1:59

And yeah, I'm excited to

2:02

introduce this conversation with Lieutenant

2:04

Jason Hayes of the La Grande

2:07

Police Department, and that's over there in

2:09

Oregon. And today we're speaking

2:11

about Leona Kinsey's disappearance

2:15

from October 25, 1999. She

2:19

was 46 at the time of her disappearance.

2:22

She has brown hair, brown eyes. She's

2:24

5'2 and weighs 110 pounds. And

2:27

she was last seen at her home in La

2:29

Grande, Oregon. And if you've got any

2:32

information, call the La Grande Police

2:34

Department at 541-963-1017. And

2:40

just a big shout-out to Shana and

2:42

Tate and everyone else at Light the Way

2:45

for introducing us to Lieutenant Hayes.

2:48

And they are a great advocacy

2:50

organization. You can check them out at lightthewaymissing.com.

2:54

And, Tim, before we get to this conversation with

2:56

Lieutenant Jason Hayes, which

2:59

contains ad breaks, how would someone

3:01

listen to this without those ad breaks, plus

3:03

every single other episode that we've done

3:05

on every single other show that we've done?

3:09

That's a lot. Well, listeners

3:11

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3:14

Apple Podcasts, but if you're not on Apple,

3:16

you can go to missing.supportingcast.fm

3:19

and sign up for the same product there. As you mentioned,

3:21

everything is ad-free. You also get

3:23

early new releases and our weekly

3:25

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3:28

on some of the mysteries we cover. And speaking

3:30

of those ad breaks, we're going to have to get a couple

3:32

of them out of the way here before we return

3:34

with our guest, Lieutenant Jason Hayes.

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4:21

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4:23

in law should ever go, deep into his wife's

4:26

family history to dig up the cold

4:28

case of her murdered great grandmother.

4:31

Oh, and did I mention that he's looking into whether

4:33

the murderer was actually the

4:35

beloved patriarch of the family? This

4:38

all started with a ghost. Yes,

4:40

a ghost. Growing up, weird things would happen

4:43

in Tristan's room. He basically shrugged

4:45

them off until he discovered that every

4:47

occupant since said they'd experienced

4:50

inexplicable things as well, including

4:53

one resident who said she was visited by

4:55

the ghost. Tim, this is going to scare you. The

4:58

ghost of a faceless woman.

5:01

Ah! Told you. Whoo. OK,

5:03

I'm back now. Well, how is this all connected?

5:05

It so happens that right next door to

5:07

Tristan's old house, his wife's great

5:10

grandmother was murdered by two

5:12

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5:14

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5:16

overwhelming coincidences and

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follow Ghost Story on the Wondery app

5:24

or wherever you get your podcasts. You

5:26

can binge all episodes of Ghost

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Story ad free right now by joining

5:31

Wondery Plus. Welcome

5:44

to the podcast, Lieutenant Jason

5:46

Hayes, how are you today?

5:48

I'm doing good. Thank you. Thank you for having

5:50

me.

5:52

For sure. Thank you for joining us. I

5:54

just want to like really,

5:56

truly express our appreciation for

5:58

you coming on the show. to talk about this because

6:01

while it's not exactly rare to have

6:04

investigators directly related to a case

6:06

and a story talk with us, it's

6:08

not very common to have that happen.

6:11

You have so many details that you can't say

6:13

so I guess a lot of people just kind of err

6:16

on the side of I'm not gonna do

6:18

this because I don't want you know to say the wrong

6:20

thing so we truly appreciate you coming on. Yeah

6:22

thank you very much. Okay so how

6:24

long have you been working on Leona

6:27

Kinsey's disappearance case? I've been with

6:29

the police agency for 25 years but

6:31

I was not one of the original investigators.

