A household picture of Johanna Leatherbury. Justice for JoHanna Leatherbury Group
Johanna Leatherbury had simply graduated from Olympus Excessive College at 17 years outdated and was off to go hang around at a preferred spot along with her pals on a heat August night time in 1971. When she mentioned goodbye to her household and left, they didn’t know that will be the final time they'd see her alive. The night time changed into morning and Johanna by no means returned residence. Her household knew that one thing was incorrect and instantly started to go looking the world, hoping to identify her or her automobile.
“When she didn’t present up, all of us started to panic,” mentioned Johanna’s youthful sister, Roxanne Brough, per KSL.
Whereas the household’s search didn’t yield any solutions, Leatherbury’s physique was finally discovered the following day close to the Nice Saltair website on the southern shore of the Nice Salt Lake in Utah. The Unified Police Division investigators got here to the conclusion that the 17-year-old was sexually assaulted earlier than both a gaggle of individuals or one individual shot and stabbed her, in keeping with the Utah Division of Public Security.
Her residing family at this time are persevering with to push for solutions to the 51-year-old chilly case.
“We actually have felt the case was solvable, however now it’s so a few years previous,” mentioned Leatherbury’s niece, Cindy Leatherbury-Grange, in keeping with Oxygen True Crime. “We’re questioning if these persons are lifeless, what has occurred.”
Johanna was final seen on the night time of Aug. 20, 1971, close to 2100 South and State Avenue. She was seen at “the Advanced” which was a preferred highschool hangout location, in keeping with Oxygen.
Schoolmates of Leatherbury mentioned they witnessed her getting right into a automobile with not less than two males and another people that night time.
Johanna’s Chrysler was discovered early the next day on Westminster Avenue between State and 200 East, a few blocks from the Advanced, in keeping with the Division of Public Security. Johanna’s physique was found by two folks close to the Nice Salt Lake on Aug. 21.
Oxygen True Crime reported that Johanna’s pockets and purse had been discovered on the roof of a motel close to the Advanced in Salt Lake Metropolis not lengthy after her physique was found.
Greater than half a century later, the Leatherbury household and pals hope that the chilly case will someday be solved as data comes ahead. Jack Leatherbury, Johanna’s brother, mentioned his mother and father died earlier than discovering solutions, in keeping with Oxygen True Crime. “They went to their grave completely modified, modified folks,” Jack Leatherbury mentioned.
Johanna’s case continues to be thought of “lively” to the Unified Police Division although information from the investigation had been broken in a flood a couple of years in the past. Officers exhumed Leatherbury’s physique and the outcomes of this examination haven't been given to family, in keeping with the household in 2017.
“We weren’t aware about hardly something,” Johanna’s cousin, Sandy Leatherbury, mentioned. “We appealed for the file, and we had been denied.”
The household felt that the police had a restricted time-frame for essentially the most alternative to carry justice to the case, however now as years go by, they may by no means get the solutions they want. “Thirty years in the past, we'd have had an opportunity,” Leatherbury-Grange mentioned.
The Leatherbury household has mentioned that as a result of they're dissatisfied with the police investigation, they're now becoming a member of with the Utah Chilly Case Coalition to get justice on the case. Jason Jensen, the group’s co-founder and personal investigator, mentioned he believes the killer was from the Salt Lake Metropolis space.
“She deserved extra,” Sandy Leatherbury mentioned. “She deserved to have whoever did this to be caught.”