Her Last Known Hours
Leona Kinsey, a 45-year-old mother and grandmother was at home on Hall Street in La Grande, Oregon when she likely received a telephone call on Monday, October 25, 1999 from someone she knew. According to reports, Leona then made a call to her friend Nancy saying she was going to meet ‘John’ at a nearby grocery store parking lot and that she would stop by to visit Nancy afterward. But Nancy never got that visit. And as hours elapsed into days Nancy became concerned about her friend. On October 28 she called La Grande police to report Leona Kinsey missing. In addition to the report made by Nancy, Leona’s former boyfriend and her daughter, Carolyn also made reports to police.
Leona’s Home and Vehicle Searched
La Grande, located in Eastern Oregon, is a small town of about 21,000 people which increases by a couple thousand when college is in session. Leona lived alone in a single wide trailer with her black Labrador Retriever, Libby. As friends and police checked for Leona at her home, what they found was concerning – her car was gone, but her eyeglasses, purse, pager, and cigarettes were still there – and Libby was also there, the beloved pet she treated as if she were her child.
Knowing that her mom didn’t have her eyeglasses concerned Carolyn. “My mom couldn’t see without her glasses. She couldn’t watch TV without her glasses, she would not drive without her glasses.” And, Carolyn added, she would not have left home for any considerable amount of time without her dog. But nothing appeared disturbed inside the home. “Nothing was out of place. But what was odd about it, some of her belongings that she would never leave the house without were there, like her purse.”
“Nothing was out of place. But what was odd about it, some of her belongings that she would never leave the house without were there, like her purse.”
Leona’s missing car was a tan older model GMC Jimmy. At the time Carolyn thought that perhaps her mom was off visiting friends, or foraging in the mountains as she often enjoyed fishing, picking huckleberries and mushrooming. But even if that was the case, it was a little odd that she left her dog, eyeglasses and purse behind at home.
Her Car is Found
Nancy was driving by the grocery store a couple days later when she spotted Leona’s vehicle, remembered Carolyn. “That was really surprising and kind of a relief,” she added. “We were excited, this is over!” But her elation was short-lived - Leona was not in the store, and she never returned to her vehicle.
Police impounded and searched Leona’s GMC Jimmy looking for any clue that might shed light on what happened to her. Lt. Jason Hays of the La Grande Police Department told APB Cold Case, “There was nothing, no blood, no physical evidence in the car, nothing to indicate that there was a struggle or foul play in the car itself.”
Investigating People Close to Leona
As with any other mysterious disappearance, police detectives begin looking at the people closest to the missing person or victim. They explore Nancy and Leona’s 2 former boyfriends. According to Carolyn, her mom had recently split with one of those boyfriends following an argument. But after an investigation which included polygraph examinations, both Nancy and one boyfriend were cleared.
An earlier boyfriend was also investigated. Someone had commented on one of Carolyn’s Facebook posts about that former boyfriend who was reportedly acting strangely at the time of Leona’s disappearance. “He said that he had gone out looking for her in a well down Owsley Canyon Road and it got dark and he couldn’t find anything,” said Carolyn who added there was no follow-up with that man as to which well he referred to, and what his motivation was to go looking for Leona in the first place.
Leona’s Struggles
But there some difficulties in Leona’s life that brought a layer of concern to the investigation. She had suffered injuries from a couple of assaults including a broken leg and was prescribed pain medication which would escalate into an addiction to illicit drugs, including methamphetamine. Police wanted to interview those who may have been buying from or selling drugs to Leona. “This is where investigators had problems in the early onset,” said Lt. Hays. “Leona at the time was a pretty significant drug dealer. She was heavily involved in the use of methamphetamine as well. While Leona’s daughter agrees that her mother’s drug of choice was methamphetamine, she disagrees with the characterization of her mother being a large-scale dealer. “She often would get a little and sell a little to be able to pay for her own use,” said Carolyn, adding that she never knew her to be a big-time dealer.
The Man Leona was Supposed to Meet in the Parking Lot
Let’s go back to the man who Leona was supposed to meet in that grocery store parking lot on October 25, 1999, he was a man who was said to have once been a boyfriend of Leona, named Juan Pena Llamas. Lt. Hays said, “we had enough people say that he was involved in the illicit drug trade, mostly methamphetamine. We were told that he had connections to a nearby county which is the hub where our drugs come from, so this was all adding up.”
