Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Taken for Ransom: The Kidnapping of Kim Leggett

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Taken for Ransom: The Kidnapping of Kim Leggett · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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  Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. The Rio Grande Valley, consisting of
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  Speaker 1: the four southernmost counties in Texas, has had its fair
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  Speaker 1: share of long running mysteries. Perhaps the most known, or
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  Speaker 1: at least the case that received the most national media attention,
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  Speaker 1: is the nineteen sixty sexual assault, beating and suffocation murder
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  Speaker 1: of second grade teacher and former beauty queen Irene Garza
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  Speaker 1: and McAllen, whose case went unsolved for over a half
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  Speaker 1: a century until father John Bernard Fight was arrested in
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  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen and eventually convicted of her murder at age
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  Speaker 1: eighty five. A lesser known mystery, the savage murder of
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  Speaker 1: twenty three year old Candy Mora, stabbed to death in
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  Speaker 1: Harlingen in nineteen seventy three, was as brutal and senseless
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  Speaker 1: as Irene Garza's slang. Candy's killer never faced justice, and
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  Speaker 1: the primary suspect in the case died due to complications
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  Speaker 1: from diabetes as the Cameron County District Attorney closed in
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  Speaker 1: on him in late twenty nineteen. In nineteen eighty four,
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  Speaker 1: another mystery was born in Mercedes Texas. Though the city
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  Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily immune to criminal activity, nonviolent crimes such as
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  Speaker 1: burglary and theft were relatively commonplace, and though less so,
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  Speaker 1: violent crime wasn't unheard of. The disappearance of a young
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  Speaker 1: wife and mother, however, was undoubtedly unusual. Clues, some immediate
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  Speaker 1: and some that emerged in the following years, were scant,
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  Speaker 1: and the question of what exactly happened to Kim Leggett
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  Speaker 1: that October day in nineteen eighty four remains unanswered today. Mercedes, Texas,
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  Speaker 1: in Hidalgo County, is among the state's southernmost cities. It
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  Speaker 1: sits in the Rio Grande Valley, about eight miles from
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  Speaker 1: the Texas Mexico border. Its history is rich, going back
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  Speaker 1: to seventeen ninety, when a rancher was given a land
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  Speaker 1: grant to settle there. Over the following century, much of
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  Speaker 1: the area's ranching land switched hands a few times, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century, a local land developer named
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: lawn Sea Hill Junior saw potential in the then modestly
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  Speaker 1: populated community and began clearing the land for development, naming
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  Speaker 1: it Lawnsborough. The town, though there is some dispute about
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  Speaker 1: This would go through three more name changes before finally
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  Speaker 1: settling on Mercedes sometime around nineteen oh four, which became
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  Speaker 1: known as the Sweetheart of the Branch. It was the
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  Speaker 1: first town on a partiarticular branch of the Saint Louis
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  Speaker 1: Brownsville and Mexico Railway. The Rio Grande Company, who owned
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  Speaker 1: much of the land in Mercedes at that point, began
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  Speaker 1: an extensive publicity campaign to lure companies to the area,
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  Speaker 1: and by nineteen oh seven, citrus crops and grape cultivation
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  Speaker 1: moved in, followed by a newspaper, The Enterprise, a branch
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  Speaker 1: of the Hidalgo County Bank, a school, and a lumberyard,
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  Speaker 1: among other businesses. In nineteen oh eight, Mercedes was officially
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  Speaker 1: incorporated as a Texas city in nineteen oh nine. The
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  Speaker 1: town grew at a modest pace until World War One,
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  Speaker 1: when a total of somewhere around fifteen thousand soldiers moved
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  Speaker 1: into Camp Mercedes and Camp Yano Grande just southeast of town.
