BREAKING NEWS!! NICK MCGUFFIN HAS JUST BEEN ARRESTED FOR THE MURDER OF LEAH FREEMAN, 08/23/10!!!!!

$10,000.00 Reward! for information on the Leah Freeman case

Offered by the family for information leading to an arrest and conviction in this case. If you have information concerning this case, please contact the Coquille Police Department (541 396-2114) or the Coos County District Attorney (541 396-3121)

Bumping this up as we are seeing a lot of guest from Oregon. Please if you have any information pass it on. There is a reward of 5000 dollars.

New York (CNN) -- Leah Freeman, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, vanished from the street near her home in Coquille, Oregon, leaving one tennis shoe behind on the sidewalk.

Police believe she was snatched by someone while walking home from her best friend's house as it was beginning to get dark on June 28, 2000. Leah lived with her grandparents, her mother and her older sister, Denise.

More than a month later, her body was found on the outskirts of Fairview, a neighboring village in Oregon.

"The last time I saw my daughter was that afternoon, said Leah's mother, Cory Courtright. "She was so happy. She and her boyfriend were washing the windshield of his car and horsing around with the wet sponge. It was 4 p.m. and she jumped and kissed me on the cheek and told me she loved me before [she] took off."

Courtright said Leah's boyfriend dropped her off at the home of her best friend, Sherrie Mitchell, and was to pick her up at 9 p.m.

She said she later learned from the Mitchells and from police that the two friends had a spat because Sherrie's mother wouldn't let her go jogging with Leah after dark. Leah overheard the argument between her friend and her mother, and then the two girls argued. Leah angrily left the Mitchell home before her boyfriend arrived to pick her up. At about 10:15 p.m., the boyfriend called Courtright from the Mitchells' house to ask whether Leah had arrived home. Friends of Leah's boyfriend later told police and her family that he had been partying at Johnson Mill Pond before he arrived to pick up Leah. According to the police and Courtright, "partying at the pond" meant smoking marijuana.

Leah and her boyfriend often argued about his occasional use of marijuana. It was a bone of contention between them, says Courtright.

Courtright reported Leah missing to police the next morning.

Police found Leah's boyfriend and his best friend at a relative's home in the neighborhood, where they had been with Leah the day she vanished.

According to Coquille Police Chief Mark Dannels, the front porch was littered with empty beer cans. Police also noticed a white men's tank top, which investigators initially assumed belonged to one of the boys.
Later, police learned that Leah had been wearing a white men's tank top when she vanished. When police returned to the house, the tank top was gone and the place was cleaned up.

Police executed search warrants on the boyfriend's family's home and vehicles. They discovered that the trunk of the car he drove had been recently gutted. His father told police there had been a fuel leak so the trunk liner, the spare tire, jack and tire iron had to be removed, Dannels said.

Police also learned from neighbors that the family held a bonfire in their yard the day after Leah disappeared.

The mate to Leah's lost shoe was found along a dirt road in Fairview nearly a week after she disappeared. Forensic testing showed blood spatter on the bottom of the shoe. The sample matched Leah's blood and experts determined a pattern consistent with medium- to high-velocity blood spatter, which can happen when an object -- a bullet or a car, for example -- hits a person while traveling at high speed. Leah Freeman's body was found on August 8 in the woods along the dirt road where her shoe was found.

"We are holding back information on the exact cause of death to protect our investigation," Dannels said. He also would not comment on whether Leah's body was fully clothed or whether she had been sexually assaulted.

Police have not publicly named any suspects. However, Dannels said Leah's boyfriend and friends are a focus of their investigation.

"Recently, the boyfriend and his family came to us saying they wished to clear their son's name and wanted to cooperate and help in our investigation," Dannels said. CNN's calls to the boyfriend and his attorney were not returned.

In January, a cold case team of more than 20 members from several jurisdictions was appointed to reinvestigate the case.

Asked why the case is being re-investigated after 10 years, Chief Dannels told CNN that witnesses are more mature now and are coming forward to help provide more information. And, he said, newer forensic technological advances allow police to re-evaluate the evidence gathered 10 years ago.

"We feel strongly that we will have an arrest in this case," Dannels says.

A $10,000 reward is being offered to anyone who has any information leading to the arrest of those responsible for Leah Freeman's death. The tip line for the Coquille Police Department is 541-396-2114.

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Cory wrote:Ok....Well I had NO idea this was coming!! This was JUST on our local news....
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COQUILLE, Ore. - Lab results expected by the end of April could help solve the decade-old murder of 15-year-old Leah Freeman, law enforcement officials said.

