th 2019, got changed and went out again, telling her mother that she was visiting a friend. By 1915 Leah had returned home and was last seen by her mother at 2200 when she said "goodnight" and went to bed.

Another slightly curious twist in the narrative here, as it was later revealed that in fact, Leah's friend did not see her on the evening of February 14th, despite Leah saying that was where she had been and in fact answered questions from her parents as to her friends well being. So where did Leah Croucher really go on that evening? 

Did she perhaps go to meet whoever she was to leave with the next morning or was she meant to leave then but for some reason, there was a delay? Once again anyone with thoughts on this, please get in touch, I would be delighted to discuss this theory. A colleague from social media Michael Nolan is undertaking a review of this case as he is local to the area and I know he would welcome any input, you can contact him via Twitter if you have anything that may be useful to him.

Leah should have arrived at work by 0900 on February 15th 2019 but that didn't happen and when 1800 came and she failed to arrive back home, her parents became worried and contacted Thames Valley Police who listed her as a missing person and began to search for her.

The police contacted Leah's known friends, work colleagues and associates but there was simply no sign of her, so on February 17th 2019 a press conference during which Leah's disappearance was officially announced. 

Leah Croucher is described as a white, slim to medium build, with shoulder-length brown hair and sometimes wore glasses. She left home on the morning of February 15th 2019 wearing black skinny jeans, a grey sweatshirt with the logo of "Stewartby" on it and a black coat. 

Furzton Lake, Milton Keynes was searched by a specialist team of police divers

Police received three statements of sightings of a girl fitting a similar description to Leah Croucher between 0900 and 1130 around the Furzton Lake area of Milton Keynes. The young woman was described as "visibly upset and crying", she was talking on her mobile telephone. Apparently, no one thought to ask the youngster if she was alright, which in my opinion seems a little odd. 

It does seem quite likely that the female by the lake may well have been Leah as, despite appeals from police, nobody has come forward to identify themselves. I will of course say at this juncture; If you were the young lady who was crying on the shores of Furzton Lake on February 15th 2019, or you know who that was then please get in touch with 

Thames Valley Police on 101, quoting reference 43190049929 

or call Crimestoppers 0800-555-111

Police have carried out many hundreds of house-to-house enquiries, carried out a fingertip search of the area around Furzton Lake and sent specialist divers into the lakes in hope of finding Leah, but to date there has been no sightings and Leah Croucher, now aged 21 remains missing.

What happened to Leah Croucher, last seen on February 15th 2019?

On October 9th 2019 a woman discovered a grey Stewartby sweatshirt, identical to the one Leah was wearing on the morning that she disappeared. The sweatshirt was hanging in a tree close to a lake known as The Blue Lagoon. Once again police divers went down into the waters of the lake and specialist sniffer dogs were brought in to search the surrounding wooded area but nothing was found. 

I know that when Jarad Cold Cases reviewed this case in 2020, he was of the opinion that the report was an elaborate hoax and that the sweatshirt was planted there and I am inclined to agree with that theory. I therefore do not consider the Blue Lagoon report to be of relevance to this rather mysterious story.

It is apparent that Leah was involved in a bit of an 'odd' relationship with a male who was engaged to be married to someone else. Leah had lied to her parents on more than one occasion, including telling that she had ended the relationship but, it seems unlikely that this was actually true. 

Claire Croucher, Leah's mother,  said that the relationship had begun in 2018 when Leah had suddenly started talking about this man a lot, I cannot name the man at present, something which I do not personally agree with as he is in my opnion an important part of this enquiry and may well hold a number of answers to the youngster's disappearance.

After their daughter had gone missing, Leah's parents discovered that she had lied to them about a "girls night out" that she had told them she had been on some twelve days before she vanished.

Leah's father had dropped her off at a local hotel called Jurys Inn in Central Milton Keynes where Leah had told him she was spending the night with some female friends of hers. However when the teenager's bank statement popped up in the mail the family found out that Leah had actually wiated for her father to drive away on February 3rd 2019 before walking back out of Jury Inn hotel and making her way to the local Travel Lodge. 

Due to the passing of time, when the incident came to light the CCTV for the hotel had already been wiped over, but none of Leah's friends recalled anything about a girly night at a hotel and so it seems that she may well have spent the night with a man. This man may have been the engaged male whom she had told her parents she had finished with but, of that we cannot be sure. 

Once again I say here; If you were at The Travel Lodge in Central Milton Keynes on the night of February 3rd 2019 or indeed early on the morning of February 4th then please come forward and speak to police, your information could help to find Leah.

One very mysterious point in this twisted narrative is that there are no mobile telephone records that flag-up any secret/clandestine relationship with no unexplained texts or calls so did Leah have another mobile telephone that she had hidden away which she used to contact this "secret love", why go to the trouble and expense of buying and running a second phone? No one was going to check the phone that she had. It does seem that this scenario is a very real possibility it also seems somewhat unlikely, unless there were a "dark secret" as to why Leah really needed to hide the male.

Was she seeing this engaged male and the fiancee found out, lured Leah somewhere to harm her? Possible but I don't think so. I genuinely believe that Leah Croucher is probably out there and may even read this article. 

I appeal to Leah or indeed anyone who may be withholding information and say that the Croucher family are desperate for information and since the disappearance they have also lost their son, who took his own life because he could not come to terms with his sister's disappearance. If you are reading this Leah or anyone with information, please give Mr and Mrs Croucher peace and get in touch with the authorities.

I have been made aware that a gentleman and hois colleagues believe that they know what happened to Leah, but according to their story, they say that they took evidence to police but it was ignored. That is a very real concern, if potential evidence has been ignored or overlooked then we must ask why.

I know that there is the fact to consider that Leah's bank account and social media have not been touched in the two years that she has been missing but in modern day it is not hard to get a new bank account in just a few clicks of a mouse online.

I will leave it there for this one and say that i will be back with more on the Suzy Lamplugh cold case review very soon.

As lockdown here in England continues to ease, please do stay safe, see you all again soon.

Of course if you would like to discuss this case or talk true crime in any case, then I am always happy to hear from you

Email me at:

lolly.adams@lollyytruecrimeworld.co.uk

Lolly-truecrime@pm.me

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