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  Speaker 1: After the war, the population dove back down to just
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  Speaker 1: a few thousand, and by the nineteen fifties, Mercedes would
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  Speaker 1: hit just over ten thousand, where it would hover for
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  Speaker 1: the next few decades. By the nineteen eighties, Mercedes had
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  Speaker 1: amassed an impressive number of businesses considering the stagnant population, agriculture,
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  Speaker 1: meat packing, chemical manufacturing, and cotton among them. On Sunday,
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  Speaker 1: February fourteenth, nineteen eighty two, Valentine's Day, sweethearts Kim Sue
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  Speaker 1: Skirik and Mark Leggett, a Rio Grande Valley farmer, tied
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  Speaker 1: the knot in Mercedes. Kim was born to Sharon and
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  Speaker 1: Darryl Skirik in Colorado in nineteen sixty two, where she'd
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  Speaker 1: grow up, but after her mother and father split up
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, her mom remarried and relocated Kim
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  Speaker 1: and her brother to Texas, where Sharon's new husband, Air
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  Speaker 1: Force pilot and World War II hero, Marvin Lee Lefty Gardner,
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  Speaker 1: had started a crop dusting business, Lefty Gardner Flyers. By
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  Speaker 1: all indications, newlywed's Kim and Mark were doing well together.
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  Speaker 1: Kim began attending college at Pan American University in Edinburgh,
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  Speaker 1: though good news the couple would receive not long after
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  Speaker 1: marrying put a hold on Kim's academics. A year and
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  Speaker 1: a half after she and Mark married in September of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, they welcomed to baby boy into their lives.
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  Speaker 1: After Mark and Kim got settled with their new edition,
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  Speaker 1: Kim re enrolled in school, this time at Texas Southmost College,
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  Speaker 1: about forty miles away in Brownsville, attending classes on Tuesday
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  Speaker 1: and Thursday evenings, studying to be an X ray technician.
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  Speaker 1: She kept a day job two, working at Ross Cotton Gin.
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  Speaker 1: At work, Kim was responsible for both secretarial and bookkeeping duties.
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  Speaker 1: Ross Cotton Gin, where cotton fibers were separated from the seeds,
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  Speaker 1: belonged to Kim's husband's stepfather, a business that had been
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  Speaker 1: handled down to him from his father. The gin was
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  Speaker 1: located on Mercedes' north side. Sometime around ten or eleven
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  Speaker 1: am on Tuesday, October ninth, nineteen eighty four, Kim called
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  Speaker 1: her mother, Sharon from work to ask if she could
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  Speaker 1: babysit her and Mark's son, Randall while she went to class.
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  Speaker 1: Sharon and Lefty, though, had an event to attend, so
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  Speaker 1: Kim would have to call her regular sitter. Her mother
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  Speaker 1: said the conversation was normal up to that point. The
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  Speaker 1: day itself was uneventful and mundane. Sharon had no idea
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  Speaker 1: that it would be the last time she'd talk to
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  Speaker 1: her daughter. Kim Leggett assisted a customer at four thirty
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  Speaker 1: pm on October ninth, nineteen eighty four, helping him weigh
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  Speaker 1: a load of cotton he'd bought, but by five pm,
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  Speaker 1: when he came back to Ross Cotton Gin with another truckload,
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  Speaker 1: Kim was nowhere to be found. Between these two times,
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  Speaker 1: at about four forty five pm, at Kim's mother's house,
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  Speaker 1: the phone rang. Sharon answered, and a man who she'd
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  Speaker 1: later describe as very polite, very soft spoken, began speaking.
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  Speaker 1: They've taken your daughter. They want money, the man said,
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  Speaker 1: asking to speak with Lefty, Sharon's husband and Kim's stepfather.
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  Speaker 1: Can you tell me who's calling, Sharon asked him, without
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  Speaker 1: an answer, Though the man hung up, the phone began
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  Speaker 1: ringing again just seconds later. Thinking it was probably the
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  Speaker 1: same person who just hung up on her, Sharon asked
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  Speaker 1: Lefty to answer. He picked up the phone, and the
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  Speaker 1: man on the other end, presumably the same man, repeated
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  Speaker 1: what he'd told Sharon, that they were kidnapping his daughter
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  Speaker 1: and that they wanted money. Surely, Lefty thought this is
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  Speaker 1: some kind of gag. We're not really paying very much
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  Speaker 1: for girls these days, he told the caller. Well, okay,
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  Speaker 1: the caller replied, before hanging up. Unlike Lefty, Sharon wasn't
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  Speaker 1: so sure that the soft spoken, polite man was joking.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, her gut was telling her the opposite, so
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  Speaker 1: she quickly phoned ross Cotton Gin, where Kim should have
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  Speaker 1: been working her shift, and no one answered. Lefty quickly
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  Speaker 1: enlisted the couple's neighbor and headed straight to the Cotton Gin.