6:34

At our agency our detective

6:38

division is rotational so usually detectives

6:41

go in every three years, spend a

6:43

three-year rotation and then go back to patrol

6:46

for those who want to. So

6:48

I really got involved in this case

6:51

around 2009-10 in there and then I was

6:56

kind of like the one of the last persons standing

6:58

with our agency because this is a you know we're

7:00

talking about a case that's almost 24 years old and so I really

7:05

took it on

7:07

in around 2010 but really started

7:10

steamrolling with it with what I could do

7:12

and what loose ends I felt

7:14

were there and and of course

7:17

Carolyn, Leona's daughter being

7:19

you know really the motivator

7:22

for me to keep this thing alive

7:24

and go and try

7:26

to get answers for Carolyn

7:29

and her family and and also

7:31

find closure for us as

7:34

well. So you know I'm about 10 years

7:37

into this case of where I've you know

7:39

taken it on and and done what

7:41

I can. Okay

7:42

and we'll definitely talk about the details

7:44

of Leona's story but you

7:46

said tying up loose ends and

7:48

just without being specific to this case

7:51

from an investigation or an investigative

7:53

standpoint or perspective how

7:56

do you even identify loose ends just in

7:58

an investigation that you're

7:59

coming into. Yeah, well

8:02

especially a case like Leona's that

8:04

is has gone on year after

8:06

year is fresh eyes. I like

8:10

to come in look at these from fresh

8:12

eyes and see what's

8:14

been done, what hasn't been done, but

8:17

also be systematic and

8:19

really listen to like in this particular

8:22

case Carolyn.

8:24

And what does she

8:26

see is us, you know, what have we not

8:29

been doing that we should be doing and what

8:31

are others saying, you know,

8:34

that we should be doing. I think

8:36

it's important that we take constructive criticism. We look

8:38

at this like okay are we

8:40

missing something here and

8:42

then also being inclusive of other agencies

8:45

to help us. Well I am not beyond asking

8:47

for help. We're an agency of 19

8:50

sworn people, two detectives

8:53

and being in rural eastern

8:55

Oregon. We need help and

8:57

you know in the details I'll talk a

9:00

little bit about some of that help that

9:02

I received and particularly

9:05

this case is like

9:07

who are people that were interviewed

9:09

in 1999 early 2000s but need re-interviewed

9:14

because of some of the complications of the case

9:16

which I'll talk about when we get there. When was

9:18

your department first made aware of Leona's

9:21

disappearance? We were first made

9:23

aware on October 28th of 1999 in that

9:27

the first person to report Leona is

9:29

missing was one of her good friends by the name of

9:31

Nancy and then shortly

9:34

after that another close friend

9:36

of Leona's by the name of Lonnie. He

9:38

also made a report and then Carolyn

9:41

subsequently made a report as well. But

9:44

the first one was from her friend Nancy

9:46

and we were able to establish the

9:48

last time Leona was seen was three

9:51

days prior so that would have been October

9:52

25th of 1999 in Legrand.

9:54

Okay and you

9:57

just mentioned Legrand and you're wearing your Legrand

9:59

police Fleece, which is really

10:02

cool.

10:03

Can you describe the area a little bit for us? Like a

10:05

sense of the population, a sense of the community? Yeah,

10:08

Legrand is really a neat spot. It's in northeast

10:11

Oregon. It's on the base of the foot or

10:13

at the foothills of the Blue Mountains.

10:15

We have a population of 12,000. We have

10:17

Eastern Oregon University that's here that has

10:20

a student population during the school year of

10:22

about 2,000 on-campus

10:25

students. So during the school

10:27

year our population can be more

10:29

closer to 14,000. Our entire county only has 27,000. So

10:34

Legrand has a majority of the county

10:37

population. Agriculture

10:40

and timber are our biggest industries here

10:42

as well as the university. Okay, and

10:45

what did Leona do for work? Leona,

10:48

she worked for herself as

10:50

a landscaper. She did yard work and

10:52

landscaping in our community. Can you

10:54

talk about who she was last seen with? Well,

10:57

so it was her

10:59

closest friends now. Like

11:02

we don't know exactly who was the last friend to

11:04

see her, but her closest friends

11:06

Nancy and Lonnie were

11:10

two of the ones that she was closest with at the time.

11:14

Which one of them saw her last, but it

11:16

was about the same time. They were all inconsistent

11:18

that it was around the 25th of October. And

11:21

is there a timeline that you can take us through

11:23

in the maybe the days leading

11:25

up to her disappearance and the day of and

11:27

how the investigation got started? Yeah,

11:30

so I'll be honest with you guys

11:33

for over 20 years we've

11:35

been very sensitive to Carolyn and the family.

11:38

But I finally within the last couple of years,

11:40

the last year really, is

11:43

talking honestly about Leona

11:45

because it matters when

11:48

talking about the complications we had

11:50

early on. So we had

11:52

a lot of barriers right off the bat.

11:55

And it was because Leona was heavily

11:57

involved in the

12:00

cell and use of methamphetamine and she was

12:02

classified as a medium-sized

12:05

drug dealer in Legrand. The

12:07

complications are is when we're trying to talk

12:09

to those that are closest to her, they

12:13

were all afraid to say something because

12:15

they thought they would implicate themselves

12:18

in their own drug involvement

12:20

and illicit drug culture.

