Jade Croucher, sister of murdered teenager Leah Croucher, has revealed that international fraudsters claimed they were holding Leah hostage and demanded a ransom while the family were at their "most vulnerable".
Jade, 33, said the family were targeted after Leah's 2019 disappearance sent her brother Haydon, 24, into a downward spiral, leading him to take his own life. Jade and Haydon's mother, Tracey Furness, found him dead in his flat in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, nine months after Leah vanished.
Fraudsters posed as Leah
Jade said fraudsters from Brazil called her after Haydon's death, posing as Leah. They then claimed to be holding her hostage and demanded a ransom before threatening to "do all manner of awful things to her".
Jade said: "I woke up to my phone ringing. I picked up and somebody was saying, 'Hi sis, it's Leah. I can't believe our brother's dead, I need to come home'. I had missed FaceTime calls and my phone was ringing and I was too scared to answer it."
She added: "Then I took it to the police and the police inquired and it wasn't Leah, it was someone trolling me. That was the hardest thing I've ever dealt with. I had just lost my brother and then I had messages implying that my sister wanted to come home, it was never her. That was a moment where you think, 'How much evil is in this world?'."
Ransom demands and threats
Speaking in the upcoming documentary, The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent's Nightmare, Jade added: "We received ransom messages from people who said they had Leah or they knew where Leah was, and if we didn't pay them within a certain amount of time then they would do all manner of awful things to her."
Leah's mother, Claire, said: "They said, 'We have your sister, she has served a purpose but now she has contracted a disease and is no good to us'. 'We will leave her at a medical facility in three day's time if you pay £1,800. If you are late we will cut her throat and you will never find her remains'."
She added: "I remember saying, 'If it's the truth, I'll pay the £1,800'. Within four-and-a-half hours they came back to us and said, 'It's someone in Brazil, they're just trying their luck'. It's just an awful part of life that you've got to learn to live with because this is your life now."
Jade added: "They were just preying on us at our most vulnerable state, going through the worst thing in the world. They chose to add to that."
Disappearance and discovery
Leah disappeared on February 15 2019, as she walked to work in the Furzton area of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. In total, police searched 3,500 houses, carried out 1,500 lines of inquiry, examined 1,200 documents, 1,600 messages and took 500 statements.
Despite the extensive probe, police made just one cursory visit to the address where Leah's body lay undiscovered for three years and nine months. The "unremarkable" four-bedroom semi-detached house in Loxbeare Drive was less than half-a-mile from where Leah was last seen alive.
Leah's disappearance was too much for Haydon, who was diagnosed as bi-polar. He took his own life just one day before the nine-month anniversary of his half-sister's disappearance.
Leah's badly decomposed body was discovered in the loft of a home where handyman Neil Maxwell, 49, was working. The convicted rapist - who had a "predilection for young females" - killed himself in a bike shed two months after Leah vanished. At the time of his death he was being hunted by police over an unsolved sex attack.
He had slipped through the net when probation officers and police lost track of him and failed to assess him as a "high-risk" offender despite a rap sheet going back more than 20 years. Leah's parents, John, 52, and Clare, 51, said they were "haunted" by Leah's final moments in which Maxwell raped her, dismembered her body and hid her remains in plastic bags.
Jade said: "I had spent so many years fearing the worst that could happen was not knowing. I wish I didn't know because the reality of knowing what happened to my little sister is worse than I could ever have imagined. He never had to answer for what he had done. He never had to face up to the pain that he had caused."
When life is difficult, Samaritans are available day or night, 365 days a year. You can call them for free on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org.
The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent's Nightmare episode one launches on Tuesday October 13 at 9pm, and episode two is on Wednesday October 14 at 9pm on U&W. All episodes are also available to stream for free on U from October 13.
