Cold and Missing: Lesley Sparrow

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The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.

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All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages and is intended for a mature

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audience.

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Listener discretion is advised.

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Welcome back everyone.

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Welcome back to Cold and Missing.

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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin.

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I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.

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And happy new year.

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Yeah, happy new year everyone.

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This is our first episode of 2023.

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Yeah, I'm very excited.

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What do you have for me today?

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I got a good one for you today.

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So we're back on Cold, Missing, Cold, Missing where we trade off.

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And so we're on a cold case.

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In December, we covered Tito J. Garcia Quintanilla and we are covering Lesley Sparrow this week.

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And this case takes place in October of 1979.

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And it takes place mainly in Louisville, Kentucky, but we're going to talk about a couple of

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different places in Kentucky.

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So it's centered around Louisville though.

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Let me tell you a little bit about Lesley Sparrow.

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So Lesley in 1979, she's 35 years old and she's originally from England.

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She's from Dartford, Kent, and her mother, father, and sister all still live over in

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England, but she moved to the United States in 1964.

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So she's been living here for over 10 years.

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She is described as self-reliant and independent, a delightful person to be around, but she's

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also a daredevil.

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Her favorite sports or activities, she loves whitewater rafting, she's part of a ski club.

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She really loves extreme sports, which I think is really cool.

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Yeah, that's really cool.

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Yeah.

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When she first moved to the United States in 1964, she first lived in Atlanta, Georgia,

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and she was married to a man in the Air Force, but they divorced in 1975.

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And by all accounts, it was an amicable divorce.

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Everything was okay.

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And she wanted to take her maiden name back, which is Sparrow.

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And she said that the Sparrow family had been granted the right to spit in the streets of

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London and she wanted to keep that privilege.

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So when she divorced, she was like, I'm getting that name back because I want to spit in London.

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All right.

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She worked in labor relations for Anaconda Aluminum Company.

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She started in 1964 and had climbed the corporate ladder and had transferred to their Louisville,

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Kentucky office in December of 1977 after her divorce.

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So while she had been in the United States for some time, she was newer to the Louisville

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area, only having lived there a few years by 1979.

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And Charles Ebert, who was the corporate security liaison of the parent company of this company

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she worked for, he's quoted as saying, quote, she was a very independent woman.

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She would take on challenges.

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She had a lot of spirit, a lot of confidence.

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So this is a woman who gets life.

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We love that.

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So Friday, October 12th, 1979, Lesley is at work.

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She's last seen at her job at Anaconda Aluminum Company.

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And she tells a coworker that her boyfriend had invited her to a skydiving competition

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in Arizona for the weekend.

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And she was stoked on it because she had never been skydiving before.

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So she was excited to go do this.

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I feel like if I sky dove, I pass out immediately.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Well, jumping from an airplane is not for everybody, but she was stoked on it.

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Yeah.

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And she was going to go via a private plane.

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So a friend of a friend was going to fly them from the Lunkin Airport in Cincinnati, Ohio

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to Arizona.

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So like a little commuter plane.

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So she tells those plans to her coworker.

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She's so excited on it.

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And after work on Friday, she sets off towards Cincinnati, which is where she's going to

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be flying out of.

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So then on Sunday, October 14th, 1979, a hotel cleaning person at the Best Western Fountain

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Inn in Boone County, Kentucky.

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So this is about one and a half hours from Louisville, Kentucky, but 15 miles south of

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Cincinnati.

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So it's really close to the Kentucky, Ohio.

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Oh, that's like where we were when we traveled.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Got it.

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So she notices blood near a car in the parking lot and calls police.

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The car is a silver...

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What?

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Blood in what kind of way?

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So she notices blood around a car.

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Like spilled or like a lot?

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It doesn't say exactly what it was, but it does say that she notices a lot of blood,

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like around a car in the parking lot.

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So she calls police.

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The car is a silver 1978 Monte Carlo Chevy, and it belonged to Lesley.

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This is Lesley's car.

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Police find Lesley in the trunk of her car and describe her murder as overkill.

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So she's found in her car, in the trunk of her car, parked in this hotel parking lot.

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I did not see that coming.

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A lot of blood was also found in the passenger side, along with a crack in the windshield

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police believe was from a ricocheting bullet.

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Police believe she was killed in the car shortly after she had arrived in the area on Friday.

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And what day did...

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So she was found on Sunday.

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Oh, that...

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Okay.

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Inside the car were Lesley's weekend bags packed with clothes and toiletries.

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And Lesley had not checked into the hotel where her body was found, like in the parking

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lot.

