TUPELO — Leigh Occhi had just turned 13 and was home alone when her mother, Vickie Felton, left for work just before 8 a.m. When Felton called about an hour later and got no response, she drove back to the 105 Honey Locust Drive home. There was blood on the walls and floor, but Occhi was not there.
Heavy rain was falling that Thursday morning as the remnants of Hurricane Andrew made their way across Northeast Mississippi on Aug. 27, 1992. The Tupelo Public School District fall semester had not started, so the new teenager was spending her first morning alone.
Felton said the storm had her worried, so she called home before 9 a.m. and got no reply. It only took minutes to cover the less than 1.5-mile drive from work at Legget & Platt back home.
The garage door was up and the light still on when Felton arrived. She went inside, called her daughter’s name and heard nothing. In the hallway, she found splattered blood on the wall and a pool of blood on the floor. After checking the bedrooms, the backyard and a shed and not finding her daughter, Felton called the police.
There was no sign of forced entry into the house. The nightgown Occhi was last seen wearing was left behind. Police found a small pool of blood in the hall outside of the girl’s bedroom. The blood was still wet, and there was also splatter on a door frame that was consistent with head trauma to someone about Occhi’s height. There was also evidence that someone had tried to clean up blood in the bathroom.
Police began canvassing the area, armed with a description of Occhi based on clothes Felton said were missing. The search turned up nothing.
In the weeks following the disappearance, several organized searches were held around Tupelo. One included the open pasture where the West Main Walmart now stands. At first, volunteer searchers were looking for anywhere an injured girl could have been hidden, injured or lost.
Eight days after Occhi was reported missing, a Northeast Mississippi Community College student reported seeing a girl matching Occhi’s description in a truck in the drive-thru lane of the Booneville McDonald’s. It turned out to be someone else.
Less than a week after the false sighting, someone mailed a package containing Occhi’s glasses was to the Honey Locust address from Booneville. The envelope was addressed to Occhi’s step-father, Barney Yarborough. Felton and Yarborough had separated a few weeks before the disappearance.
Police initially hoped the glasses would offer new evidence leading to the girl or her abductor. The stamps were moistened with water. There was more than enough postage on it, and the envelope was dropped in a mailbox in Booneville. Since there was no letter or ransom note with the glasses, authorities felt they were a distraction, something to throw off the investigation. They found nothing from the package that would help them.
Just over a year later, skeletal remains found south of Nettleton were positively identified as Occhi. The Medical Examiner’s Office retracted the identification two days later. The remains actually belonged to 27-year-old Pollyanna Sue Keith, who had gone missing from Shannon in March 1993.
There were rumors that Yarborough had abused or mistreated Leigh. Yarborough passed a polygraph test and had an alibi. Police ruled him out as a possible suspect early in the investigation. He and Felton divorced a couple of years after the disappearance, and Yarborough died in December 1996.
Police interviewed Felton numerous times, and she submitted to three polygraph tests, which did little to remove her as a person of interest.
Retired detective Ronny Thomas said Felton showed signs of deception in all three polygraphs — two of which were administered by the FBI.
The results of the so-called lie detector tests, along with Felton’s aloof demeanor, led many people to believe she played a role in her daughter’s disappearance. Former Police Chief Bart Aguirre, who was at the crime scene, still considered Felton a person of interest when he left the force. He said there were too many unanswered questions, including why she called so soon after going to work.
The case is neither closed nor cold. Police say it is still an open missing person case that they are actively working.
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