Leanne Green Deserves a Voice. Will You Help Me Speak For Her?

8 1/2 minutes.

In approximately eight and a half minutes, on April 15, 1987, in Dickson County, Tennessee, 17 year old Leanne Green disappeared from the face of the Earth.

In eight and a half minutes.

How is it possible that, in less time than it takes to make chicken in the air fryer, a human disappears never to be seen or heard from again? And no one knows? No one sees anything? Hears anything? And there are no witnesses?

How is that possible?

It’s not. It’s not possible. Someone always sees. Someone always knows. And usually, there are witnesses.

The abductor — the assumed murderer — knows, even if he is alone in that knowledge.

Leanne Green did not disappear by herself. Someone knows. Someone saw. And someone is keeping silent.

It’s time for us to force them to talk.

It was a Wednesday night in small town Tennessee. The Wednesday night before the local high school prom. Leanne, reliable and dedicated, had just gotten off from her hosting job at the local Holiday Inn at 9:00 pm. Her twin brother, Lawson, had borrowed a family member’s car so that he could drive them both to prom the next day. He picked Leanne up, barely gets down the road, and the car runs out of gas. Lawson tells Leanne that he’ll head up to the gas station right up the road. Reportedly, she tells him she’s scared. Lawson suggests that she come along. Leanne says she’ll stay behind, but she holds onto the keys.

A family named Puckett had pulled over after church and picks Lawson up and gives him a ride. It take them roughly eight and a half minutes to get to the market and get back with gas. When they do, Leanne is gone. Her purse and keys are in the car. There is no sign of struggle. The passenger side door is closed.

Friends who knew Leanne have told me that she would never get in the car with someone she didn’t know, and therefore, it had to be an acquaintance or someone in a police car or a tow truck. Someone in a position of authority. Or someone posing as such.

In 1985, two years prior to Leanne’s disappearance, a teen named Kathy Nishiyama was murdered and raped postmortem when the Sheriff in Dickson County allowed an inmate to take the cop car to wash it, and he used the car to pull Kathy over in a neighboring county and subsequently kill her.

Can we rule out the possibility of police in this county being less than enthusiastically honest about solving a crime should it make them look bad? No.

Was one of the TBI agents on the case now the sheriff of a county with known ethical problems? Yes. Was he also the same Sheriff who wrote a libelous Facebook post about someone that I have known since childhood who then successfully sued them in court? Yes.

Did he admit fault and wrong doing then? No.

Can I trust the work of that officer? No.

Could this have been a klusterfuk of incompetence from police who believed she ran away and took days to take this seriously? Yes.

Could this have been police giving 100% effort, year after year, to try to solve a case where there was asolutely no indication of what happened to her? Yes.

I was eight years old when Leanne went missing. I don’t know what happened and I wasn’t old enough to know what kind of efforts police put forth; which leads they chased down; which suspects they seriously considered. But I think it’s time we all ask those questions again.

And again.

And again.

Do I believe that the detectives and the law enforcement that my county has now can put renewed efforts into this? Yes.

Do I think they should? It’s time.

Do I believe that law enforcement believe they did the best they could with the case? Yes.

Is it good enough? No. She’s still never been found so it’s obviously not.

Was the officer who worked the initial missing persons call that night one of the best Sheriffs Dickson County has ever had? Yes. Do I trust his efforts? 100%.

Listening to an interview with the officers who worked the case just a few years back was the first time that I was made aware that witnesses reported seeing a vehicle pulled over behind Leanne in that eight and a half minutes it took for her to disappear.

In eight and a half minutes, you have a teenager who goes missing with witnesses who reported seeing a car pulled over at the same time…so why has this crime not been solved?

I don’t know. I’ve been asking that since I was a kid. It’s time that I start asking on a larger scale.

If I believed in the odds or the randomness of a straggling serial killer pulling through my small town in the few minutes that she happened to be on the side of the road, I’d play the lottery. Leanne knew the person who took her. But in that same vein of absurdity, the FBI decided that an inmate in Florida who confessed to killing Leanne was to blame. Jailed for rape, he claimed he buried her in an old graveyard, but could never lead detectives to where he buried her, nor could he give her family any indication of characteristics that would prove that he had ever even seen Leanne.

His name was Robert McKinley Richards. But he is not the name you will hear if you ask most folks who were around here then who they think stole Leanne from her family.

What is that name? I think we should all be asking that.

Leanne needs a voice. Let’s be it.