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And she was in the parking lot of the hotel?

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Yeah.

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She had not checked into that hotel or any nearby hotels, because it's near an airport.

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You know, there's a lot of hotels in the area, but she had not checked into any hotel.

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To me, someone was waiting for her.

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But there was blood found in a bathroom of the bus western.

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So it's unclear if it's Lesley's blood, somebody else's blood, but there was blood found in

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a bathroom in that hotel.

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Okay.

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But we don't have any details of whose room that is.

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That's all very hush-hush.

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And there's no CCTV footage because...

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It's 1979.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So on Tuesday, October 16th, this is just a couple days after she's found, Lesley's

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autopsy is conducted by coroner Don Stith.

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And she's ID'd through her dental records.

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So they don't know who she is, but ultimately she's ID'd through her dental records.

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Her body was that... that she wasn't identifiable by someone looking at her?

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Yeah.

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Because again, it was overkill.

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And according to her autopsy results, and just a trigger warning here, she was shot

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in the head six times with a 25 caliber weapon.

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And she was also hit in the head 15 times with a blunt instrument believed to be a tire

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iron.

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There was no evidence of sexual assault.

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And at this time, police have no suspects.

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So about a week after the murder, I couldn't find a clear date on this, but it's the week

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following her murder.

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Police find Lesley's wallet and part of an address book discarded on a rural road.

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Near the items was a man's blue shirt covered in blood.

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So then on October 30th, Lesley's memorial service is held at the Duncan Memorial Chapel

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in Crestwood, Kentucky.

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And then not a lot of news comes out.

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And in December of 1979, so a little over two months later, her company puts up a $25,000

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reward for info leading to the arrest of her killer.

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Her company does?

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Her company does this.

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And this is actually really interesting.

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So Charles Ebert, who I had quoted earlier, he's the corporate security for Atlantic Richfield

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Co., which is the parent company that owns Anaconda Aluminum, which Lesley worked for.

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And Charles says the company was working on a pilot program to offer rewards when their

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employees are killed violently.

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The company has found that women who transfer from city to city were particularly vulnerable

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to violent crimes, quote, having moved away from family and friends, end quote.

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So this company had had several employees murdered violently.

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I hate the way that that is worded.

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I'm sorry.

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Like women aren't vulnerable.

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Men are abusive.

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Yes.

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And I know you already know that, and you don't have to keep it in there.

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I'm just like, I'm feeling really angry for you right now that women are just so easily

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discarded across the board and that she was in a fucking trunk.

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That's disgusting that, I mean, we've talked about how men are, but that they do that shit.

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So for this company, there had been a Los Angeles service operator who was murdered

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pretty violently, and then a high level manager in Philadelphia was also murdered violently.

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So this company just knows the people who work for us maybe might be murdered?

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Yeah.

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And so they have this pilot program to offer rewards to get information for their, specifically

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just for employees of violent deaths, murders.

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That's bananas.

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Is that, that's like a real thing that existed?

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That was a real thing that existed in 1979 for this company.

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And we actually will have, the company took out ads and newspapers, so we'll put up on

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our Instagram, like a copy of the ad that was put out essentially for information for

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her murder by her company.

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So in December, again, a little over two months after her murder, Captain Donald Stamper,

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who is commander of the Boone Florence felony squad, said no one was working full time on

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the case and it was significantly slowed down since all of the info was coming out of Louisville,

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which was about an hour and a half away.

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But he had learned some important info and the skydiving show was phony.

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No parachute show was scheduled for the time and location given to Lesley.

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And there's no internet, you can't just like search that before you go.

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Yeah.

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But, you know, for a skydiving competition, you, even in 1979, you had to like schedule

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it, you know, you had to clear the skies for people to be doing that.

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But so that event was never happening, never took place.

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It was phony.

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And the private plane was also fake.

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No evidence that one was ever scheduled at the airport and no one ever came forward to

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say that they were the ones that were going to be doing the flying or had access to it.

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And apparently in this invite that Lesley had received for the skydiving competition

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from her boyfriend, it's revealed later that her boyfriend had sent her the invite, in

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the invitation was also like two sets of couples that she knew.

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And they had no idea about it apparently either.

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So like she was kind of tricked into heading this way by means of like, you don't have

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to pay for a flight, it's already paid for, we're going to do this cool thing and these

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people you already know are coming.

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So investigators, oh, I mentioned this, that they believe she was killed shortly after

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arriving in the area.

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They also believe the motive was jealousy, quote, the boyfriend-girlfriend variety, end

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quote.

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But there's also a single report that robbery could have been a motive.