Coquille Police Chief Mark Dannels on Wednesday said evidence discovered during the current investigation into the murder was sent to crime labs in the Midwest and in Oregon. Results are expected back by the end of April. Freeman was last seen alive on June 28, 2000. Her body was discovered a little over a month later.

The case was publicly re-opened in January of this year.

The family of Nick McGuffin, Leah's boyfriend at the time and a long time person of interest in the case, had come forward late last year to help investigators and to clear his name, Dannels said. Even though the family initially came forward voluntarily, Dannels noted things haven't gone smoothly since.
"Our job at Coquille Police Department is to prove who did this, whether that be a boyfriend or somebody else. When we opened the case to the public in January, three days after, we received a letter from the boyfriend's attorney that he had lawyered up, we have not talked to him," said Dannels. "They have not been cooperative with law enforcement. They made a decision which is their right, and it doesn't change our focus, doesn't change what we need to do, and that is to prove, bring our resolution to the person that killed Leah Freeman."

McGuffin is being represented by Eugene attorney Bob Mcrea.

KCBY News spoke with Mcrea by phone Wednesday. He said he advised his client not to speak with the media at this time.

It is near the end of April. An arrest and or new information should be forthcoming. Justice for Leah.

Today is April 24th. Everyday I sit and wait some what patiently for the promise we were given that there is new evidence, people are talking and there will be an arrest. Justice should not move this slow. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Leah's tragic death. If we hear of nothing by the end of April I say it is time we have an uprising to meet with Leah's family and protest in front of the DA's office with the petition in hand. We have a right to protest. Leah and Cory have a right to justice.

How to contact
Coquille Police Department

Chief of Police
Mark Dannels

851 N Central Blvd
Coquille, Oregon 97423

(541)396-2114

In the summer of 2000, 15-year-old Leah Freeman went missing in Coquille, Ore. For almost a week, the Coquille Police Department, led by Chief Mike Reeves, treated it as a missing person case, believing that the teen had run away.
Caught up in young love, Leah Freeman, 15, disappears on summer night.

Yet on the night the teen disappeared, an ominous discovery was made. A man picked up a shoe by the side of a town road. He thought it belonged to his daughter. It was not until days later, after the town's search for Leah had grown increasingly anxious, that he turned the shoe over to police.

The police identified the shoe as Leah's. On it they discovered blood.

Six weeks passed before Leah's mother, Cory Courtright, got the call from police that would end her hopes that Leah was still alive. Another discovery had been made.

"I still let the denial take over," Courtright said. "I wanted to... I wanted to go back in time. I didn't want, I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to hear the final news. I didn't want to hear it."

Watch the full story Friday on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET

A search team had come upon a macabre scene just off an isolated lumber road about five miles outside of town.

Leah Freeman's decomposed body lay on a steep hillside, apparently dumped from the road above.

Case Goes Cold for 10 Years

For 10 years, the case went unsolved. Authorities say circumstantial evidence pointed to Leah's 18-year-old boyfriend. But there was no hard evidence to link him to the crime.

Then a new police chief, Mark Dannels, took an aggressive approach to the case. A room at the police station was devoted to the unsolved mystery.

What Dannels did next would finally open a possible way forward. He called The Vidocq Society.

The Vidocq Society
Known as the heirs of Sherlock Holmes, the Philadelphia-based Vidocq Society gathers ace detectives from around the world to solve the world's most perplexing cold cases. The group -- formed by freewheeling forensic sculptor Frank Bender, FBI and U.S. Customs agent William Fleisher and preeminent forensic psychologist and profiler Richard Walter -- has pledged itself to a grand quest for justice.

"People think of them as wizards who sort of peep and mutter and go into a back room and come out and say, 'He did it,'" said Philadelphia crime writer Michael Capuzzo, who profiles the group in his book, "The Murder Room."

Dannels said he did not hesitate to call for outside help.

"In a cold case, I'll take any resource I can to help solve this case," Dannels said. "And when we have something of that magnitude offer up services, we're all over it. ... And when you bring all this expertise together... it's one stop shopping. You got all the expertise in one room at one time."

Vidocq Society: Famous Cases
The society is named after Eugene Francois Vidocq, Napoleon's chief detective and the father of modern criminology. Vidocq was practicing rudimentary police science 100 years before the FBI or Scotland Yard was even formed.

Leah Freeman left a friend?s house in Coquille, Ore., one night and never returned home.

The Vidocq Society is filled with colorful characters. Fleisher, the customs agent, is a "tough, skeptical Philly guy," Capuzzo said, who specializes in lie detector test analysis. Fleisher explained the society's criteria for taking a case.

