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I'm your host Marc and this is Mountain State Mysteries.
The case I have for you today is about a Marshall University student who was packing
up her things to visit her family during the Christmas break.
She went missing then was found murdered in the crawl space of her own apartment complex.
This is part 2 to the story of Leah Hickman.
So we know we ended the last episode on a bit of a cliffhanger so you more than likely
have some questions so I'm going to give you the answers to them right now.
How did police not find her body within the first few days of the search?
For multiple reports, podcasts, and articles the crawl space was very hard to find.
You basically had to live there to even know about it.
Leah was about 5'2 or 5'3.
Multiple reports state that the crawl space was 5 feet off the ground.
So to me it would have been hard for one single person to lift someone and put them in there
like they did.
I believe that the murderer had someone to help them with this.
When police found Leah's body she was wrapped in plastic.
Multiple people have their own theory on this but one that stands out to me is from a serial
killer turned mass murderer from South Carolina.
Todd Colett gave his opinion on the case and the murder of Leah.
This is what he said.
Quote, as for the murder you mentioned it doesn't sound very complicated.
It wasn't over drugs as it would have been obvious.
She would have been robbed and no one would have wrapped up and hid in the body.
It was someone she knew who somewhat cared about her hiding the body to get it out of
sight.
Wrapping the body is a caring gesture of not wanting her in dirt or bugs.
Plus cuts down on the smell but that took a real effort and time.
Therefore not rushed so they knew they wouldn't be disturbed.
They knew the door was often unlocked in the layout of the building in order to have access
to her.
Comfortable with that time frame when people often returned from work and connection to
neighbors strangled as personal anger and frustration involved but different than beating
someone with a pen or hammer anti blood.
They wanted her dead but not mutilated.
Remember her how she looked not damaged.
I would think someone male or larger comfortable with themselves as insecure they would have
used a kitchen knife or weapon.
Sex at the time had nothing to do with it and wasn't planned out.
It was spontaneous.
I'm thinking either her boyfriend and just a pause here.
We aren't sure if Leah was dating anyone at the time or not or maybe some drama going
on with the sisters boyfriend or maybe the sister.
We aren't sure.
Maybe he made a move on the younger one and it didn't turn out right.
Covered it up so he wouldn't lose both.
Strangled and rapping tells me she knew them and saw her as a person not a target.
Then maybe plural sister and boyfriend considering weight of moving a body without obvious drag
marks and rapping of the body, stepdad maybe, way too much comfort and care involved to
be random.
I wonder if she was pregnant.
And I just want to say there is no proof of this even in the autopsy.
That could really shed some light on a few points of this.
Sisters boyfriend knocked her up.
Drama got out of hand.
That's just my take on it.
What do you think?
Todd Colhap.
End quote.
So I just want to say when I sent this to Courtney, her exact response was what the
hell.
In the few weeks and months of the investigation of the murder of Leah, authorities remain
tight-lipped.
However, authorities did announce after Leah's body was found that they were leaning in one
direction on suspects.
Police were able to locate the owner of the apartment, Edward Jackson, who, like we said
in part one, was in Florida.
He did confirm that routine maintenance was going on at the time of the murder.
Some of the repairs was to leaky faucets and a replacement of a hot water tank.
Police never stated if the renovations had any connection with Leah's murder.
Police do believe that Leah's murder was not an act of random violence.
They felt like whoever murdered Leah knew her and the layout of the apartment building.
Authorities have said time and time again that they do have suspects in mind, but they
need hard evidence to convict someone of the murder.
Trace evidence, including DNA, which investigators collected at the crime scene, was sent away
for analysis in hope that it would lead them to the murderer or murderers.
However, the results were inconclusive.
Local DNA testing was performed on hairs found at the crime scene at a laboratory in Phoenix,
Arizona, in May of 2009.
However, these tests also proved to be inconclusive.
The Huntington Police Department said they were forced to wait on new developments in
technology due to how small the DNA that they had was.