12:22

And so we had to

12:25

break those barriers that

12:27

we're not interested

12:29

in that at all. We're interested

12:32

in finding the truth about Leona and her

12:34

disappearance period. And

12:38

so the history

12:40

coming up to the day that she disappeared,

12:43

I mean I will tell you what I think my

12:45

theory is, although I don't have tunnel

12:48

vision at all. All

12:50

things are

12:53

open to me but I look at what

12:55

is the most reasonable explanation for

12:57

her disappearance based

12:59

on the information that I have right now. And so

13:02

a little bit of her past was a little

13:04

bit hazy because

13:07

people didn't want to talk about it. When you say

13:09

that

13:10

you're not interested in the methamphetamine

13:13

aspect of this, you just want to find answers,

13:16

does that mean if anyone was

13:19

involved in that methamphetamine

13:22

production and distribution and they have answers

13:24

that they won't be facing any repercussions for

13:26

the drug activity? That's correct. That's absolutely

13:29

correct.

13:30

One of the things is I've done interviews.

13:33

In fact, we've interviewed

13:35

about 34 people so far in

13:38

this case and

13:40

some of them multiple times

13:42

we've interviewed. And the reason I

13:45

have re-interviewed recently is I was hoping

13:47

that if they did know something that they

13:49

weren't upfront with 23

13:52

years ago, then maybe now enough

13:54

time has gone by where whatever fears they

13:56

had about their own involvement

13:58

in drug activity, wouldn't be there

14:01

anymore and maybe they would be more

14:03

forthcoming with information. What

14:06

I found is information that they provided

14:08

me or provided

14:11

our department in 1999 and 2000, 2001, 2002, early

14:16

on in the investigation is still

14:18

consistent today. With

14:20

the exception of the person that I think is the person

14:22

of interest in this, that's just

14:25

we can get to that point when the time's right. You

14:27

will find I'm going to be pretty transparent

14:30

in this interview. I don't

14:32

think it serves anything

14:34

to not share information

14:36

at this point.

14:38

We've

14:39

tried other things and look,

14:41

we're 23 years later and we still haven't solved

14:43

this case. So, I'm

14:45

just totally transparent now hoping that

14:48

maybe somebody will take comfort by

14:50

my transparency and our honesty and will

14:53

provide us something tangible that will

14:56

lead us in the right path. This case

14:58

has been very difficult because

15:00

when you ask me or we talk about

15:03

our actual disappearance, there's

15:05

not a breadcrumb trail on this one. We

15:07

have another missing person cases. Some

15:10

of that's due to we don't have all the technology that we

15:12

have had in 1999 that we have

15:15

now. Cell phones, video

15:19

security, video footages,

15:21

things like that. We've

15:23

got access to credit cards and transactions

15:27

and stuff. So, I take it there's

15:29

no cell phone activity

15:33

or anything like that.

15:34

Correct. Yes.

15:36

Okay.

15:37

So, is it your belief that Leona went

15:39

missing from her residence or is

15:43

there somewhere that you believe she went

15:45

missing from? Yeah, I'll tell you exactly

15:47

what I think. So, we're going to get into the weeds

15:49

here a little bit on this case now. So

15:52

why Leona's friends, Nancy,

15:55

Lonnie, and then her daughter reported her missing

15:57

was she hadn't been seen for

15:59

a couple of years. of days. But what was

16:01

weird about that is her belongings,

16:03

like her purse and stuff, were still

16:06

in the house. And her dogs, she

16:08

had two dogs and a cat, and they were outside,

16:11

which was atypical because

16:13

she normally... So when you look at the

16:15

normal habits of Leona, these were not...

16:18

There were some indicators like, wait, this normally

16:20

doesn't happen. And that's what prompted

16:22

them to make a report. And

16:25

so once

16:28

the report was made, her

16:31

friend Nancy found Leona's

16:33

car in Legrand,

16:35

but at a grocery store parking lot.

16:38

And that became interesting as this

16:41

investigation went on, because what we didn't know

16:43

right off the bat, but we later learned, is

16:46

that Leona would do her drug deals at

16:48

this particular parking lot of this particular

16:50

grocery store. What it looks

16:53

like to me, my best reasonable

16:55

explanation of what I think happened

16:57

is, is she was home, she received

17:00

a phone call from somebody, drove

17:02

her car to the

17:05

grocery store parking lot, met

17:07

in somebody else's car, and

17:09

that was the end of it. We never heard from her again.

17:12

We did search her car

17:14

and her residence, and nothing of suspicion

17:17

was found at that time. Everything was orderly.