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  Speaker 1: Kim's car was there, schoolbooks, keys, and her purse. Inside
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  Speaker 1: the jin's office door was open, and inside on Kim's
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  Speaker 1: desk sat an open text book, a pencil, and a calculator,
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  Speaker 1: which was on There were signs of life, signs that
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  Speaker 1: she had recently been there, but Kim was nowhere to
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  Speaker 1: be found. Lefty contacted police about Kim's disappearance at five
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: point fifteen pm, though later reports would consistently say otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: Acting Mercedes police chief Alessandro Perez told the local newspaper
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  Speaker 1: The Enterprise that by day two they'd contacted the FBI
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  Speaker 1: as soon as nine days after Kim was last seen.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, FBI agent W. Howard McCook suggested the Bureau's
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  Speaker 1: involvement was active and two agents were working from the
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  Speaker 1: Mercedes Police Department at that time as well. Searches were
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  Speaker 1: organized at the get Go Anyway, with the priority being
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  Speaker 1: ross Cotton Gin and the immediate areas surrounding it. From
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  Speaker 1: the beginning, two facts hindered the investigation. Number one, there
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  Speaker 1: were no signs of FOSD entry, no signs of a struggle,
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  Speaker 1: and no immediate apparent evidence left behind on the scene.
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  Speaker 1: And Kim's mother, Sharon, was adamant that Kim wouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: gone easily, saying she was a very strong minded individual.
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  Speaker 1: She was a fighter and would not have gone peacefully.
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  Speaker 1: It's like she disappeared into thin air. It's plausible, however,
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  Speaker 1: that coercion with a weapon, a firearm in particular, would
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  Speaker 1: have lessened the fight. Either way, there was another problem.
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  Speaker 1: The Mercedes Police Department and the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office
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  Speaker 1: had little to know experience with an investigation of this kind.
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  Speaker 1: Although the first days into the investigation didn't turn up
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  Speaker 1: much at all. Another clue emerged when Sharon and Lefty,
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  Speaker 1: Kim's mother and stepfather received a letter in the mail
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  Speaker 1: a few days after she vanished. It was a ransom note,
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  Speaker 1: and though the contents of the envelope the actual note
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  Speaker 1: is thought to be Kim's handwriting the envelope itself, the
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  Speaker 1: address was written by someone else's hand. The letter read quote,
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  Speaker 1: I want a quarter of a million dollars in small
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  Speaker 1: bills unmarked. I have been kidnapped end quote. While there's
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  Speaker 1: little doubt that Sharon and Lefty were doing well for themselves,
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  Speaker 1: the amount was exorbitant, equal to well over three quarters
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  Speaker 1: of a million dollars in twenty twenty five money. Though
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  Speaker 1: it seems likely that the ransom note and the calls
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  Speaker 1: to Sharon and Lefty's home the day Kim disappeared were
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  Speaker 1: from the same person or persons, it's never been definitively proven.
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  Speaker 1: There may have been no way to tell. A partial
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  Speaker 1: fingerprint was found on the envelope, and it too provided
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  Speaker 1: no leads. Sharon later described that caller as a nice
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  Speaker 1: sounding young Anglo man and also later said that he
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  Speaker 1: had no accent, but it's unclear exactly what that means.
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  Speaker 1: If it meant that his accent was Southern or Texan
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  Speaker 1: and normal to them and the area, or if he
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  Speaker 1: had no southern or Texas accent at all. Regardless, the
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  Speaker 1: letter was the last communication Kim's parents ever received from
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  Speaker 1: whoever kidnapped their daughter. Early on, police discovered two witnesses
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  Speaker 1: who'd seen Kim Leggett outside the Ross Cotton Gin around
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  Speaker 1: the time she went missing, speaking with two men as
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  Speaker 1: they drove past. They stood talking next to Kim's car,
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  Speaker 1: the witnesses said, and parked nearby was another car, which
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  Speaker 1: was white, that they remembered as a sports car, but
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  Speaker 1: couldn't be sure. It's reported that both witnesses, however, said
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  Speaker 1: they weren't paying enough attention to the scene, that it
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  Speaker 1: didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary, so they
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  Speaker 1: couldn't give police good descriptions of either man they saw.