Time had sadly taken over this case.
There would be the occasional memorial articles in the local newspaper, but Leah's case
went cold.
That is, until April 24, 2014.
Leah's murder hit headlines again.
This time, thanks to someone who graffitied, who killed Leah Hickman on the side of her
apartment building.
You can see the image on our socials and website, Mountain State Mysteries Podcasts, dot com.
You can see that's two different colors of spray paint, who killed being a yellowish
white and Leah Hickman more of a basic white.
You can also see that the lettering is completely different, who killed being thick and pointed,
and Leah Hickman being bolder and more rounded.
This had me and everyone else wondering if it could possibly have been more than one
person who did this.
The building's new owner, Gary Ward, offered a reward for information leading to an arrest,
but as of 2023, the identity of who did it is still unknown.
Authorities have never named a suspect in this case.
However, people who stay up to date with the case of Leah Hickman have their own theories
on who killed her.
People believe that it could have been the ex-boyfriend of Leah's half-sister Jessica,
that he could have stopped by to get his things, and him and Leah got into an argument and
he strangled her and that her sister helped hide her body.
Some believe that it was Jessica, that there was a huge argument between the two and she
ended up killing her sister, not meaning to.
Authorities have never named a suspect in the case.
If you have any tips or information on the case of Leah Hickman, please contact the Huntington
West Virginia Police Department at 304-969-4470.
Now this is the part of the podcast where Courtney and I usually share our final thoughts
on the case.
Since Courtney wasn't able to record this week, I still want to share my final thoughts
on this case.
Even before we start Mountain State Mysteries over a year ago, I've always searched this
case.
Lately more than ever due to this episode.
I've came across a few things on message boards that I left out of this script, but
I do want to talk about them.
On June 4th, 2023, someone named Johnny said on a web sleuth forum that he lived at 403
8th Avenue from March of 03 to February of 07.
His roommates and him lived directly across the hall from Leah and Jessica.
The apartment directly below Leah's was occupied by a good friend of his.
He said they all knew each other.
He said that he had known Jessica since the 90s and Leah casually from just being his
neighbor and Jessica's sister.
He said him and his roommate and his friend that lived below Leah vacated the apartments
before the murder happened.
However, they were contacted by the police and asked to come in for interviews, fingerprints
and DNA sampling.
He said that they all gladly did.
There was another about a private investigator.
It was posted on Reddit two years ago.
A private investigator from Huntington said he decided to look into the case and asked
if anyone would be willing to talk to him.
Three months ago, he posted again saying he reached out to the family and instead of speaking
with him, they just put out a statement saying they are now only interested in honoring Leah's
memory and wanted her to rest.
He said he spoke to others who provided some information, but the police department refuses
to comment or share any findings because they have never filed it as a cold case.
He went on talking about the case and said that Jessica has since gotten married, not
to her boyfriend at the time, and she has moved out of state.
He located her, but stopped short of reaching out to her due to the family's announcement.
Leah's parents divorced some years ago.
Her mother remarried, but her dad seems to still be grieving and has never moved on.
He said one of his best leads came from a homeless man that just so happened to be camped
out nearby on the night of the murder.
He said the man tended to speak in riddles, but his message was clear enough.
And to be honest, I'm not sure how much I believe in this due to the fact of where both
of the statements came from.
I tend to lean more to the first one because I can see someone searching the case after
many years to see if it was solved and they just wanted to say something on it.
This case will always be one that stays in my brain.
Just for the simple fact that everything makes sense but doesn't make sense at the same time.
I'm not going to be one to put blame on the sister or the ex-boyfriend due to the fact
there is no hard evidence.
However, I can fully see it being the ex-boyfriend if him and Leah did not get along and if they
did get into a little argument that turned out to be a murder.
This case is one that I will not stop searching on.
It has honestly become a huge deep dive for me and I will continue to dive into it.
Stay tuned for our next episode which will be the season finale of season 2 of Mountain
State Mysteries.
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