Randy Leach

All witnesses purchase of interest, and suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of lawes. Hey you yeah, you a You into weird shit? Yeah? You into cryptics? What about hauntings? Yeah, I've got a ghost for you. Oh you like overwhelmed the beings? Me too? Check out all these aliens. We have plenty. How do you feel about a good legend? I want to hear about spooky happenings. Yeah you do. Let us show you what we've got. Hey, guys, gravi Agrin can join us Amanda and Sean every week while we died into the strange and haunting topics that have piqued our interest. See you're over at the haunted and the strange. Wherever you get your podcasts, stay spooky. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now and true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to jump into a few case updates, talk about a few things, and then we're going to go ahead and get started with the episode. So Adam Montgomery, who was found guilty of murdering his daughter, Harmony Montgomery in New Hampshire, will be sentenced May ninth. Officially, I am pretty sure that he is never going to see the light of day again, but we will officially find out that sentence on May ninth. We are now going to switch gears to Audrey Cunningham, who was murdered by a heinous pedophile. And this happened in Livingston, Texas, and the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office has come out and said that Audrey died as a result of blunt head trauma. And I am going to read a press release that was released by the family. This is long, but bear with me. One week ago today, on Thursday, the fifteenth of February two thousand and four, Audrey Danielle Cunningham was lured under false pretenses which led to a senseless act of violence occurring and ultimately to her death. Tragically, Audrey's death occurred at the hands of a monster we thought was a friend, only ten days after Audrey's eleventh birthday. Audrey Cunningham was a charismatic, beautiful, talented and kind young lady. She loved singing, dancing, reading, and painting. She was even learning the skills of a tattoo artist. Most of all, caring for and playing with animals was her passion. Audrey's aspirations were to become a veterinarian or an animal trainer. Every day Audrey was out caring for our pets and walking our dogs. She would even walk the neighbor's dogs in the subdivision. She touched so many lives and filled them with joy and happiness that was infectious. She had so much energy and brought a passion to everything she did. Audrey will be missed by a great many people. Suh and Cunningham families are devastated and grieving for what happened to our little ray of sunshine, Audrey. We are being attacked and criticized on social media platforms for showing compassion and mercy to this formerly incarcerated person, But our interactions with this person were a result of our faith, which teaches us to give our fellow man a second chance. Unfortunately, the system failed us due to a loophole in the sex offender registration system. Don Stephen McDougall had a history of disrespect for young female children, but it did not show up when we checked the registry before allowing him to stay in an old camper in our backyard while he tried to start a new life. Had we been aware of what we know now, this man would have never set foot on our property, much less been a part of our little girl's life. We wish to acknowledge and thank the Polk County Sheriff's Office, the Livington Livingston Police Department, the Texas State Troopers, the Texas Rangers, the Texas State Guard, the Trinity River Authority, the FBI and nearby county sheriff departments, as well as thousands of volunteers, our local bfwposts, and the public for helping to search and ultimately find the body of Audrey. We also wish to thank the nonprofit organization Texas Equisearch for their tireless efforts that ultimately led to the discovery of and recovery of Audrey's body from the waters of the Trinity River. This was a hard working, multi jurisdictional effort that spent long hours in order to bring our angel Audrey home to us and bring this monster to justice. We also wish to acknowledge and think the members of the press who helped spread the word when the Amber alert went out and quickly pulled our community together with the common goal of bringing our little girl home safe and sound. The coverage was considered invaluable to help focusing attention and gather valuable leads that helped the search efforts. We were advised not to speak with the press during this time as it may have impacted the search for Audrey or shifted the focus from finding her. Audrey Danielle Cunningham will be missed, but hopefully not forgotten, as we would like to ask the legislatures and lawn forcement, both locally and in Washington, d C. To look at the loophole that prevented us from knowing that Don MacDougall was a convicted sex offender. The Sex Offender Registry is a valuable tool that parents and grandparents everywhere used to keep their children safe from these violent predators. The failing of the system is a crime and that we cannot allow it to go overlooked. There will be a memorial ceremony for the soul of Audrey Cunningham at the First Baptist Church in Livingston on Friday the first of March twenty twenty four. Between the hours of five and eight PM, and the public who helped in this effort are invited to attend. Please wear purple, which was Audrey's favorite color. A private funeral ceremony will be held the next day for the close family and friends of Audrey if you wish to drop off flowers, and then talks about like donations and all of the things. So I don't know what to think. This guy had a rap sheet a mile long and enticing a child was on there, Like you could see the charges clearly. If you do a Google search on anyone, you can pretty much find a lot out about them, and then you can pay like a small small fee to get a background check. All of this stuff would have showed up on that. I honestly don't know