Was Juan Pena Llamas involved in Leona’s disappearance? Carolyn said she later learned of rumors that her mother was an informant for police. But Lt. Hays said Leona was not an informant, at least not for his police department. Regardless of whether Leona may have been providing information to police, if Llamas perceived that she was, could that have been a motive for him to silence her?
Obstacles in the Early Investigation
One of the problems detectives faced as they investigated Leona’s disappearance, particularly in the first months and years after she vanished, was that some people were not forthcoming when speaking with police. “The difficulties being that when we tried to interview those closest to her… they didn’t want to talk because they didn’t want to implicate themselves and their own drug activity at the time.”
Another problem was tracking her movements through technology. Even though there were cellular phones and surveillance cameras, those devices did not have the degree of technology as they do today. “We didn’t have GPS locators like we do … we didn’t have instant credit card data available right at our fingertips; businesses and homeowners have more security cameras now that solve more crimes for us, when that was pretty much nonexistent at the time,” said Lt. Hays. “So, we didn’t have physical evidence. We had to base our investigation off testimonial evidence. And nobody was talking about this case. Nobody was giving us information,” Hays added.
Theories
What happened to Leona Kinsey? Law enforcement and family members each have their own thoughts about what happened on October 25, 1999 when Leona was supposed to meet a man in the parking lot of Albertson’s grocery store in La Grande. Their theories are similar, but only to an extent. Lt. Hayes believes that something happened when Leona arrived at the Albertson’s parking lot and was taken away. Leona’s daughter Carolyn also suspects that her mother was taken by force, but that it was from outside her home, and that someone drove her mother’s GMC Jimmy to the grocery store parking lot where it was later found.
Both scenarios do seem to line up with the circumstances that are known about the case. Particularly, that there was no sign of a struggle or disturbance either in her home or her vehicle. Both Lt. Hays and Carolyn concede that Leona’s slight build, 5’ 3” and 110 pounds, could have made her an easy target. But Carolyn old APB Cold Case that her mother’s tenacity would have made her difficult to overpower. “My mom was such a fighter. I know it wasn’t easy. I know she didn’t go out without a fight,” she said.
Person of Interest?
So, there are theories as to what happened to Leona. But who was involved? One of the people who police spoke with, was that former boyfriend of Leona’s named Juan Pena Llamas.
Lt. Jason Hays said that Llamas was interviewed by police in the early days of the investigation. “He denied having any responsibility in her disappearance,’ said Lt. Hays. “He also lied to us, because he denied having any involvement in drug activity whatsoever, when we had enough people say that he was involved in the illicit drug trade.” Hays said police learned that Llamas had connections to a nearby county which was a hub in the supply of methamphetamine to La Grande.
As for the presence of Mexican cartels in La Grande, Hays said there is no direct connection, but rather, an indirect one from counties about 45 miles from La Grande. “Those are the hubs, that’s where the Mexican cartel is.” Hays said that local drug dealers would typically sell to their own smaller clientele. “It’s smarter that way, a little bit more secure from a drug dealer’s perspective. So a lot of our drug dealers would be dealers just enough to support their own habits. And what they would do, is they would collect money from their clients… and then they drive 45 miles. That’s where they meet the Mexican cartel drug dealers and get their drugs and then they bring it back.”
Leona’s daughter Carolyn said she first learned of “Mexican John” from Nancy who said that Leona was going to meet him in the Albertson’s grocery store parking lot.
Lt. Hays said that based on interviews he conducted, “…the consensus of information is that Leona owed the Mexican cartel money for drugs and they are responsible for her disappearance.” Police asked Llamas to submit to a polygraph examination, and he agreed. But when the time came for him to take the test, he failed to show up. Shortly afterward he was arrested and jailed, according to Hays. Then in 2006 while in jail, Llamas was deported to Mexico. Hays told APB Cold Case that he believes that Llamas is still alive and living somewhere near Manzanillo, Mexico. Hays continues to work with the FBI and hopes to arrange an interview with the elusive Llamas.
So was it the fact that Leona owed money to the cartel, or that Juan Pena Llamas feared that she was working with police? Either one of those scenarios could have resulted in something nefarious happening to Leona. But was Llamas a violent man?
Juanology
Lt. Jason Hays describes his investigation into the background of Juan Pena Llamas as ‘Juanology’. “I’ve interviewed ex-girlfriends that live 300 miles away from here, in that life that he lived prior to him living in our community,” said Hays. “When you look in his relationships with women, he was abusive. And, if he’s abusive to his past girlfriends, then I have every reason to believe that when he was involved in an intimate relationship with Leona, he was also abusive.” Hays has spoken with Llamas and describes him as having a history that is “a recipe for being involved in homicide.” Hays remembered an unrelated incident in which he was investigating burglaries. “I ended up finding Juan hiding in a shed and he was armed with a gun,” he said.