17:19

So it makes me believe that she met somebody

17:22

that she knew and got

17:25

into their car, and from

17:28

there we don't know. I

17:31

will tell you some more theories I have based

17:33

on the information I've received.

17:35

Was her getting into the car, in your opinion,

17:38

something she was doing willingly? You

17:40

know, I can't say. What

17:42

I can say about that is, is there

17:44

was nothing to indicate there was a struggle

17:46

inside of her car, and her car

17:49

was locked when we found it and

17:51

processed it. But as far

17:54

as, you know, did somebody abduct

17:56

her and grab her and put her into another

17:59

car?

17:59

No. Right. And it's

18:02

your belief that this was intended

18:04

to be a quick trip for Leona

18:07

having left her animals out?

18:09

Correct. And leaving her person in

18:12

other stuff at her house that she would normally take

18:14

with her,

18:15

that's my belief. Okay. And

18:18

was there any surveillance video or anything

18:20

of that parking lot? No.

18:22

No. No. And the

18:25

grocery store was Alpersons was the name of it.

18:27

Video surveillance stuff was

18:29

not, I mean it was there, right, in 1999, but not

18:31

as prevalent

18:34

as it is now. I mean we make a lot of cases

18:36

right now because not

18:38

only do businesses have it, but so do homes.

18:41

And as a police officer, I love

18:43

that. It's just unfortunate

18:46

we didn't have that kind of technology

18:48

or access to that kind of technology that could have

18:50

helped in 1999 help solve this.

18:53

And would now be a good time to discuss the individual

18:55

Juan Pinha Lama? We

18:57

can discuss him anytime you want. So now

18:59

is as good as any. So when

19:02

I looked at this case, you look for common

19:04

denominators. I will tell you before

19:07

we talked about Juan, I

19:09

will say that the most reasonable thing

19:11

is Leona was

19:14

taken against her will and she was murdered.

19:16

I think that's the most reasonable thing. When

19:19

you have a homicide,

19:21

now again I'm not tunnel vision on this. All

19:24

things are open. But when I

19:26

think about Leona's case and if it is

19:29

a homicide, we have two

19:31

barriers. One is usually you need

19:33

a body and you need somebody talking about the

19:35

body. And I have neither

19:37

of those except for

19:39

some inferences made by Juan Pinha.

19:42

So through all the interviews

19:45

that we've done, what I have found

19:48

is that the fingers mostly

19:50

point at Juan Pinha and that Juan

19:53

was not only Leona's

19:56

on and off again boyfriend but he was

19:58

also her dealer. And

20:00

those in the, unless the drug trade

20:02

said that he was directly connected to

20:04

the Mexican cartel. I was

20:07

also told that the consistency

20:09

of the information I received was

20:12

Leona owed the Mexican cartel

20:15

money, and that's why she

20:17

disappeared. Now, I worked in the drug

20:19

task force for two years. And

20:22

if the drug cartel was

20:24

involved, that's problematic for

20:26

me because they are experts

20:28

on making people disappear without a trace.

20:31

But Juan Piñolamas,

20:34

he was interviewed shortly after

20:37

Leona's disappearance. He

20:39

gave a full statement to the investigator at

20:41

the time, and he denied having any

20:43

knowledge about her disappearing.

20:46

He didn't have anything to do with it. But

20:49

in the same breath, he said that he doesn't use drugs,

20:51

never dealt drugs, which is a complete

20:54

lie. When you have enough people calling him

20:56

a drug dealer and saying that he's using

20:58

drugs, and he's the only one saying that, no,

21:00

I'm not. Yeah,

21:03

it doesn't pass the test with

21:05

me. So Juan

21:07

was involved in some criminal activity unassociated

21:10

with this case. He did give

21:12

an interview. He agreed to take

21:14

a polygraph, but he failed to show for the

21:17

polygraph. That gives me some –

21:21

makes me think. And then

21:23

he was arrested on some other crimes, and

21:26

then ultimately he was deported to Mexico

21:28

in 2006. I

21:30

wanted to take another run at him, but

21:32

we were having a hard time finding him. I

21:35

just recently – we think that we have –

21:37

we would call a proof of life. We

21:39

believe that he – at least as

21:42

a year ago, he was still alive, and he does live

21:44

in Mexico. So I'm working with

21:46

the FBI, who's

21:49

working with the Mexican government on,

21:52

okay, what's next? There's problems

21:54

with that. One is he's

21:56

already given us an interview saying

21:58

he's had no involvement. It would

22:00

be easy for him to say that again. So

22:03

I want a polygraph. They

22:05

don't do polygraphs in Mexico. So

22:08

logistically, I'm working with

22:11

the FBI trying to figure out what

22:14

is the best way to approach this. And

22:18

that story is yet to be told. We'll see. But

22:21

that's a lead. A loose end that I've had is where

22:23

is Juan? Is he still

22:25

alive? And how can I contact

22:28

him? We really had struggles

22:30

with this. But we've

22:32

had some agents in some Border Patrol.