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  Speaker 1: On Monday, October fifteenth, nineteen eighty four, just six days
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  Speaker 1: after Kim Leggett was last seen, and after the few
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  Speaker 1: lines of investigation they had were dried up, Mercedes Police
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  Speaker 1: Chief Alessandro Perez told a reporter they'd run out of leeds. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: adding confusion to the case, the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office
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  Speaker 1: was investigating a break in at the home Kim and
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  Speaker 1: Mark Leggett shared presumably to determine if it was related
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  Speaker 1: to Kim's disappearance, though they never publicly announced what their
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  Speaker 1: findings were or whether they even thought there was a
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  Speaker 1: link in the first place. Missing persons flyers featured the
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  Speaker 1: twenty one year old, blonde haired, blue eyed, five feet
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  Speaker 1: six inch tall, one hundred and ten pound mother with
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  Speaker 1: a scar on her chin, and were distributed to homes
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  Speaker 1: and businesses in the area. In a Mercedes Enterprise article
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  Speaker 1: published on October seventeenth, nineteen eighty four, Sharon Gardner pleaded
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  Speaker 1: with the kidnappers for the safe return of her daughter.
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  Speaker 1: She said they'd pay any amount to get her back,
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  Speaker 1: whatever they had to do, they'd come up with the money.
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  Speaker 1: She and Lefty were already offering a ten thousand dollars
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  Speaker 1: reward for information leading to Kim's safe return, and by
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  Speaker 1: November tenth, nineteen eighty four, over a month after the disappearance,
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  Speaker 1: the reward had grown to thirty thousand dollars. The local
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  Speaker 1: Crime Stoppers was offering nineteen thousand, and that organization in
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  Speaker 1: Harlingen had thrown in another one thousand. Days had turned
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  Speaker 1: to months, and the following year. On April twenty ninth,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, almost seven months since Kim was last seen,
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  Speaker 1: A television special called Missing Have You Seen This Person?
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  Speaker 1: Hosted by Meredith Baxter, an incredibly popular actor at the time,
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  Speaker 1: largely due to her role on the sitcom Family Ties,
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  Speaker 1: aired the story of Kim Leggett's disappearance. Kim's segment was
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  Speaker 1: only ten minutes, but the response was huge. Both the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: crime Stopper's anonymous hotline and the Mercedes Police Department's phones
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  Speaker 1: were ringing off the hook, beginning immediately following Kim's segment
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  Speaker 1: on the program and lasting until the early morning hours
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  Speaker 1: of the next day. We received so much response, over
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  Speaker 1: sixty calls in the first few hours, it's going to
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  Speaker 1: take up more than a month to follow up on
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  Speaker 1: each and every phone call. We hope the calls will
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  Speaker 1: turn into leeds. Mercedes Police Lieutenant Ray Campos told a
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  Speaker 1: reporter the department was happily overwhelmed. Previous leads had all
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: been exhausted, having diminished incrementally week after week, month after month. Unfortunately,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the calls did not lead to where Kim Leggett was,
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  Speaker 1: and there was still nothing to indicate whether she was
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: alive or had meditarible fate at the hands of her
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: theorized captors, even with the help of the FBI and
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the Texas Rangers, both of which had joined Mercedes police
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and Hidago County Sheriff's investigators long before the television program aired.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Less than a week after the disappearance, Kim's whereabouts and
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: what exactly took place remained elusive. Kim's husband, Mark Leggett,
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  Speaker 1: and his family were forced to deal with another tragedy
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: thirteen months after Kim vanished, when his great aunt, Augustus Sterling,
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  Speaker 1: who was in her eighties at the time, left her
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  Speaker 1: home for a walk and never returned. Speculation mounted a
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: bit as the media reported that Kim and Mark's great
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: aunt were close, perhaps in an attempt to sensationalize the story,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: but according to Mark's brother, they in fact were not
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: close and might have never even met. Augusta Sterling's disappearance
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: didn't receive much media attention, she, like Kim, has never
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: been found. Upon the discovery of a skull and other
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: bones mixed in with a load of top soil that
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: was delivered to a Mercedes man at his home on
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Iowa Avenue, Mercedes Police Chief John L. Pape told a
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: reporter for the McAllen Monitor. It could be her. The
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: bones seemed to have originated in the county. It was
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the second week of March nineteen eighty seven, two and
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a half years after Kim Leggett was last seen, having
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: vanished without a trace from her place of employment, Ross Cotton,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Gin on October ninth, nineteen eighty four. The bones were
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: turned over to the Hidago County Sheriff's Office for analysis,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and on March twelfth, nineteen eighty seven, it was determined
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: that they were male and he was likely middle aged
