Deborah Leslie wasn’t the type of person to disappear for months at a time.
When she did go missing, in September, her family was alarmed and suspected she relapsed again. She had long struggled with addiction.
Leslie, 30, was found Sept. 23 in a torched out house on the 5300 block of W. 8th Avenue in Gary. She was last seen alive on camera at a Hammond Motel 6. Two people with her are charged with taking her body to Gary.
Emmit L. Yarbrough, Jr., 56, and Heather Richardson, 34, both of Gary, were charged with Level 6 felony altering the scene of death. It is the lowest class felony, carrying a possible penalty of 6 months to 2.5 years if convicted.
They also face three misdemeanors — two counts of failure to notify authorities of discovery of a dead body, and one count of failure to report human remains.
Her father David Leslie called it “nothingburgers”.
“I feel I have to do this for my own closure,” he said Monday. “I’m not satisfied with what (prosecutors) did.”
Yarbrough and Richardson “went through a lot of trouble to dispose of my daughter’s body,” he said.
Leslie said a staff member told him that an auto theft charge was difficult, because her daughter may have given them permission at one point to use the car. Arson was tough, because it was an abandoned building.
“The Lake County Prosecutor’s Office cannot comment on any pending cases,” Spokeswoman Myrna Maldonado said. “We always review cases thoroughly.”
Leslie’s parents reported her missing and asked police for a “welfare check,” according to an affidavit. Deborah’s mom Maggie Leslie had access to her social media and cell phone accounts and traced the phone’s last location to the Hammond Motel 6, 3840 179th Street, according to court records.
They found her red 2006 Mazda parked there, but motel staff didn’t give them any information on if she rented a room or was there with other people.
The motel manager later told police Yarbrough signed for the room, arriving with Leslie and another white woman, later identified as Richardson, charges state.
The motel’s video showed Yarbrough driving up in Leslie’s car with her and Richardson around 8 a.m. on Sept. 20 to check in. All three left around 2:30 p.m., then returned just before 7 p.m. By 11:30 p.m., just Yarbrough and Richardson left in Leslie’s car.
The Mazda returned briefly just before 4 a.m., before pulling off. They returned around 9 a.m., then we’re later seen on video throwing out pizza boxes, and leaving at 12:21 p.m. Yarbrough took a wheelchair with tags still attached up to the room on Sept. 21, just before 2 p.m.
He pushed Leslie out of the room around 11:19 p.m. She was wearing a COVID mask, baseball hat and covered in a “bed sheet”.
Police believed she was dead.
When the hat slipped, someone else had to fix it. Richardson helped move Leslie’s “stiff” legs. Yarbrough and Richardson put her in back passenger seat. Yarbrough put the wheelchair in the trunk.
Gary Fire responded at 12:43 a.m. Sept. 22 to a structure fire on 8th Avenue.
Leslie’s body was later identified through dental prints. Her cause of death was a fentanyl and cocaine overdose, according to court records. Alcohol was also in her system. The manner of death was undetermined.
Her body was “badly burned” and she was found laying up a “curled up position”.
The fire had been set in the home’s south end.
Yarbrough’s cell phone pinged nearby in Gary around the time of the fire.
Investigators suspected the wheelchair was bought for $200 cash at a Vyto’s Pharmacy in Hammond.
Yarbrough’s lawyer Susan Severtson said through a secretary that he pleaded not guilty and had “no further comment”.
Leslie last talked with his daughter the day before she disappeared. He later suspected she relapsed, first with booze, and ran into Yarbrough and Richardson for the first time.
Judging by the time in court records, he may have missed them wheeling her out by a half-hour or hour. Maybe that was a blessing, he said.
A Griffith High School graduate, Deborah “loved hiking” and “being in nature,” according to her obituary. Music and especially dancing “made her feel childlike and free”.
Her family, including a twin sister, were close and never turned their back during her many rehab stints, David Leslie said. They supported her through Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and other support groups.
“She had all the pieces to succeed,” he said. “Why somebody doesn’t, I’ll never know.”
His daughter primarily abused alcohol, but fell into opiates, he suspected, in the last year or 18 months of her life.
She was “very good” at “dusting herself off, getting back at it,” her father said.
Deborah was always “first in line” for others in their battle to stay clean even if she ultimately couldn’t help herself.
They plan to take her remains to Montana in July to bury her with her “forefathers” in a family cemetery plot.
“That’s going to be my closure point,” he said.
