The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases. And missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back. Welcome back everyone.
I'm your host, Ali. And I am your co-host, Eli. And I am so sorry for the unexpected hiatus we took last week. Yeah, I've been a little spotty in attendance as well. But COVID hit our household last week. If you follow us on Instagram, at Cold and Missing, quick plug in at the beginning of the show, but please follow us there so that way, heaven forbid this happened in the future, but we put updates on there for our new episodes every week.
And when COVID hits your household and knocks you on your butt, as it did with me, wow, this was my first time with COVID, y'all. And here's just a friendly reminder to wash your hands, keep up on those good COVID practices, because y'all don't want this new variant or whatever I got. It sucked. As you might hear, I am actually still recovering from COVID. I caught it from my beautiful wife. And yeah, I mean, it's rough. The body is a resilient thing, but man, have we been resilient.
But happy to be back, grateful to be back. I think update me, Al, what episode number will this be? So this is episode 47, and we have a missing person case. Missing person. All right, would you like to just dive in? Yeah, we've kept everyone waiting long enough. Great, let's do it. So today I have for you the missing person case of Leona Kinsey. And this case actually comes to us from a listener. So quick shout out to Mel, who is a victim's advocate for Leona.
So Mel was kind enough to introduce me to Leona's daughter, Carolyn, who I was able to connect with and work with both Carolyn and Mel to gather information on the story. So thank you so much to Carolyn and Mel right off the top. So Leona Kinsey, this takes place in La Grande, Oregon in October of 1999. But first, a little bit about Leona. Leona is 45 years old in 1999. She was born December 15, 1953, and she would be 69 years old today.
In 1999, Leona was 5'5", 110 pounds, and had brown eyes and shoulder length brown hair. She is a member of the Puyallup and Yakima tribe in Washington state and has a tattoo of a tomahawk and a peace pipe crossed on her bicep. Leona is described as having a huge heart and being very compassionate, but also a fire cracker. She was fiercely independent and knew how to live off of the land. Leona ran her own lawn care business and had a fully booked week of jobs at the time of her disappearance.
Leona has one daughter, Carolyn DeFord, who also does incredible work. Carolyn works for the Puyallup tribe as an anti-trafficking program manager. This is from a biography I found online for Carolyn when she spoke to the city of Kent, and I'm sure Leona would also want me to brag on her daughter in this way, so I'm going to take a moment and read it because Carolyn is an amazing woman.
Carolyn DeFord's personal experience as a survivor and being the daughter of a long-term missing person inspired her to create Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, a grassroots volunteer advocacy organization focused on finding the missing women and helping the families of murdered women cope with their grief.
She is a board member of the Inter-Tribal Coalition Against Violence, Washington Against Sex Trafficking, and the Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Person Task Force. She works tirelessly to address domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and missing and murdered Indigenous women and people with her work. Now a timeline of events. So Monday, October 25, 1999. Leona is doing some grocery shopping at Walmart when she runs into her best friend Nancy.
Leona tells Nancy that she's going to stop by her place after she heads over to Albertson's grocery store. Leona tells Nancy that she is meeting a man named John there. Leona had struggled with addiction in the past, and it is believed that she might have relapsed at this time and John was a drug dealer. When Leona fails to turn up to Nancy's home, Nancy begins to worry. She jumps in her car and starts driving around to Leona's favorite haunts to see if she's there, but she can't find her.
Nancy is unable to locate Leona or Leona's vehicle, which was a 1980s light brown GMC Jimmie. On Tuesday, October 26, this is the next day, Carolyn, Leona's daughter, wakes up in Washington State and is crying over everything. She says, quote, something wasn't right, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Everything was making me cry. I cried because I had to go to work. I cried because it was raining. I just cried. The sobbing was coming from somewhere inside of me, somewhere I've never felt.
End quote. When Carolyn gets into work, there's a message waiting for her from Nancy. Nancy told her that her mom was supposed to stop by last night, but never showed up and Nancy was beginning to worry. Carolyn begins calling her mom and calling her pager, but Leona never picks up or calls back. Finally, Carolyn pages her mother that it's an emergency, hoping that this will prompt a response from her mother. But this too goes unanswered.
On Wednesday, October 27, Nancy and Lonnie, Leona's ex-boyfriend, go to Leona's home to find that her animals have not been cared for. Leona loved her dogs and her pets and took them everywhere, so it was not like her to leave them at home alone and uncared for. Nancy and Lonnie call the police who show up and they find a window that they're able to crawl through. The police find no signs of foul play inside of the home. On Friday, October 29, Carolyn files a missing persons report.
Carolyn has held off filing a missing persons report because her mother did have a habit of disappearing for days at a time and Carolyn didn't want to get the police involved unnecessarily with her mother if it could be avoided, especially if her mother had relapsed into her addiction. Carolyn thought that once she called the police, they would jump into action, but this was not the case.
Carolyn says, quote, I had this great hope that I would call and make the missing persons report and the police would just find her. That's what they do, right? They find people, end quote. On Saturday, October 30th, Leona's car, the light brown 1980s GMC Jimmie, is found abandoned at the Albertsons parking lot. Nancy found the car when she was out looking for Leona.
