Leah Rachelle Peebles

• Missing Since 05/22/2006
• Missing From Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 01/16/1983 (41)
• Age 23 years old
• Height and Weight 5'4, 105 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description Thicker gauged steel hoop earrings. Clothing unknown, but she usually wears t-shirts, jeans and sandals. Peebles normally carries a purse containing her cellular phone and Texas driver's license.
• Medical Conditions Peebles has a history of drug and alcohol abuse.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Peebles may dye her hair black, red or blonde; she enjoys styling it in different cuts and colors. She wears eyeglasses and contact lenses, but at the time of her disappearance she was only carrying one two-week disposable pair of contacts. Peebles's ears are double-pierced and her left upper lip is pierced. The upper part of her right ear has been previously pierced and she has a scar from a previous piercing on her right nostril and a possible piercing scar on her left eyebrow. She has the following tattoos: a scrolled flower design on her upper back in black ink and a Celtic cross in black ink on her lower back. Peebles may use the first name Mia.

Details of Disappearance

Peebles moved from Fort Worth, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 5, 2006. She was temporarily residing with friends in the vicinity of the 2100 block of Erbbe Street northeast when she disappeared on May 22, 2006.

She left the home to go on a date with a man she'd met at the Flying Star Cafe, where she planned to start working the following week. She never returned and has never been heard from again. Her vehicle was later found abandoned.

Peebles grew up in a middle-class, Christian home in Fort Worth. Her parents stated she was molested by a distant relative as a toddler and raped by an acquaintance she was fourteen.

She was initially a good student at Carter-Riverside High School and active as a cheerleader, in drama and on the yearbook staff, but by her sophomore year she had begun abusing drugs and alcohol and dropped out of her extracurricular activities.

When Peebles was eighteen, her parents put her in the Fort Worth Teen Challenge, a Christian residential drug and alcohol treatment facility for women. She stayed in the program for 21 months, graduated from cosmetology school and took a job at a beauty salon, but soon relapsed and began using a variety of illegal drugs.

She was convicted of drug offenses twice and served two short jail sentences. Peebles was fired from her job at the salon after the second arrest, as her drug use had made her an unreliable employee. Her parents wanted her to return to rehab, but she decided to move to Albuquerque instead. She hoped to get a new start in life, make new and better friends, and stop her drug and alcohol abuse.

After Peebles disappeared, there were sightings of her reported in the Albuquerque area. The witnesses reported Peebles was calling herself "Mia" and working as a prostitute for a pimp called AJ. who supplied her with crack cocaine. Police questioned AJ, whose real name is Donald Sears, after he was arrested in Bakersfield, California, and he said he'd never heard of Peebles.

Her father made about eleven trips to Albuquerque as well as Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada to search for her. The last credible sighting was in the fall of 2006, and her father thought she may have been sold to a pimp in another city.

Peebles's father was killed in an accident in South Dakota in 2014. In his obituary, Peebles is listed as having survived him. Her case remains unsolved.