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And I wonder if this is coming because her wallet was taken from the scene and later

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showed up discarded.

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But the investigators seem to believe that the main motive was jealousy.

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And in December of 1979, investigators have zeroed in on two people.

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The first is a man from Louisville that had been seen near Lesley's home days before the

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murder.

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He had worked for Anaconda and this man was married and his wife was told that her husband

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was a suspect.

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Him and Lesley were seen dining at the Celestial Restaurant in Mount Adams, which is right

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outside of Cincinnati, Ohio.

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So they were going about an hour and a half away to go out to eat.

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So that way nobody would see them.

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So this man, he's never named by police, this man declined to take a polygraph test.

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And he was also possibly connected to a Ford truck theft ring that was happening in Louisville

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at this time, so like kind of an organized crime of a bunch of Ford trucks being stolen.

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So he's a suspect, but then they also have a person of interest, which was a man who

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had been laid off from Anaconda months before.

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So not nearly as much as the suspect, but he's a person of interest.

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Police say they still have leads to investigate, such as a woman who called Anaconda and warned

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that women employees sleeping with male employees, quote, will end up like that other lady, end

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quote, which police assumed was referring to Lesley.

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So January 10th, 1980, in a new year, it's only been about three months, four months

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since Lesley has been killed.

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The reward offer brought by her company, no new leads come out of this, and police remain

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convinced that the crime is centered around Louisville, but no arrests have been made.

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And there's no attempt to pass off the case to Louisville police in the seventies and

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eighties.

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I know we've talked about this before, but police weren't always willing to help each

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other or do what's right by the victims.

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Yes.

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It was more about like, who found it first?

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Yeah.

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It's like, this is my case, even though I can't investigate it to the extent it needs to be,

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because again, it's before the internet, before cell phones, you're trying to interview people,

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track them down.

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Like you really have to be in the city to do that.

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February 23rd, 1981.

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So this is a year plus that she has been murdered at this point.

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The case is stagnant, but police feel sure they know who did it.

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And Major Don Stamper, he says, quote, we feel sure we have our man, but we want solid

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evidence before making an arrest.

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We have a room full of circumstantial evidence, end quote.

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So to me, it feels like police, since there's like no real updates, no real new evidence

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between like 1980 and 1981, to me, I think the police are like, this guy did it.

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We don't have the evidence yet.

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And it feels like they might've stopped working the case because they were like very convinced

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it's this person.

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Cause again, the next update doesn't come until November 27th of 1983.

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So this is four plus years she's been murdered at this point.

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Investigators say they have tried to bring charges against their main suspects, but quote,

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00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:56,320
the Commonwealth attorney, well, he's the one to decide and he didn't feel that there

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was enough to try the guy on, end quote.

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And again, this is Major Don Stamper.

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00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:11,640
So to me, I don't know, something about like 1983, if like the DA, the Commonwealth attorney,

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if they're saying there's not enough evidence, there's not enough evidence.

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They used to try people very thinly back in the day, especially before like DNA, like

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you could really get somebody on circumstantial evidence.

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But for like the DA to say there was not enough at this time, I'm like, okay, there probably

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was not enough evidence.

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And then the case really stops there.

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It seems like the police tried to bring charges, but there wasn't enough.

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So they were like, all right, well, this guy did it, but we can't close it yet.

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And the next update comes in July of 2020.

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Yeah.

265
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Wow.

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That's in the pandemic.

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Yeah.

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And the reason her story comes up again is because an Eagle Scout for his Eagle Scout

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project takes on clearing an old cemetery.

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And this cemetery is known as the Poorhouse Cemetery, but its official name is the Boone

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County Infirmary Cemetery.

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So Lesley's family was not able to get her body home, cost a lot of money to transport

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a body, especially overseas.

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So her body went unclaimed until the 90s.

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And then it was buried in this Poorhouse Cemetery.

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And so the Eagle Scout learns her story by clearing the cemetery and getting it all nice

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and clean.

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And so he starts raising money for a proper headstone for Lesley after learning about

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her story.

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Just a good young man.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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I'm really glad that that human exists.

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But this does get a lot of interest in Lesley's case going again.

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And the Cincinnati Inquirer actually does, they get a lot of the case files from the

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police and they actually reveal so much information.

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So when I was researching this until I found the 2020 Cincinnati Inquirer, you didn't

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know that her boyfriend had invited her to the skydiving show.

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You didn't know there was blood found inside of the hotel.

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You didn't, like, those details were kept out of the public eye for so long.

291
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Why is that?