The car was found in the morning and the manager for Albertsons believed that the car had not been there the night before when the store had closed. There were no signs of foul play outside or inside the car, but it was noted that the outside of the car was caked in mud as if it had been driven off of a road. Ultimately, no clues were pulled from the car that would help find Leona. On Wednesday, November 3rd, 1999, Carolyn arrives at her mother's home in Oregon.
Since Leona was renting her home on Hall Street in La Grande, Oregon, the landlord needed the November rent paid or Leona's stuff packed up. Since Carolyn couldn't afford her mother's rent along with her own, she arrived and began packing up her mother's things. When she arrived at her mother's home, she found coffee still in the pot, groceries left out on the counter, and a full carton of cigarettes in the freezer.
Carolyn was nervous that as she packed her mother's things, at any moment Leona would come through the door and be pissed that everyone was in her home boxing up her stuff. When Carolyn went into her mother's room, she laid down on the bed and breathed in her mother's scent. It was in this moment that Carolyn noticed her mother's purse. Inside was her pager, her glasses, her keys, and her cigarettes. Carolyn knew her mother would not leave home without these items.
While packing her home, Carolyn also finds notes all over the place that Leona had written begging her ex-boyfriend to leave her alone. And then the case goes cold. It really feels as if the police don't immediately jump at this and don't take it seriously. We know from October 27th when the police initially go to her home and shimmy in through the window that there's no foul play suspected per the police report.
And the police report is very thin as far as descriptions and what was going on in the home and the state of the home. According to Mel, the victim's advocate. The next bit of information really comes because of the work the family has done in their own investigation of the case. So the man the family believed to be John, the man that Leona was meeting at the Albertsons parking lot, he was deported back to Mexico. John has a list of aliases a mile long.
He is also known to go by John Pina Lamas, Juan Pina, Juan Pina Lamas, Juan F. Alejandro, Juan F. Pina Badanda, and Juan Alejandri. The family is still seeking information related to John. They don't know his whereabouts today, if he's alive or dead. So any information related to John is helpful and we're going to be posting pictures of him on our Instagram as well. In October of 2008, Leona's family gathered to remember her and to hopefully jog the memories of those in the community.
Carolyn says, quote, I'm willing to bet there are people in La Grande who have information that could help bring closure. We're ready for closure. It's been nine years and that's too long to constantly wonder what's happening. End quote. Carolyn has said several times that as a child, if she snuck out in La Grande, there was going to be at least five people calling her mother in the morning to tell her about it.
She wonders how a community that knows everything about everyone all of a sudden has not a single scrap of information about Leona. Police at this time say they are still working on the case. Sergeant John Scholl says, quote, we've done a large number of interviews and it's still an open case. We'd be happy to get more information. End quote. And then Carolyn holds memorials over the years that happen again and again.
And these eventually grow into big rallies for missing and murdered indigenous women. But in December of 2008, Carolyn says, quote, I'm ready to find answers. She deserves to be brought home. She deserves to rest in peace. I would like someone to be held accountable, but I'll just start with finding her. End quote. And then in 2021, Lani, Leona's ex-boyfriend, took a polygraph test and passed.
Lani is not a person of interest at this time, but nobody has been ruled out in this case, according to police. Anything and everything is still a possibility. Over the years, rumors have reached the family that Leona was murdered and placed in a hole on a mountainside, either on Mount Emily, the Minam Mountain, or the High Valley region, which are all surrounding La Grande, Oregon.
So if you know anything about Leona's disappearance in 1999 or her whereabouts today, please call the La Grande police at 541-963-1017. And the sources for today come from NPR, The Doe Project, Leona's family's GoFundMe pages, Seattle Met, the Facebook page, Finding Leona Kinsey, The Observer, and Mel, the victim's advocate who works closely with Carolyn and her family, and of course, Carolyn DeFord. So that is the case of Leona Kinsey. Thank you for sharing this case.
It's one that I have heard of before, and it's one that I couldn't forget about because of the circumstances always, you know, but specifically how little was done. That was something that I remembered significantly. Yeah, this case has really been kept alive by Carolyn. She's done the work to get it out in the media. I had a really hard time finding newspaper stories from the time that this event occurred just because there really wasn't any coverage done.
There seemed to be a little bit done in The Observer, but I couldn't access their archives that far back. Yeah. Again, it's like shocking and heartbreaking because it was 1999, right? Like that's not that long ago. And I think chances are if you are a listener, you have an awareness around missing and murdered indigenous women. It's known that way, unfortunately, for a reason.
Because these cases, just because of marginalization and racism and institutionalized, so many things, these people, these women are failed over and over again. And it feels tricky. I'm like, what do I say besides just say her name more and talk more about the case? And I feel like she was a struggling addict too, which I know it's such a stigma. Me being a recovering addict myself, I've watched people's minds change about me within a moment after I say it.
And addiction is unfairly present in the lives of a lot of indigenous women. It's like a byproduct of the environment that they're living in. And I can understand some of that. So it's one word, to describe someone that way and to know that that's in part why her case was discarded is sad. Or I guess that's my opinion. You know? I don't know. Do you agree with me? Like, do you think that that was a focal point or a descriptor?
