Fourteen minutes and a single square mile of Milton Keynes - that's the crux of the baffling Leah Croucher case
and live on Freeview channel 276
Today, on the second anniversary of Leah's disappearance, the Citizen is appealing to everybody who was within the red line on our map on this Friday morning two years ago, to rack their brains and think back.
To help jog memories, police have released drone footage and a video of the route Leah walked, showing the landmarks and the streets.
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Hide Ad"We're hoping it will help people remember," said the officer in charge of Leah's Operation Dawlish investigation, DCI Andy Howard.
"The smallest thing could be prove the vital link we need to discover what happened to Leah. And there is a £10,000 reward for anyone who gives us information that leads to her being found."
Fresh-faced Leah was 19 years old when she set out from her family home at Quantock Crescent at about 8am that day. She was taking her usual two mile walk to work and nothing seemingly was amiss.
It was a cold and frosty morning, the day after Valentine's Day and the last school day before half-term. She was wearing a black coat, black skinny jeans, black converse trainers and carrying a black rucksack-type handbag on her back. She may or may not have had her glasses on
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Hide AdLeah often varied her route slightly (her mum told her it was safer and sensible to do that), but her journey took her through Emerson Valley and Furzton, past Shenley Lodge and into Knowlhill, to her office in Davy Avenue.
At 8.16am Leah was picked up on CCTV walking along Buzzacott Lane in Furzton. There's a sighting of her around four minutes later, walking past Tellytubby Hill, opposite the Tesco Express and Merebrook Infants School in Furzton.
But when she reached Furzton Lake, at 8.34am precisely, her phone suddenly left the network. It has neither been found nor reconnected since.
What happened during those 14 minutes, over that short distance, is one of the most baffling and frustrating mysteries police have ever had to deal with.
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Hide AdThey've reviewed more than 1,200 hours of CCTV, visited over 4,000 properties in house to house enquiries and completed 1,400 investigative actions. There have been 400 plus extensive searches of woodland, lakes and culverts all over MK, while repeated appeals and poster campaigns have generated a social media reach of more than 21m, with 200,000 shares.
But so far not a single clue has emerged. And, despite 600 reports of information and potential sightings of Leah from members of the public across the UK, today, two years on, nobody is anywhere nearer knowing what happened to her that fateful morning.
The only certainty is that something DID happen. Whether Leah went missing alone and voluntarily, whether she was abducted by a stranger or whether she met someone she knew, we know within less than quarter of an hour and a single square mile when and where it happened.
The detailed map of that square mile can be downloaded here as a pdf for you to study in detail. The streets involved are: Loxbeare Drive, Shirwell Crescent, Dulverton Drive, Lynmouth Crescent, Porlock Lane, Morebath Grove, Bilbrook Lane, Radworthy, Bickleigh Crescent, Radworthy, Pinkworhty, Wistmans, Exebridge, Swimbridge Lane and Shallowford Grove.
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Hide AdThe area is, apart from the stretch around Furzton Lake, built-up and largely residential, bustling with people and traffic at that school and work run time of the morning. It is bordered by two busy grid roads - Chaffron Way (H7) and Fulmer Street (V3).
We are urging you to look back at your social media, Facebook memories, calendars and diaries to Friday February 15 2019, then rack your brains to see if remember seeing or hearing anything unusual in those places at that time.
If you are a taxi driver or delivery worker, please check your schedule for that day. Were you in the area? Did you see anyone resembling Leah or anything unusual happening? A scuffle or skirmish? A girl with long brown hair getting into a car? A girl looking upset?
Don't be put off if you think your information is insignificant; police will welcome what you have to say. If you don't want to give your name or be traced in any way, you don't even have to talk to police. You can call Crimestoppers charity anonymously and free of charge on 0800 555 111.
Otherwise information can be given by calling police on 101 or visiting any police station, quoting Operation Dawlish or investigation number 43190049929.
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