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and Hispanic. Another dead end, and with virtually no clues,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: coming up with potential suspects proved to be nearly impossible,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: but police, as well as the public managed to speculate.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Over the course of the investigation. Law enforcement and locals
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: alike mostly focused on two individuals close to Kim Leggett,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: her husband Mark Leggett, and her stepfather, Lefty Gardener. The
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: theory that materialized concerning Lefty seemed like it was born
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: of desperation. It was a stretch and didn't implicate him
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: as the perpetrator. Rather, it centered around his work as
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a pilot and his membership in the Confederate Air Force
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: now known as the Commemorative Air Force. Some thought that
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: because Gardner refused to smuggle contraband to and from Mexico, Kim,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: his stepdaughter, was taken and killed. There isn't any evidence, however,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to support the theory. The evidence that Kim Leggett's husband,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Mark was involved in her abduction and disappearance also holds
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: little weight. The evidence little more than an outside character
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: evaluation and judgment of his movements after his wife vanished.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: When Mark filed for divorce and remarried two years after
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Kim's disappearance, after being left to care for a one
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: year old boy on his own, he became solidified in
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: some folks minds as the individual who was responsible. But
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: that's not where the suspicion started. Mark and Kim's babysitter
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: claims that he told her husband about his wife's disappearance
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: before anyone else, and that her husband accompanied Mark to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: his friend's house upon the news to pick him up
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: instead of heading straight to the cotton Gin. It's unclear
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: exactly how that's evidence that he was involved in any way,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: as opposed to simply gathering friends for support and help.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: The friend he went to pick up that day was
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the cousin of the woman who would become his wife
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: two years later, adding of course to suspicion, but Mark
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: hadn't even met the woman when Kim disappeared. Mark Leggett
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: fully cooperated with authorities and other than a news report
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that sensationalized and exaggerated his status as a person of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: interest by claiming he was breaking a silence he maintained
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: for years, which he had not, according to those close
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: to the case, and by editing out any footage that
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: portrayed his deep sense of loss, Nothing but speculation has
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: ever surfaced against him. The talk of the town, too,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: was that Mark Leggett knew too much about his wife's disappearance,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: but those who claim this seem unable to provide examples
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: or proof of that. Mark was critical of law enforcements
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: suspicion of him. He told a Rio Grande Valley, New
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: State in two thousand and eight, Hidalgo County was completely
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: willing to lock me in jail to say they've solved something.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Mark Leggett's family says that he agreed to speak with
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the news reporter for news Channel five off the record,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: but that they secretly recorded him. Retired Mercedes Police Department
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: investigator Jim Vasquez told a reporter in two thousand and eight,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I think that the case was overwhelming for them, referring
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to Mercedes PD. Had they just from the beginning called
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the Feds in, we might not be having this interview.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Kim Leggett's case was the one that kept Vasquez up
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: at night. I used to keep Kim in a box.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Everything that had to do with her sat in my
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: office in my home. I worked on it in my
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: own time, he told the media that year. A story
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: on Kim Leggett's disappearance twenty four years after she was
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: last seen, seemed to be the most moved the public
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and the families were aware of for many years. Law
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: enforcement told the media that they were closer than ever
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to solving the case, and that they'd recently reclassified it
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: as an open homicide investigation. They believed Kim met foul
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: play and was murdered. Authorities continued to remain mum on
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: exactly what new information they'd come across. The FBI came
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to Kim's family with requests that they submit DNA samples
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: they'd recently taken possession of all the evidence, including photographs,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: recordings presumably of persons of interest, interrogations, and the ransom letter.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: The FBI took the evidence and asked local authorities to
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: cease their investigation because they were closer than ever, they said,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to solving Kim Leggett's disappearance, adding that an arrest was imminent.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: The family's hopes were up as well they believed answers
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: were coming. Composite sketches made in nineteen eighty five also
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: were released publicly for the first time. The drawings were
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: developed through interviews with the witnesses who'd seen Kim Leggett