“I have every reason to believe that when he was involved in an intimate relationship with Leona, he was also abusive.”
Hays also said there were reports of physical violence, including domestic violence and drug use. “Those things start to make him, based on my training and experience, capable of him doing something like making Leona disappear.”
There was even more disturbing behavior that Carolyn discovered after she was assigned a nonfiction writing assignment in school around 2006. She chose to write about her mother’s disappearance, and when her aunt read the story she sent it to the local newspaper which published the essay. One day, Carolyn received a call from a woman who read the story. “She was an elderly woman whose husband had died, and she had hired a man to work their ranch,” recalled Carolyn. “And she hired this man named John, and he was charming, well-spoken and clean cut, and had a lot of ranch experience, and he became really close to the family.” The woman reportedly told Carolyn that John ended up raping the woman’s granddaughter who got pregnant from the incident and eventually lost the baby. “She told him he was going to have to go. This is the end… this is the end of your employment,” added Carolyn. But, she said that John refused to leave and began threatening the woman, driving her past Leona’s home, pointing out the location and saying ‘they never found her.’ John reportedly drove the woman up into the mountains and tried to get her out of the car, but she wouldn’t get out, said Carolyn. The woman said that John told her ‘you could get rid of a body down there, they’d probably never find it. They never found Leona,’ remembered Carolyn of that conversation. It was those words and particularly the mention of the name Leona that resonated with the woman after reading Carolyn’s essay in the newspaper. She apparently realized it was the same man: Juan Pena-Llamas. “It’s a small town. There weren’t a lot of Leonas,” said Carolyn.
Connecting Dots
Given the violent history that was uncovered by Lt. Hays, and the circumstances of the gun possessed by Llamas in that prior encounter with police, and considering the rape and threats to the woman and her granddaughter in the account provided by Leona’s daughter Carolyn, and the rumors that seem to have been circulating at the time that Leona may have been an informant and owed money to the cartel, could any or all of this be a motivation for Llamas to silence Leona?
Tying up Loose Ends
Lt. Hays told APB Cold Case that the mystery of what happened to Leona Kinsey is something he has taken personally as he has sought to get to the truth of the case. He describes it as a ‘loose end’.
But one of the biggest ‘loose ends’ for Hays is getting another interview with Juan Pena-Llamas, or perhaps a tip from someone to whom Llamas may have disclosed exactly happened and where Leona can be found. Leona’s daughter thinks there is a possibility that the daughter of Juan’s ex-wife may know additional information that was not previously shared with authorities.
Some holes in the early investigation have been filled-in with information from witnesses now willing to share pieces of the story they were previously reluctant to discuss. “With the passage of time, I am finding that they are pretty cooperative in talking about their own activities which validates now that Leona was heavily involved in the use and sale of methamphetamine at the time,” said Hays. This is another piece of information that police have amassed over the years and which drives Hays to arrange that next interview with Llamas. “I’m armed with more knowledge now than we were when we talked to him in the early 2000’s…” he added.
Getting Answers
Leona’s daughter and police want a resolution to the investigation. APB Cold Case asked Carolyn what it would mean to her to finally get those answers. “I have imagined him killing her and enjoying it. In thousands of different ways… it would mean that I wouldn’t have to imagine all of those anymore.” But the troubling dilemma for Carolyn is whether her mother’s remains should be recovered or left in nature. “The odds of them finding all of her, they’ll just find parts. So I go back and forth between, do I want to find her? Do I want to find her and just have it in my head that I don’t know if this is her or not, and if it is there’s only parts of her and the rest of them are out there somewhere,” said Carolyn. But as another fall season arrives in Oregon, she realizes there could be a chance that a hunter or forager finds something that could be a clue and she does hold out hope that someone will find that one little piece that investigators need. “So people are always out picking huckleberries and mushrooming and hunting and getting firewood… this time of year I just hope that they’re going to stumble across something. What are the chances of them stumbling across a leg or a rib and thinking it’s an animal?”
Leona’s Legacy
Carolyn knows that her mother faced challenges in her life, but she prefers to remember the proud and creative woman who not only raised her but embraced the role of being a grandmother to Carolyn’s children. “My mom was, she was funny, she was witty, she had an off-beat sense of humor, she would send CARE packages to my kids every months and they would be things like, I don’t know where she got them, but once it was sombreros and books, cowboy boots, and different things for costume, booger candy. If it was silly, she liked it… She loved being a grandma.”