if the family really did check the sex offender registry to see if he was on there. I don't know if I entirely believe that. I honestly think that they just blindedly trusted this person. And you never think that you're going to be moving someone in onto your property that is going to harm your child. That is really really far from people's minds, I think, like most normal people. But you can never be too careful these days, anybody that you know could have ulterior motives and be inserting themselves into a situation for a reason, we all just have to be vigilant, be careful who you let around your children. Don't be afraid to run background checks, don't be afraid to investigate somebody before you let them in your life, and you let them in your child's life. It is so, so so important. Last thing I want to touch on there was a University of Georgia's student named lake and Riley. She was found dead near a lake on campus on Thursday, February twenty second. This just happened after she failed to return back from her morning jog. Her roommate became concerned and they unfortunately did find her body. They have made an arrest in the case, and they definitely think that it's not targeted. It was just a crime of opportunity. And he is the actual worst And he is five three and weighs one hundred and seventy pounds, which is an alarming short size for a man. And Lacan was five to four and about one hundred and fifteen pounds, So this guy, obviously, even though he's short, little man syndrome probs. He definitely towered over her in the weight range. He has been charged with malice, murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a nineyilman call, and concealing the death of another. He's got a lot going on. He's also not a US citizen and the Georgia Police Department has him in their custody and it's going to be really interesting to see this all play out. But lacn never should have lost her life. She was young nursing student, went on a morning run and never came back because this horrific monster decided that taking her life and ruining his life in the process was worth it. So really sad and unfortunate. We'll definitely keep you guys updated on that one, and we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. All right, guys, we are jumping into a new case today. This one came to me via Facebook, I want to say, and there really wasn't a lot of information out there. I did have to dig and I found a treasure trove of information. Today we are going to be talking about the disappearance of a guy named Randy Leach. He disappeared in nineteen eighty eight at the age of seventeen years old. So, as always, we are going to talk a little bit about who Randy was and what led up to his disappearance. Randal Wayne Leach was born on July twenty fifth of nineteen seventy nine to his parents, Harold and Alberta Leach, in Kansas. He was raised on a farm and the family had a lot of different animals. They had chickens, horses, rabbits, dogs. He also had a pet pig. He was a senior at Lynwood High School and the town of Lynnwood was very very small. Like back in nineteen eighty eight, three hundred people lived in Lynwood. It was a very very small town. He excelled in school. He got all a's and b's. He played basketball, he ran track, and he also had his own lawn mowing business, and his father described him as an entrepreneur and a hard worker. He enjoyed the outdoors, but especially loved fishing, and although he was getting ready to graduate, he wasn't really sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, but he was planning on working his lawn mowing business and was considering going to trade school. And he was also going to be working on restoring a nineteen sixty six Dodge Mustang which his parents had gifted him in prep for him graduating high school. So we are going to fast forward to the day of April fifteenth of nineteen eighty eight, which is the Lafe day that Randy was seen. So the details of that day come to us from several different people. However, the circumstances surrounding his disappearance are really interesting, and we're going to get to that in a minute. So the day of April fifteenth of nineteen eighty eight, Randy, he is seventeen years old. His dad, Harold, had just gifted him a John Dear tractor to assist with his lawn cutting. He had just received this tractor the day before. So on April fifteenth, he takes it over to one of his customers' homes, he mows their lawn, and then he comes home to his house and is out cutting the grass at the Leech family home, which is a farm land area. Like I said, so he did that and then he's spent hours cleaning the tractor afterwards because he wanted to keep his new tractor nice so he could use it with his other customers. So then he went ahead and got showered and cleaned up and told his parents that he was going to be headed to a pre graduation party which was going to be hosted by a goal named Kim Irwin at Erwin Farm. Again, very very small town, so everybody kind of knew everybody. So he decides to go to this party, and he made a few stops before he got to the party. He went to Stout's convenience store and purchased some candy, a couple of soft drinks, and three dollars worth of gasoline. Can you even imagine that would go nowhere today? And then he talked with some friends, and then he had also gotten by his cousin's house, but his cousin was at home, and then he ended up going to DeSoto to an autobody shop to check on the car that he was going to be restoring. So this kind of put him as far as timeline goes, arriving at the party between thirty and ten, and he was driving his mother's gray four door nineteen eighty five Dodge Sedan with Kansas plate number LVJ eight seven to two to one, and he had about fifty to sixty dollars in cash on him. So at this party there was between seventy and one hundred and fifty guests and it was like a bonfire party. There was of course drug use, alcohol consumption. They were all teenagers. Of course. Now I will say that Kim's