22:34

I've had some help from Border Patrol that

22:36

have really stepped up and helped lately. And

22:39

at least I know he's still alive and

22:41

we have reason to believe he's still in Mexico. So

22:44

that's a little bit about Juan. He

22:46

inferred to four different people

22:48

that

22:49

he didn't kill Leona, but

22:52

he has knowledge of it and

22:54

inferred that he hired

22:56

the Mexican cartel to

22:59

do something to her to

23:01

make her disappear. All four

23:03

of these people will say they didn't believe

23:05

him because he was an idiot.

23:08

He was a braggart. He was a

23:11

man of small stature that liked

23:13

to make himself seem more important than what he really

23:15

is. But here's what I say. He

23:18

said it to four different people at four different

23:20

times. It's not like they were all sitting around

23:23

a campfire and he said this when four people

23:25

heard it. No, he told it to his ex-wife,

23:28

he told it to his ex-girlfriend, and

23:30

he told it to two different friends all

23:33

on different occasions. So

23:35

I don't have probable cause to arrest him. But

23:40

he is the only link

23:42

I have to,

23:44

in my theory, is to what

23:46

happened to her. And we'll be right back after

23:49

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28:01

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On

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29:53

conversation

30:00

when he told these people because when you said his ex-wife

30:03

and his ex-girlfriend it made me think that

30:05

he was saying it in a threatening way like Stay

30:08

in line or I'll do to you what I did to Leona,

30:10

but you don't think that's the case No, that's not

30:13

the case. So we had really good interviews

30:15

with all four people that he made

30:17

these inferences to and Again,

30:20

it goes back to they didn't even believe him.

30:22

They were not threatened by him. Although

30:25

his ex-wife and Ex-girlfriend

30:29

did talk about

30:29

how he was abusive But

30:32

the comments were made not in the context

30:34

of any aggravation at the time.

30:36

They were just talking about Leona's

30:38

case and her disappearance. It was

30:41

a buzz for a while within the the drug

30:43

community. Tell us a little bit more about

30:46

This money that Leona Might

30:49

have owed

30:51

do you have an amount and and who

30:53

would she have owed that to? No I

30:55

don't have an amount although what

30:57

I was told is that it was a large amount What

31:00

does a large that's objective a large

31:02

amount to me might be ten thousand a large

31:04

amount to? You know somebody

31:07

else could be twelve hundred. I don't know. I did

31:09

learn that Leona did purchase

31:12

her drugs from one based

31:14

on the Accumulation of information I

31:16

received from different sources in

31:19

it. It came from either Hermiston,

31:21

Oregon Which is about an hour

31:23

and a half away from here and or

31:26

from? Connections to the cartel

31:28

in Salem, Oregon, which is on the west coast

31:30

of Oregon on the west side And I

31:32

was told that you know Leona would deal Purchase

31:35

quarter ounces half ounces of meth at

31:38

a time in the world of drug

31:41

dealing That's not a lot but

31:43

for Legrand that would be a medium-sized

31:45

dealer if that information is true now keep

31:48

in mind I'm telling you information

31:50

that that I learned from her closest

31:52

friends who were involved in the

31:56

use and sell and in stuff

31:59

of methods

31:59

the time. And in the late 90s,

32:02

meth was the predominant illicit drug.

32:04

Yeah, I was just going to ask that. I think everybody,

32:07

I'm not trying to make a joke, but I think everybody hears

32:09

meth and then they go to Breaking Bad and then they associate

32:12

that timeframe with when meth was

32:14

popular. But

32:15

meth was around in the late

32:17

90s, you're saying? Yeah, it was

32:20

cheaper, it had a better high, and it was

32:22

very prevalent because back

32:24

then, at least in Oregon, we

32:27

didn't have laws around how much Sudafed

32:29

you could buy, which is a key ingredient

32:31

in making meth. And so we had a lot of clandestine

32:34

labs in Oregon. So not

32:36

only was methamphetamine coming from the super

32:38

labs in Mexico, but

32:40

they were also being made in clandestine labs.