Leona also inspired her daughter, nurturing the traits that live on in Carolyn today as a mother and an advocate. Today Carolyn works in the Domestic Violence Advocacy Program for the Puyallup Tribal Nation where she manages the Anti-Trafficking Program, a position that requires her to help people work through adversity. Carolyn draws upon her mother’s mentorship instilled in her during the precious time they shared together. “I just knew she expected me to buck up and get through things if they bothered me, to not be so sensitive, to be more confident, more sure of myself.” Carolyn uses those life lessons to help others – lessons that she learned firsthand. “Just offering my prayers to other families, just talking with them and saying I’m sorry you’re going through this, I been there and I know what it’s like.”
Carolyn’s aunt has also encouraged her through the years, helping when she has faced adversity. “If something comes and it’s hard and I’m down and it sucks and I want to cry about, I’ve gone through worse,” said Carolyn who recalled this lesson from her aunt: “You’re an old oak tree and the wind is going to blow but it won’t blow you down; and your branches are going to break but it’s not going to kill you; you’re leaves are going to fall and you’re going to be cold and ugly but they’re going to come back and you’ll be strong and beautiful and you’ll be bigger than you were the year before,” she said. “It’s not going to break me. I see that, nothing can break me.”
Police have received tips and suggestions about possible locations where Leona might be found. Lt. Hays said that they have searched certain areas based on those tips, enlisting the assistance of the Forestry Service, Search and Rescue Teams, cadaver dogs to conduct those searches including ponds (visit www.APBColdCase.com to see police photos of one of those searches). They even received a letter from a ‘web douser’, described by Lt. Hays as something akin to the practice of water witching through the use of diving rods or sticks to locate a water source. “They do this over a map, and it’s supposed to indicate… where lost items or people are.” Hays said that the letter writer provided exact coordinates of where police should search. “I went and looked, and it was an impractical area, but I searched nonetheless.” Hays said he checks out every lead, never knowing if someone is providing a veiled tip based on some firsthand knowledge. But so far, Hays said they are no closer today to finding Leona. “And that’s a struggle for me,” said Hays. “I think that there’s somebody out there, so does her daughter, that has answers, and hoping they’ll come forward.”
“I think that there’s somebody out there, so does her daughter, that has answers, and hoping they’ll come forward.”
Epilogue
It’s been 25 years since Leona Kinsey seemingly vanished from La Grande, Oregon. Did something happen at her home, or the Albertson’s parking lot? Was she targeted because she owed money to the Mexican drug cartel or because someone feared she was an informant for law enforcement? Whatever the answer, police do believe Leona was murdered. Lt. Jason Hays said the most reasonable explanation for him is that this case is a homicide, but they are missing two things. “You need a body, and you need somebody talking about the body,. We have neither.” Hays hopes that perhaps a former cell mate of Juan Pena Llamas, a person of interest in the investigation, may come forward with details of what he may have talked about while incarcerated. Hays described him as a bragger and feels that it is possible he disclosed the details to someone. He encourages anyone that knew Leona or Juan Pena Llamas to call him. “…please call me. Let me sort it out. Whether it’s relevant or not, I don’t want to leave any stone unturned,” said Hays
If you have any information about the disappearance of Leona Kinsey from La Grande, Oregon in 1999, contact La Grande police at 541-960-1017.
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If you have any information about the disappearance of Leona Kinsey from La Grande, Oregon in 1999, contact La Grande police at 541-960-1017.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence or human trafficking call police. There are also agencies and resources available for victims seeking help. Visit www.APBColdCase.com/resources for links and reach out to programs in your area.
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Resources:
StrongHearts Native Helpline is a 24/7 safe, confidential and anonymous domestic and sexual violence helpline for Native Americans and Alaska Natives, offering culturally-appropriate support and advocacy. 1-844-7NATIVE (762-8483) https://strongheartshelpline.org/get-help
The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a national anti-trafficking hotline serving victims and survivors of human trafficking and the anti-trafficking community in the United States. The toll-free hotline is available to answer calls from anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year in more than 200 languages. 1-888-373-7888 Text: 233733 humantraffickinghotline.org
The National Domestic Violence Hotline provides essential tools and support to help survivors of domestic violence so they can live their lives free of abuse. 24/7/365
Contacts to The Hotline can expect highly-trained, expert advocates to offer free, confidential, and compassionate support, crisis intervention information, education, and referral services in over 200 languages. https://www.thehotline.org/get-help/