mother, the gal who was throwing the party, Kim's mom who was named Annie Irwin, she was present for this party. There are different witnesses that say that Randy was acting like he was drunk, but they don't really know if he was actually consuming any alcohol. When he went to the gas station corner store, he purchased soda and candy, so obviously he was going to be able to access alcohol at this party. But nobody ever really saw him drinking. They just said that he was acting drunk. Annie Irwin, who like I said, is the mom of Kim Irwin, who was hosting the party, said that she thought that Randy was having some trouble walking, but she didn't feel like he was drunk. He didn't appear drunk and he didn't have a drink in his hand. The whole night that she saw, and there were other classmates that said that they thought that Randy was drunk, and one of them was concerned about his demeanor and even said like, you know, what's going on with you? Are you okay? And Randy just answered, man, I don't know, and that was that Now I do need to go back earlier when I said that Randy had gone to DeSoto at the body shop to check on his nineteen sixty six Ford Mustang. On the way there, he picked up one of his older acquaintances names Steve Dougherty, and I'm going to be referencing Steve probably quite a bit in the rest of the story. So he is a really important, in my opinion, key player in this whole scenario. So people at the party are saying that Randy appears to be intoxicated, but they didn't actually see him drinking, and there were a lot of different people trying to piece together the timeline because what ends up happening next is Randy does not come home. He does not come home in time for his twelve thirty in the morning curfew. His parents sleep right through it, wake up at six am, realize he is not home, and they think that he has either been injured in a car accident or something major is going on, because it is very unlike Randy to not be responsible and not be home. So the next day, April sixteenth, they obviously realized that something is going on and they contact acted one of Randy's friends. She said that she hadn't seen Randy, had no idea what was going on. So that morning, after they woke up and realized that Randy wasn't home, they were standing in their driveway just trying to like piece together what had happened. Alberta had contacted her brother who was in law enforcement, and they noticed somebody dry by their home, and of course, in the midst of like not knowing what was going on and not knowing the circumstances surrounding what was going on with Randy, they didn't really think anything of it at the time, but they did kind of make note of it. So Harold said that he saw Steve, the Steve that I talked about earlier, drive by that dry by their home that morning, and he Harold later comes back and says that he thought it was super odd because the speed limit on the street that they lived off of was fifty five but Steve was only going about ten miles an hour. Again, not super odd, but given the circumstances that we are going to later learn, Steve was one of the last people seen with Randy, it was a very odd interaction. Now, Harold and Alberta didn't realize at the time. They knew that it was Steve, but they didn't think that it was necessarily odd. They didn't really piece it together as being suspicious or anything like that, because at that point in time, all they knew was they didn't know where Randy was. They didn't know that he was missing. They didn't know any of the circumstances of anything else that led up to Randy not coming home. Hindsight is always twenty twenty, of course. So let's go back to Alberta contacting her brother, who, like I said, was in law enforcement. He, along with Harold and Alberta, go ahead and pay a visit to the Irwin farm to a piece together what had happened, and they got pretty much nowhere. When they went there, they found out that everything was swept up, raked up, everything was clean, no cups, no cans, literally no evidence of a party even being there, which is pretty typical the day after a rager of a party by teenagers. It's not going to just be like all cleaned up and put back together. They also stated that there was a bonfire and that there was a lot of stuff that was burning at the time that they went there, and they're just trying to navigate and figure out, like what happened? Where was Randy? Last scene who last had contact with Randy? And the daughter, Kim Irwin, was pretty upset and Harold had asked her if she had seen Randy and Kim said, yeah, I did see him, he was at the party, but didn't really offer up much more than that, but Kim was visibly at so what happened we really don't know now. Annie Irwin, who is the mom of Kim, invited them into the home and basically was like, what do you guys need from me? What can I do for you? And they just wanted to know what, like where Randy was, what was going on, what had happened? And all Annie could do was offer them a drink, offer them a beer, Like the balls on Annie Irwin to offer this mother and father of this guy who they don't know where he is a beer, Like wtf Annie, So she just basically brushed him off, said, I don't know where Randy is. One of the guys at the party took Randy home and that is where she left it. That was that. So the next day they officially decide to report Randy as missing. And now the investigators, of course, they go to the Erwin prop they find the same thing. Everything is clean, everything is scrubbed, there is no evidence left behind. Nobody is really saying a whole lot. So we're going to talk about some different witnesses at the party. A lot of this is a little contradictory of each other. But again, you're dealing with high school students who are drinking, slash, taking drugs, and there's just a lot going on, so their recollection and memory of things may not be super duper accurate. So there are some people that say around midnight that they saw Randy sitting in the front seat of his car. So