32:43

I mean, you could make it back in the 90s in a

32:45

hotel room. If you wanted something

32:48

more exotic, what I would say

32:50

is exotic like heroin, cocaine,

32:53

ecstasy, those kinds of things, that would be

32:55

a specialty order. So you would get

32:57

a hold of your drug dealer and ask, hey, the next time

32:59

you go to wherever it is, you go

33:02

to get my meth, can you also pick

33:04

up a little bit of this or that? But

33:07

up until 2005, methamphetamine

33:09

was our predominant drug.

33:12

Then Oregon, I'm getting a little bit off

33:14

the track here, but in 2006, Oregon made a good

33:18

legislative change that made

33:20

Sudafed prescription rather than over the counter.

33:24

It dialed it in. In fact,

33:27

in the first year after that law went

33:29

into effect, there was 170 some clandestine

33:31

labs that were raided and seized

33:34

in like 2005. And

33:37

in 2007, there was only like 12. So it

33:40

made a huge dent. But then we

33:46

started seeing another trend where people were smurfing

33:49

prescription pills. I could talk about

33:51

drug stuff just because I was in the drug task force

33:54

for a while, but we're getting off probably

33:56

what we want to talk about. The cartels

33:59

that you mentioned they're very prevalent

34:01

and they move a lot of drugs in and

34:03

out of Legrand. Yes. So

34:06

the Mexican cartels have arterial

34:09

places. Now Legrand sits on

34:11

our major interstate that goes east-west.

34:14

It's Interstate 84. Drug dealers from Legrand,

34:18

our local drug dealers, will drive to

34:20

a county about an hour

34:23

west of us where it's

34:25

a hub because of the larger Hispanic

34:29

population that's tied to the Mexican

34:32

cartel. So people were very fearful

34:34

of the Mexican cartel and I understand why.

34:36

And I'll give you a personal example

34:39

of where they are legit in

34:42

making threats, in using coercion,

34:44

and making people scared to talk about

34:47

drugs. When I was in the drug task force,

34:49

which was in 2008, 9, and 10,

34:51

I was able to make and prosecute

34:54

a case where there was an attempted murder on one of

34:56

my informants and it

34:58

was connected to the drug cartel. So

35:01

it's legit and when people don't want to talk

35:03

to you about their drug, I understand

35:05

because they're fearful of their life.

35:08

And as soon as you say Mexican

35:11

cartel, it makes

35:13

them even more fearful because

35:15

they know that if it is

35:17

Mexican cartel related and you owe them money,

35:21

something bad could happen to you.

35:23

Was Leona an informant

35:25

or was she believed to be?

35:27

No. I have no information

35:31

that she was at all.

35:33

There was some people early

35:35

on to thought, well maybe she was put in

35:37

the witness protection program because

35:41

she was involved pretty heavily

35:43

in that trade here in Legrand. That's

35:46

not the case.

35:47

And what if any impact

35:50

or influence is it when

35:52

you're talking about the Native American

35:54

culture there and how she was

35:57

biracial, right? She was Caucasian and she

35:59

was Native American. American that's

36:02

that goes into the missing and murdered indigenous

36:04

people epidemic how

36:06

does this all play into the conversation? Right

36:09

so and I know that there's a narrative

36:12

being said you know about

36:14

this from Carolyn's point of view and

36:16

I'm certainly sensitive to that. What

36:19

I can tell you about Leona's case is

36:21

her

36:22

written she had a criminal history

36:24

and on her criminal history it has her

36:26

listed as a white person. The

36:28

Department of Corrections has her listed as

36:31

a white person. All of our records have her listed

36:33

as a white person. We weren't even aware that

36:35

she was a Native American until Carolyn

36:37

told us later in the investigation that she was.

36:40

Now we would investigate all

36:43

cases the same. Is there

36:45

things we could have done better with this case?

36:48

Absolutely it has nothing to do with Leona's

36:50

race or anything

36:52

about or even that she was involved in the illicit

36:54

drug trade. I'm only talking about the illicit drug

36:57

trade so you understand the difficulties

36:59

that we had in the barriers we had up

37:01

front. So Leona's case

37:04

you know her Native

37:07

American heritage I

37:09

don't think in this particular had

37:11

anything to do with her disappearance. I think it was from

37:14

the information that I have and what I've looked

37:17

at is purely off of her

37:19

being involved in the illicit drug trade

37:21

and to own somebody money. I

37:24

can't find any other explanation

37:26

for her disappearance yet but

37:28

I'm still open to all things.

