Leigh Marine Occhi

Case background and investigation

Leigh Marine Occhi, born August 21, 1979, in Honolulu, Hawaii, was 13 years old and living at 105 Honey Locust Drive in Tupelo, Mississippi, when she disappeared on the morning of August 27, 1992. Her mother, Vickie Felton, left for work at about 7:35 a.m. while the remnants of Hurricane Andrew moved across north Mississippi; Leigh was home alone waiting for her grandmother. When Felton could not reach her daughter by telephone around 8:30 a.m., she drove back to the house before 9:00 a.m. She found the garage door open, an interior door unlocked, and blood inside the home — but no sign of Leigh.

Investigators found blood on the walls, in the hallway, in Leigh's bedroom, and in the bathroom, and a bloodstained nightgown in a laundry hamper. According to the Charley Project, the stains were fresh Type O blood, and a blood trail suggested a struggle in which Leigh may have hit her head. There were no signs of forced entry. Organized searches of the surrounding area found nothing. On September 9, 1992, Leigh's eyeglasses arrived in the mail at the family home in an envelope addressed to "B. Yarbrough" — a reference to her stepfather, Barney Yarborough — postmarked from Booneville, Mississippi, with misspellings and excessive postage. No note or ransom demand accompanied them, and Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre later described the mailing as a likely distraction. FBI testing of the stamp reportedly found water rather than saliva, yielding no DNA.

Several people drew investigative attention over the years. Stepfather Barney Yarborough, who had recently separated from Felton, was ruled out after providing a substantiated alibi and passing a polygraph, according to investigators. Vickie Felton showed signs of deception on three polygraph examinations, according to police, and has been described as a person of interest; she has consistently denied any involvement and has never been charged. Felton herself has pointed to Oscar McKinley "Mike" Kearns, a Sunday school teacher who knew Leigh and who was later convicted in 1999 in separate kidnapping and rape cases, including the abduction of a 15-year-old girl in 1993. Kearns denied involvement in Leigh's disappearance, was never charged in the case, and died in 2021.

In November 1993, a skull found in a soybean field was initially identified as Leigh's, but it was later determined to belong to Pollyanna Sue Keith, a 27-year-old woman missing since March 1993. The case has drawn sustained national attention, including coverage on 20/20 and Nancy Grace and a 2017 six-episode podcast, "13: The Search for Leigh Occhi."

In October 2024, Felton and Leigh's father, Donald Occhi, petitioned the Lee County Chancery Court to have Leigh declared legally dead, and a chancellor signed the order on October 14, 2024. In late January 2025, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation's Cold Case Unit, Tupelo police, and the FBI searched near Leigh's former home on Honey Locust Drive, using dogs and digging near a drainage ditch at the end of the cul-de-sac; authorities did not disclose what, if anything, was found. Tupelo police say the case remains open, and no one has ever been charged in Leigh's disappearance.