that's at midnight, around one thirty am, there is a friend of Randy's name John Burns, and he is wanting to take Randy home. Could be because he thought Randy was too intoxicated to drive and wanted to take him home, but Randy could not find his keys, so he was like in the mist trying to look for his keys, and John said, go ahead and keep looking for your keys. I'm gonna give this girl a ride home, and then I'm gonna come back and get you and we will take you home. Annie Irwin, the mom of Kim Irwin, who owned the Irwin farm, said that she saw Randy waiting in line to use the restroom at two oh five in the morning, and then Randy's girlfriend also said that she saw him waiting in line still to use the restroom at two fifteen am. And then approximately around two thirty, John Burns returns to the farm to try to find Randy and at that point realizes Randy and his car are both gone. Nobody ever saw Randy leave this party. There's not one single eyewitness at least that they are saying that saw Randy leave this party. Also, let's go back to why Alberta and Harold didn't report Randy missing immediately. Back in nineteen eighty eight, you had to wait a full twenty four hours before you could report someone missing. Even though he was only seventeen, they still had to wait the twenty four hour mark to report Randy missing, so that is why they waited until April seventeenth to officially report him missing. So there's not really any new info that is coming out in the weeks following Randy's disappearance. Of course, Randy still has not surfaced, so he is still definitely missing, and Harold was kind of taking it upon himself to do his own investigation and question the different people that he knew were at that party that night, because it was such a large party and a lot of the people that were at the party were people that Randy was friends with or that he knew of at least, And there was this big discussion about the keys, and there were other people that were involved with the search for the keys, and as far as anyone knew, when Randy was brought back to his car, he still did not have his keys. So where the keys came from in between John leaving and John coming back and Randy's car and Randy being gone, we really don't know. So that whole conversation regarding the keys and all, and the more in depth detective work that Harold did that all happened in May, and then shortly after that, the Irwin home burns down, the place where the party took place that was scrub clean the very next morning burned down, and if that isn't suspicious, I don't know what is. Allegedly, in my opinion, the leeches decide to go ahead and hire some private detectives to try to investigate and help in their search for Randy, and they, unfortunately, these detectives conclude that they think that Randy ran away, which of course the leeches deny, and the investigators even investigating the case, don't believe that Randy left on his own accord, because he was making plans for the future and his behavior leading up to everything didn't line up with him voluntarily going missing. He was working on restoring that car. He had a lot of plans for his future, and that isn't something that someone who is planning on running away and starting a new life would be doing. So we are now in March of nineteen eighty nine and Steve is I guess, just out and about one day and he finds a severed foot that is in a tennis shoe on the banks of the Kansas City River. He of course turns this over to the authorities, and I guess Steve was like maybe this belongs to Randy kind of thing. But they did come back and say that it was not Randy's foot, so that was another kind of dead end in the search for Randy. Fast forward to nineteen ninety three, they do make an arrest. They arrest three men in suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Randy, but these guys ended up being released several days later, and they basically came out. The investigators came out and said that they were mistaken about these guys' involvement in Randy's case. I don't know what led them to arrest these guys, and I don't know what led them to release them, But whatever the circumstances, maybe they weren't able to tie them to Randy's case whatsoever. Randy is declared legally dead. In two thousand and one. Harold and Alberta are still petitioning and fighting to try to figure out what happened to their son. They are trying to keep the case active and out there. The KBI investigators, they decide to renew an effort to try to investigate further into Randy's case. They highly do suspect that foul play was involved. And they do think that Randy was murdered. And we are now jumping ahead to twenty fourteen. Alberta and Harold learned that in the nineties there was a suspect in Randy's disappearance named Eric Montgomery. So I don't know what all evidence they had linking Eric to the disappearance of Randy, but he was a suspect in two homicides in nineteen ninety that had occurred seven miles from the home where Alberta and Harold lived in Lynnwood, Kansas. And this guy, Eric Montgomery, died in prison in twenty ten, so we will never know more about him because this information wasn't shared until four years after Eric died with the leeches, so they didn't even know that he was even a potential suspect on investigator's radar until four years after he had already died. In twenty twenty one, Adventures with Purpose started to search some of the areas where they thought that Randy could have potentially been because the car that went missing along with Randy also has never been found, so they did some different searching. They searched a couple of different spots, but nothing notable came up and they were not able to locate any sign of Randy or any sign of the vehicle. Randy's family still searches for answers. In October of twenty twenty three, they updated Randy's missing person's poster. They included a QR code that you can scan and submit information anonymously if you do have a tip in regards to what happened