Yeah, I think it's the fact that Leona had struggled with addiction and might have possibly been active in her addiction during this time or during the time of her disappearance. I think gave the police permission to not care. And with her behavior in the past of possibly falling off the grid for a few days, not answering the phone, not calling people back, I think that further gave police comfort and like, well, this is normal. She does this, she disappears, she's an addict, she'll be back.
But she never was back. And from the beginning, like her best friend, Nancy, raised the alarm immediately and started contacting people because she knew something was wrong. She knew that even in addiction, she should be able to find Leona. And she couldn't. She should be able to get a hold of her. Carolyn knew that like her mother would call her back if she said, it's an emergency 911 on her pager. And she didn't.
So clues from the very beginning that this was not just addiction, that this was something else, that she was truly missing. And even if it was, I know this strays a moment away from exactly on topic, but like the fact that that's the response because, you know, as I know, and you thank you for being there for me in my recovery, addicts when they're relapsing are at their like most, most vulnerable. Like the response, like culturally, communally should be like all hands on deck.
Like this person needs support. Yeah, I mean, this one, like I feel like I know I say it every episode. Like I know that I become emotional and like talking about these cases. And of course I do, you know, I'm a person.
It reminds me of like pieces of paper like ripped up and just like flowing through the wind, you know, and that it's like a privilege for me to like realize like I'm like lost and like hopeless bump bumping into like trying to talk to you about this and that like, from what I can like maybe understand just like culturally and communally, like feeling that all the time. You know, it feels palpable and it's like just heartbreaking.
Yeah, there is an epidemic in this country of missing and murdered indigenous women and children and people because of the jurisdictions of tribal police, but then county and state and federal, they, it all gets like convoluted and swept under the rug, essentially. Yeah, and nationally, indigenous people are just, it's not that they're reported missing less, but it's just their numbers aren't getting reported nationally.
So like the NamUs database that has like all the missing people, you know, in the United States, the active missing person cases in the United States. After like, I believe in 2016, they did like an investigation and found that they like indigenous people weren't getting uploaded into that database at the rate that they were going missing. So it's just a failing on the government to indigenous people, which has always been the history of that relationship, for lack of a better word.
And Leona is one of these women who has been long term missing with no resolution. And because of her experience as her daughter, Carolyn has taken this and has really changed the conversation nationally about missing and murdered indigenous women and is being truly a beacon of change in Washington state. There's been a lot of changes, including having an alert for when an indigenous person goes missing in the state, similar to like an amber alert.
Like, I feel like you could trace all of those origins like back to Carolyn, ultimately. And I know Leona would be so proud of her daughter for using her voice and speaking up and fighting on this. There's a story that I found that Carolyn tells a lot about her mom of when Carolyn was in school and a girl wanted to fight her, but Carolyn wouldn't get out of the car to fight her. And when her mom found out, she was like, you didn't get out of the car.
So it was like, that was like very much their personalities where Leona was like bold and brash and Carolyn like seemed to sit back more in her youth. But I would argue now that like, Carolyn is bold and brass, just like her mother and like is a force to be reckoned with, just like her mother. Oh, yeah. I'm glad that we are talking about her today. It's a case that can't be mentioned enough. She is a human being that like cannot be mentioned, thought of, spoken about enough.
And Leona's case really has been put out because of Carolyn like, and because of Mel advocating for Leona's story to be put out there. And if you search in your podcast app for Leona Kinsey, you'll find other really great podcasts and interviews with Carolyn that are all really great listening. So if you want to know more about this case, that information is out there because the family has put it out there and has made it available.
So thank you again to Carolyn DeFord for allowing us to share the story on our podcast and for providing us with information. And Mel, Leona's victim's advocate, who brought this case to us through our email and who I've had a really great opportunity to get to know. And there are some other cases that Mel has also brought us that we're going to be covering down the line. So thank you for your trust in this.
And it's an honor to put Leona's name out there and to put the story out there and to put it back in people's minds. If you want to stay up to date with Leona's case specifically, I encourage you to go over to Facebook and you can search Finding Leona Kinsey and you can follow that page there. It's ran by Carolyn and Mel, who post the latest updates and pictures, stories, interviews, all of that. So if you want to keep up with Leona's case specifically, I recommend you go there.
And again, if you know anything about the disappearance of Leona Kinsey in 1999, you are encouraged to call the La Grande police at 541-963-1017. And again, if you don't already, please follow us at Instagram at cold and missing. You can find us on there and we'll have updates. We don't plan on being sick and missing episodes on short notice like that again, but life happens so you never know. But you can stay up to date. We always inform the Instagram of what's going on.
So please follow us there or you can head over to our website www.coldandmissing.com where we have transcripts of every episode. So if you know someone who is hard of hearing or deaf, they can read the episodes. All the information is out there to also join in and get the information. So that's on our website. While you're in your podcast app, if you wouldn't mind leaving us a review of five stars, a thumbs up, a written review if you're an Apple podcast and have the time. But that's all I have.
So have a good week and stay safe, y'all. Stay safe, y'all.