Duo disguise overdosed woman in wheelchair, set house ablaze to hide body, IN cops say
When 30-year-old Deborah Leslie went missing, her family didn’t waste any time trying to find her.
On Sept. 21, three days after she seemingly relapsed, Deborah’s mother tracked her cell phone to its last known location, a Motel 6 in Hammond, Indiana, according to a probable cause affidavit filed March 27.
Her car, a red 2006 Mazda, was there, too. But there was no sign of Deborah.
She struggled with drug addiction and, as a safety precaution, allowed her mother to track her phone and access her social media accounts, in case anything should happen, documents said.
“Even when she was up to no good … we always knew where she was,” her father, David Leslie, told McClatchy News.
Deborah fought hard to stay sober. Sometimes she would fall, but always she dusted herself off and tried again, David Leslie told McClatchy News.
“She put more effort into trying to get better than anyone I think I’ve ever met in my life. And in spite of that, she’s still dead,” he said. “Sometimes it just doesn’t happen, for whatever reason.”
Alcohol had always been her burden. Opiates entered the picture about a year-and-a-half before her death, David Leslie said.
“Her twin sister went one direction, and Deborah kind of got mixed up in a little bit of stuff,” David Leslie said. “As things went on she got very spiritual.”
God seemed to help. And family.
“In spite of two different directions … they’ve been tight knit, all the way to the very last day,” David Leslie said.
Last known location
The exact sequence of events during Deborah’s last days remains unclear.
“I don’t know what happened,” David Leslie said. Just a few days earlier, they were talking on the phone while she went for a walk, and everything seemed fine.
Then she stopped responding. Deborah’s phone let her parents know she stumbled on her path to sobriety again.
“She was where she shouldn’t be,” her dad said.
But then something unprecedented happened — Deborah’s phone went offline.
The Motel 6 was the last known location.
Her family asked hotel management for information. Had a room been rented in her name? Was anyone with her?
Management wouldn’t say.
Investigators would later learn she was staying in a room with a man and woman.
It’s not clear exactly how she met them.
They arrived together in Deborah’s car on Sept. 20, according to documents, and the man rented a room.
Surveillance video showed the trio coming and going, always together, until shortly before midnight. At that point, the man and woman leave in Deborah’s car without her, documents said.
Investigators believe Deborah was already dead inside the room, having overdosed on fentanyl and cocaine.
The two are allegedly seen the following afternoon carrying a wheelchair up the stairs to their room.
“The wheelchair appeared to be recently purchased due to it still having tags on it,” the documents said.
At 11:19 p.m., the woman walks out of the room and looks around as if scoping the area out, before the man emerges, pushing a wheelchair carrying Deborah, investigators said.
She is motionless in the chair, a surgical mask across her face, baseball cap on her head and bed sheet covering her body.
“At the bottom of the stairs, the baseball hat on her head is seen falling off and the hat is put back onto her head and [the woman] is seen helping move Deborah’s legs which appeared to be stiff,” documents said. “Both [the man] and [woman] then place Deborah Leslie in the rear driver’s side passenger seat of the Mazda” and drive away.
About an hour later, a fire engulfed an abandoned house in the neighboring community of Gary. The charred remains of a woman were found inside and later identified through dental records as Deborah, documents said.
“We’re grateful that they found her,” David Leslie said. “We’re horrified that it was her.”
Little comfort
David Leslie had been there that night, waiting in the parking lot of the motel.
“I saw the car and was looking at a wall of hotel rooms,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do, and I sat out there.”
He thought about going door-to-door, knocking until he found the right room, or until police showed up to make him stop.
He had no way of knowing what was really going on. It seemed likely that her phone had simply died and she wasn’t in a state to care, he said.
Around 10:30 p.m., David Leslie left, planning to come back first thing in the morning. When he did, his daughter’s car was gone.
“I probably missed them taking her out to her vehicle by maybe a half hour at best,” David Leslie said.
“And if I would’ve encountered them doing that, it probably wouldn’t have turned out good for them. And I’d maybe be the one sitting in jail.”
He wonders why they went through so much trouble — and why they treated his daughter the way they did.
“They could have called 911 and left … or they could’ve drove somewhere and dropped her body on the side of the road. I mean there’s a lot of things they could have done besides what they did, seeking out a location, getting gas and dumping it on her body, burning the place down. To me it seems extreme,” he said. “If there’s something more to it that happened in the hotel, I’ll never know.”
There’s not much comfort to be found. But Deborah’s own words, a final diary entry, shows she kept her faith until the end.
“It’s the one consolation of all of it, that I know where she’s at,” David Leslie said. “In spite of everything that happened, I know her faith is deep and I know where she’s at.”
The fire
There was no smoke in Deborah’s lungs, meaning she was dead before the fire was set, documents said. A toxicology report listed fentanyl, cocaine and alcohol as being in her system.
Traces of gasoline were found on burned floorboards and Deborah’s clothing, and arson investigators determined the blaze was intentionally set, documents said. Cell phone records show the man’s phone connected with cell towers near the fire at the time it was set.
Witnesses also reported seeing two people, matching the man and woman’s description, buying a wheelchair the afternoon before the fire, according to investigators.
The man and woman are facing four charges each, including altering the scene of a death and failing to report the discovery of a body, court records show.
“We know that nothing can bring her back and I guess right now I just have some simple things I’d like,” David Leslie said. “One, I’d like justice served.”
The charges brought by the Lake County Prosecutor’s Office are not enough, he says.
A house was set on fire to destroy his daughter’s remains, according to investigators, and the suspects were seen driving away from the Motel 6 in her car, which has never been found.
But there are no charges being pursued for arson or auto theft, records show.
“Currently, the charges are not the amount of justice that is deserved for this situation,” David Leslie said. “[They] burned the place down, and rode off into the sunset in my daughter’s vehicle.”
McClatchy News has reached out to the prosecutor’s office for comment.
Living on
Deborah lives on in memory, but also in billboards scattered around the community, David Leslie said.
Following the loss of their daughter, they were contacted by Patty Stovall, executive director of Sounds of Sarah, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of the danger of fentanyl.
Now, Deborah’s face can be seen alongside other sons and daughters who have died from the highly addictive opioid.
“Help needs to be out there, community awareness needs to be out there. People need to wake up and realize there’s a drug running through our nation that is killing a lot of people,” David Leslie said. ”I hope all of this comes together to offer a conclusion, but also help people who have already lost loved ones.”
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