"Case has to be over two years old," Fleisher said. "And we have to have police cooperation."

The soul of the group is forensic artist Frank Bender, who molds faces, capturing the look of what cold case suspects should look like years later. And then there is the dark side of the trio, a figure known as "The Thin Man." He's Richard Walter, a piano-playing, chainsmoking, psychological profiler. He spent years as a prison psychologist collecting firsthand the creepy inside details of murder from the killers themselves.

"[Walter's] nickname at ... Scotland Yard is 'Living Sherlock Holmes,' 'cause he sort of looks, talks, acts like Sherlock Holmes," said Capuzzo. "But he's the real deal, as a criminologist, too. And he's devoted his life to it."

The Foot Fetish Case
The Vidocq society has a solid track record of solving the unsolvable.

There was the "Foot Fetish" case at Philadelphia's Drexel University. In November 1984, student Deborah Wilson was found strangled in a stairwell outside a computer lab. There was no sign of rape and her purse wasn't taken. However, the one thing she was missing were her shoes.

For eight years, Philadelphia police were stumped, until they came to the Vidocq Society. Walter focused on the victim's bare feet. In this case, the shoes -- or lack of them -- would be key evidence. Walter described the killer as someone with a foot fetish. He advised police to find a man with a history of stealing women's footwear.

With Walter's guidance, detectives zeroed in on David Dickson, a former military man now working as a campus security guard. He had previously been court-martialed and discharged for stealing women's sneakers.


When police went to Dickson's home, they found a collection of shoes. Dickson was arrested and convicted of murder in 1995.

The John List Case
On a bleak New Jersey day in 1971, John List, a churchgoing accountant, methodically executed his wife, his aging mother, his teenage daughter and his two sons. In a five-page confession letter left at the scene, he claimed he killed his family to send them to heaven.

Then List disappeared, becoming the subject of one of the most frustrating manhunts in the history of law enforcement.

It would take police and the FBI more than 18 years to bring List to justice. List's bizarre crime and mysterious escape made headlines around the world.

In 1989, Frank Bender was asked to do a sculpture of List. He called in his friend Walters to profile the killer. Walters said List would be wearing a suit, remarried, involved with the Lutheran Church and caught no further than 300 miles from where the crime occurred.

With that insight, Bender sculpted a bust of List. Days later, police got a tip that List was using the alias Bob Clark and living in Richmond, Va., with his new wife, Delores.

List was arrested on June 1, 1989, and died in prison in 2008.

Vidocq Society and the Texas Bloodbath
It was a 1991 Lubbock, Texas disappearance -- but there was no body and little physical evidence.

Leisha Hamilton told Det. Tal English that her boyfriend, Scott Dunn, had simply left town. But Dunn had left behind all his clothes. Investigators also noticed a piece of the living room carpet in the home Hamilton and Dunn shared had been crudely replaced.

The police conducted a Luminol examination -- a chemical search of the apartment intended to reveal traces of blood that had been wiped away. The Luminol illuminates when it comes in contact with blood.

When the room was sprayed, the police realized they had uncovered a bloodbath. The walls and ceiling where covered. Police could even see wipe marks where someone had tried to clean up the room.

"Once we started looking around there was splatter on the north wall, there was splatter on the east wall, and up on the ceiling, so we are talking a lot of cast-off blood," said English.

Walter was called in on the case. He explained to the Lubbock police that they had enough circumstantial evidence to go after the girlfriend. Even without a body, Walter explained, there was enough blood spatter to convince a jury that Dunn didn't just leave town.

Walter confronted Hamilton and told her to stop claiming that Scott simply disappeared.

"She was trying to play a game and I decided to call her at her game," Walter said. "And I said, 'Scott was murdered. Absolutely murdered, and I don't want to hear missing again.' And she said, 'Oh,' she said, 'Well, I was the last one to see him.' And I said 'Yes, and so was the killer.'"

Today Leisha Hamilton is in prison, serving a 20-year sentence.

Vidocq Takes Leah Freeman Case
Back in Oregon, Police Chief Dannels was impressed with the Vidocq Society's track record of solving the unsolvable. The society, in turn, thought they could help find out what happened to Leah Freeman. They took the case, with Richard Walter as point man.

Dannels flew to Philadelphia to meet the team.

"I've been in law enforcement 26 years," said Dannels. "But sitting in the room that day with these experts, I felt like it was my first day on the job."

Can they solve the mystery of who killed Leah?

Watch the full story Friday on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET

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