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: speaking with two men outside the Cotton Gin around the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: time she disappeared. It was reported that the witnesses couldn't
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: give descriptions back in nineteen eighty four, though so it
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: is unclear whether that is a purposely misleading police tactic
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: or if the sketches are virtually meaningless. Kim's family also
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: came forward with a twofold reward totaling one hundred thousand dollars,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars for information leading to her remains and
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars for information leading to an arrest in
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, just after the reward was offered,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a woman who asked her identity not be revealed, came forward.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: She didn't go to Mexico, she didn't go to an
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: other country. She was here in the valley all along,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the woman told the press, claiming to know the fate
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that Kim met. They knew her, and they knew that
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: her family had money. The woman continued. She claimed that
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: men she knew from a Harlingen Jim had abducted Kim,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: taking her to a house in a secluded area, where
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: they called her parents, Sharon and Sharon and Lefty. After
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Lefty took the call as a joke, they became frustrated
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and intended to hold Kim until the money was paid,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: but got scared that they'd be found out if they
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: continued to keep her, the woman said, so they killed her,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: dismembered her body, and put the body parts in the canal.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Years later, the woman claimed they came back to remove
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the bones and place them somewhere else. Well, I mean,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it's kind of stunning to listen to, and if it's real,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I just hope that law enforcement could prove it. Kim's
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: brother dared and told the KRGV News. Law enforcement commented
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: that they'd interviewed the woman and the individuals she claimed
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: kidnapped and killed Kim Leggett, but said that her story
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't work. That was about fifteen years ago at the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: time of this recording, and no arrests have been made.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: When the ransom letter and envelope were sent to labs
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: for DNA extraction and testing, the results led nowhere. The
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: case went cold again, where it remains today. In twenty
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: twenty five, I'd answer the phone and I'd hear a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: baby crying in the background, saying I want my mommy,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I want my mommy, and it just tears your heart out,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Kim's mother, Sharon Gardner said, speaking of the phone calls
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: she had received over the years from callers unknown, perhaps
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: heartless pranksters. Bizarre postcards about Kim or pretending to be her,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: for within and outside the United States too, showed up
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: from time to time. Sharon already thought of her daughter
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: on a constant basis, and the strange calls, letters, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: her obsessively peering in ditches and canals for Kim's remains
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: were too much to bear. She left the Rio Grande
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Valley I don't think there's a day that goes by
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: that something doesn't pop into my head. I wonder what
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Kim would think of this. I wonder what she'd be
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: doing at this point, Sharon told a reporter in two
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: thousand and nine, twenty five years of living with the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: everyday uncertainty and questions, as if every new day is
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: simply a repeat of the last. The family had a
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: memorial service for Kim, and there was no body to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: be buried, but a magnolia tree was planted in her
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: memory and a marker placed in a church courtyard in
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Travis County, near Austin. I don't know if it's frustrating
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: or just heart There's just nothing that will ever mend
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: my heart. It's just broken. No matter how much faith
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I have and how much I pray about it, it's
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: still broken. She said. Everybody would like to find closure
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: with it and figure out what happened that day. Kim's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: brother Darren also told a reporter in two thousand and nine, adding,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: because there is no closure, it brings more hurt than anything.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I just don't think it was a random act to
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: stop at a gin that was in the off season
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and look for someone to kidnap. He continued, I'm positive
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: somebody out there, somewhere knows what happened. Retired Mercedes Police
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Department investigator Jim Vaskez agreed, someone out there has information
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: on this case. He said, If you have any information
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: about the disappearance of Kim Sue Leggett, please contact the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Mercedes Police Department at nine five six five six five
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: three one zero two or Texas Crime Stoppers at eight
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: hundred two five two eight four seven seven. If you'd
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: like to join Gon Cold's mission to shine a light
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get the show
• 28:18
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• 28:22
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• 28:27
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• 28:29
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• 28:34
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• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, y'all,