37:31

Okay and were there any

37:33

witnesses to seeing

37:35

her that day at the parking lot or

37:37

anything like that? No. No. Does

37:40

that ring true to you as

37:42

a motive you know that she owed

37:44

money? This has come up in a different

37:47

disappearance case that we've covered

37:50

extensively. Some people have the conclusion

37:52

the dealers wouldn't have gotten

37:54

the money back if they made her go missing.

37:57

Yeah so how does that ring for you? Here's

37:59

my thing with

37:59

that if the drug cartel thinks

38:02

that she's going to rat them out,

38:04

they're going to kill her. But

38:07

do I know that she was going to rat them out?

38:11

I don't know that. Now, I understand

38:14

what you're saying is, if I heard you correctly, why

38:17

would they kill her

38:21

if they're not

38:23

going to get their money back anyway? Yeah,

38:26

there's a lot in there that I don't know. I

38:29

don't know how many conversations,

38:31

if that's what happened, is how

38:33

many conversations, how many warnings

38:35

did she get? How

38:37

much money did she actually owe? There's

38:40

a lot of unknowns there to really answer

38:42

that.

38:43

I have to say, I'm really impressed with the

38:45

fact that you are maintaining this relationship

38:48

with her daughter, Carolyn.

38:52

And whether or not there's differences

38:54

in the way the investigation is

38:56

approached and researched

38:59

and suspects and everything, you're still maintaining

39:01

this relationship because we hear so

39:03

often how that doesn't happen. When

39:06

was it in your journey through this,

39:08

did you decide, like, this is important to me?

39:10

Well,

39:11

it would have been whenever the first time

39:13

I met Carolyn or

39:16

corresponded with her. And

39:20

I'm a sensitive person. I think I

39:22

have empathy and compassion. This

39:25

is not my first missing person report that

39:28

I've investigated. And I try

39:30

to put myself in their shoes

39:33

and look at it. If

39:35

I was Carolyn looking at the Legrand

39:37

Police Department,

39:40

are they doing everything that they should be doing

39:42

to help find my mom? And that's been my approach.

39:44

And I take that with any investigation that

39:46

I do where there's a person

39:49

crime involved. And again, I'm

39:52

talking like Leona is gone.

39:54

I just think that that's the most reasonable explanation 23

39:57

years later. in

40:00

a hero for me because

40:03

she's so active.

40:05

She's keeping

40:07

the fire going.

40:09

Without her, it could get smothered,

40:12

but because she's reached out to so

40:14

many entities and people

40:17

and trying to get resources to

40:20

help me do my job, you

40:23

know, kudos to her. I know that her

40:25

and I won't agree on everything, but again,

40:28

I will tell you that if

40:30

you look at an NFL football team, an

40:33

NFL football team is a professional. Uh,

40:36

they practice almost every day.

40:39

Uh, they do it for a living and then they

40:41

go on Sunday and they play their game. They

40:45

don't go into the locker room after the game saying

40:47

we, we played that game. Perfect. They

40:51

always do something wrong. There was a blown place

40:53

somewhere. Somebody missed an assignment or

40:55

something. I look at that as our police

40:58

department. It is, we

41:00

didn't do this case perfect. But

41:04

what can we do based off what we

41:07

know and our experiences and our training

41:09

to do better and

41:11

to utilize

41:14

that to find the truth in this case, because

41:16

it's not too late. And

41:19

I think that that's what I like about Caroline

41:21

is she's never given up. And

41:25

if she's not given up, I'm not going to give up. And

41:29

you know, I'm late in my career, but I still

41:31

have energy for this. What's exhausting

41:34

for me is just not getting

41:37

any good, tangible information to

41:39

help me. We have ran Facebook

41:41

posts, posters, our media,

41:44

you know, podcasts. I've

41:46

been interviewed by news agencies, you know,

41:49

and I will continue to do that because

41:52

maybe, maybe there's something

41:54

somebody will hear or something

41:57

that will just give me a little.