to Randy that day in April of nineteen eighty eight, which was such a long time ago for this family to not know what happened to their son. Steve has also passed away, along with a few other witnesses and people that attended that party back in nineteen eighty eight, so there's not really even a way to go back and requestion these people that they questioned so many years ago because a lot of them have passed away. There's been rumors that Randy was abducted and killed by a Satanic cult that was supposedly active in the Lynnwood, Kansas area around that time. And then there is other people that said that he was kidnapped by a cult and he was held in a cave and then killed. That ended up not They weren't able to ever prove that, and the person that said this apparently was hallucinating because he was under the influence of drugs. Like, there is so much going on with this case and so many different odd key players that kind of come into things. It's just so weird to me. I feel like the way that Randy was acting that night, I would not be surprised if somebody gave him something to cause him to act that way. Randy took it unknowingly, probably, and somebody did harm to him, incapacitated him, did harm to him. God knows for what reason. Sometimes people do bad things, and there really is no reason other than the thrill. I don't really know what I think happened, but I definitely think whatever happened lies within the Irwin farm, which mysteriously burned down months after this. It's just very, very interesting. And the fact that Annie Irwin didn't seem at all concerned that this guy went missing. This child he was seventeen, went missing from her property and that's the last place he was seen alive. She didn't seem at all concerned that something nefarious had happened, and was just pretty much like offering the parents of Randy a beverage, like, what is wrong with you? I don't understand this logic. Again, I know it was nineteen eighty eight. Times are different than they are now. But I don't think any rational human, responsible parent would not show any concern when someone else's child hasn't shown up and they were a last on my property drinking and possibly doing drugs along with everyone else. It just doesn't track. So at the time of his disappearance, like I said, Randy was seventeen years old. He was sixty three. He weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. He was wearing a blue pocket T shirt, blue Levi jeans, white low cut sneakers, and white socks. He was driving that gray four door nineteen eighty five Dodged Dan with the Kansas license plate LVJ eight seven to two one. He is a white male, brown hair, blue eyes, and he also has a mole on his left ear. Harold Leech unfortunately passed away in twenty twenty one, and he never ever ever gave up the search for his son. I think him and Alberta are probably two of the reasons that this case is still out there. It's probably the reason that I came across this case and the reason that I'm sharing it with you guys today, there is an age progress photo of Randy two fifty one years old. I will be sure to share that it has been a long time since this happened. And like in every case, somebody knows something. Somebody saw something, and I feel like either somebody is going to come forward and say what they know, or it's going to eat them alive until the day that they die. And I don't feel like there's any in between. There were a lot of people at that party. Somebody saw something, even if they don't think they saw something. Somebody saw something. Somebody knows more than they are putting forward. Kim Irwin was really really upset that day. Why was she upset? And why was everything picked up put away cleaned up? There was trash burning. Why. It doesn't make any sense to me, and it's never gonna make sense to me. Somebody at that party knows what happened to Randy, and they need to come forward. It is never too late to serve justice and give Alberta the closure that she needs. There is a five thousand dollars reward being offered for information that brings Randy Leech's case to a close. Alberta is quoted as saying, most recently, I have to have hope, got to have it. I've had it for thirty five years and I still have it. Dwindles, but you still have to have hope. End quote. Let's help Alberta get closure in the case of her son. She does think that Randy is deceased, and she says that now that her husband also is deceased, that she knows that Harold has found Rand in heaven and that is the closure that he needed. But she still needs her closure, and she needs to find out what happened, and she deserves that after so long. So share this episode. I'm going to share photos of Randy when he was younger, the age progress photos. And I'm also going to try to figure out the location of the Irwin farm and try to figure out if I can Google street View stock it, because that's who I am as a human, and that's what I do. I spend most of my life on Google street View looking for these places related to these cases. I do so as always Share, Share, Share, check out the Instagram and Facebook pictures that I'm going to post on my pages and be sure to follow along with me on Facebook and Instagram. I post all the pictures to all of my cases with every episode and also share like other like missing Persons and other case updates as well. So thank you, guys, I appreciate each and every one of you as always. Be sure to rate, subscribe, like, do all of the things, and I will see you guys on Friday for a new episode. Bye. Hello, Like Mother, Like Murder listeners. I am Rachel and I'm Heather. We are the hosts of Like Mother, Like Murder. We bring you the good, the badass, and the crime. Each week, we bring you stories from missing and murdered, to survivors and women who empower you, and of course some mom talks sprinkled in. Check us out wherever you get your podcasts at Like Mother, Like Murder, and give us a follow on social media so that we can say Hi, okay, love you bye ky, love you bye.