42:00

bit of information that can get me in

42:02

a direction that we're going to solve this thing

42:04

one way or the other. The absence

42:07

of information kills me and it's

42:09

personal. It's now personal for me. I'll tell

42:11

you. I'm a police officer. I'm a professional

42:14

person and but this case

42:16

is personal. It's the only personal investigation

42:18

that I've like where I

42:21

have developed a relationship with Leona

42:23

even though she's not here and

42:25

I've done that through my relationship

42:28

with Carolyn. What I've learned about Leona,

42:30

the hours I put into trying

42:32

to figure this out. And

42:35

so it's not dead with

42:37

me and I will continue

42:39

to serve Carolyn until

42:42

I'm not in this occupation anymore. Have

42:44

there been any physical searches

42:46

for Leona? Yes, there has. So

42:50

one of our biggest tangible pieces of

42:52

information was based off one of those inferences

42:55

Juan Pina made to his ex-wife

42:57

and he inferred that whoever

43:00

killed her put her body in

43:02

a specific place about 35 miles

43:04

from here. Our

43:07

agency jumped on that right away. We elicited

43:09

help from the search and rescue team, got

43:11

cadaver dogs, searched

43:13

a huge forested area

43:15

that you know didn't come up

43:17

with anything. This area is also

43:20

a heavily used by

43:22

the public area. So besides

43:25

our search, you know sometimes

43:27

missing persons are found by hunters,

43:30

mushroomers, recreationists.

43:32

We felt like that would have been the case in this particular

43:35

area but a thorough search was done.

43:38

I even went back and there's a pond within

43:40

this search area

43:43

and I put on waiters, me and somebody else

43:45

and we waited up to our hips you

43:47

know turning a shovel in this pond for a

43:49

day. It's

43:51

a stock pond so it's not very big and

43:55

so sometimes I get some funny stuff like

43:58

I think it's funny but I follow

44:00

up on all of it. I had a letter from a lady

44:02

lives in Arkansas and she said

44:04

that she's a map dowser and

44:06

that I could stop looking for Leona because

44:09

she found her and sent me

44:11

GPS coordinates. Now number

44:13

one I don't know what a map dowser was so

44:15

I looked it up and the best I could

44:18

translate is how people use

44:22

sticks to water witch to find water

44:24

underground. Well they do this over

44:27

a map and it helps them find lost

44:29

items including people. I

44:31

thought wow she was even specific

44:34

to tell me not to search anymore and provide

44:37

me with an exact GPS location.

44:40

Well it wasn't good information.

44:43

I did search that area. It's

44:45

on a rocky hillside impractical

44:49

to take somebody up to it would

44:52

be easily defined if it's

44:54

too rocky and open

44:57

to dig. It's just a

44:59

we looked we searched and in that

45:02

was unfounded. So we searched that area also

45:04

and then we've had other little tidbits

45:06

about places Leona like to

45:09

go or where Juan liked to go

45:11

and so the best we could we kind

45:13

of did some searches but those were vague

45:16

and we didn't have specifics. So to

45:19

answer the question yes we have done physical searches

45:21

just not a lot of them based

45:23

on limited information.

45:25

I'm super impressed that you went

45:28

to the location where the dowsing

45:30

told you to go. That's incredible. I

45:32

will my promise to Carolyn was

45:35

I will follow up on every

45:37

lead that I can as long as it's

45:40

reasonable

45:41

and plausible to do

45:43

so. You know

45:45

one time she read on Facebook

45:48

where somebody said Leona was

45:51

at the bottom of or was in

45:53

a bottomless well and

45:56

up on Mount Emily. Well

45:58

Mount Emily is a huge geographic area

46:01

near Legrand and if it's a bottomless

46:03

well, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna find

46:05

somebody because I'll never reach the bottom.

46:08

But

46:09

you know we do get stuff like that. If I

46:11

can, if I knew where there was a well on

46:13

Mount Emily, certainly I would go there. But you

46:16

know when we get big information like that, it's just

46:18

impractical. I don't have a starting

46:20

place. Thank you so much for for

46:23

speaking with us today. Yeah, absolutely.

46:26

And just to let you know too that

46:29

there's some people that have been helping us. I think the

46:31

Oregon State Police has helped us on this. The Bureau

46:34

of Indian Affairs has helped us on this. The

46:36

FBI Border Patrol. For

46:39

a short period in 2006-2008, we had a cold case team

46:43

that worked here. It was retired officers.

46:46

They worked this case a little bit. So

46:48

we're getting help and I know that

46:50

that's one of Carolyn's things like you know we

46:52

need more help for police and I'm like yes.

46:55

You know I would love if there

46:58

was somebody I could call that just brought a team

47:00

in to work these major cases

47:02

like this. But anyway I just wanted

47:04

to make sure that I got them out there because

47:07

you know I appreciate they're

47:10

not really stakeholders right. They don't have a dog

47:12

in the fight but they're coming to help anyway and

47:14

so I really appreciate that.

47:16

And is there a call to action? Anybody who has any

47:19

information on Leona's whereabouts

47:21

or information about what happened

47:23

at all? Where do you usually direct them? To

47:25

me at the Legrand Police Department.

47:28

And you can call Lieutenant Hayes with information

47:30

at 541-963-1017. you

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