292
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Well here's my take on why some of this stuff was released.

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I will also say though that you understand quite a bit more about like all of those rules.

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Like I don't understand like gag orders.

295
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I don't understand what's public record, what's not.

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I don't understand why.

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So thank you for always explaining it to me.

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Of course.

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00:18:56,160 --> 00:19:06,440
So I think that the reason they released so much information that wasn't redacted or gave

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00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:10,940
so much out is because their main suspect, this guy that they've tried to bring charges

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00:19:10,940 --> 00:19:16,560
against before in the past, he as of 2020, he had died.

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00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:21,000
So as of today, the main suspect is dead in the case.

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So to me, it almost feels like a trial by media of saying like, by just releasing the

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00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:35,000
fact that her boyfriend invited her to this fake show, to me, I feel very suspicious of

305
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:41,640
this ex-boyfriend who was married and she gets invited to, like you said earlier, it

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sounded like somebody was waiting for her.

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So it's like, who would be waiting for her?

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Maybe the boyfriend that invited her.

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So I think that's why so much of the information gets released in 2020.

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But in October of 2020, police revealed they are reviewing fingerprints that were recovered

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from her car and also from her address book that was found on the side of the road.

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But no hits, no updates as of 2020.

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So if anybody has any information about what happened to Lesley Sparrow in 1979, you are

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00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:28,720
encouraged to call the Boone County Sheriff at 859-334-2175, or you can email them at

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00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:35,840
bcs at boonecountyk.com.

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00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:44,000
And the sources for today's podcast, Fox 19, The Evening Centennial, The Courier Journal,

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and The Cincinnati Inquirer.

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But that is the case of Lesley Sparrow.

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And it is, again, a cold case.

320
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The main suspect is dead.

321
00:20:55,360 --> 00:21:01,800
But I have to think that if it is this person, somebody else knows.

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00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:06,960
Like he had to have said something in his life, or if there was like a jealousy, you

323
00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:14,760
know, this woman calls saying that people will end up like the other lady, might be

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more than one person.

325
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No new plan.

326
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:19,440
I don't know.

327
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:20,440
I truly don't know.

328
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:29,360
But it sounds like there's like, perhaps a whole world of, I don't know, misbehavior

329
00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:32,280
happening like within that company.

330
00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:33,680
Yeah.

331
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:41,000
The company aspect of them having this pilot program, I mean, I do a lot of research into

332
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:47,280
these things, and I've seen companies offer, you know, money in the past, but never as

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00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:49,440
like a specific pilot program.

334
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:51,240
Like, it's never been described like that.

335
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:54,240
It's like our employee was killed and we would like some answers.

336
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:58,320
Here is some money that we are putting or adding to the reward fund, you know, whatever

337
00:21:58,320 --> 00:21:59,320
it may be.

338
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:05,400
And it was the first time the company was like, actually, we have a pilot program just

339
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:06,400
for this.

340
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:08,400
We have encountered this before.

341
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:09,880
A pilot program for murder.

342
00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:10,880
Yeah.

343
00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:11,880
And he was...

344
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:12,880
What?

345
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:16,080
The guy, Charles Ebert, he was like, it's been very successful.

346
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:18,800
Like it's been successful in getting information for us.

347
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:25,120
And you know, it was really, in reading it, it kind of seems like it was more for employees

348
00:22:25,120 --> 00:22:26,360
than for the public.

349
00:22:26,360 --> 00:22:34,480
Like it was to get employees talking, which again, the main suspects and the person of

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00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:41,600
interest were both employees or former employees of Anaconda where Lesley had worked.

351
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And you know, her job working...

352
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,740
Yeah, she worked in labor relations.

353
00:22:47,740 --> 00:22:52,200
So she would do like a kind of an HR position.

354
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:53,860
Like she would have to do some reprimanding.

355
00:22:53,860 --> 00:22:55,620
She would have to work with the union.

356
00:22:55,620 --> 00:22:56,840
She would lay people off.

357
00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:04,200
So there could be misdirected anger at the company kind of pointed right at Lesley for

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00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:05,200
somebody.

359
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,280
You know, like somebody that's just angry they lost their job or whatever.

360
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:13,380
But yeah, that's the case of Lesley Sparrow.

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If you enjoy our podcast, you can follow us on Instagram.

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00:23:18,140 --> 00:23:20,680
Like I mentioned earlier, we're going to be posting photos.

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00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,560
We always post pictures from our cases.

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00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:31,360
Also, we had some people reach out in response to our last few episodes about Tito.

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00:23:31,360 --> 00:23:33,480
They wanted to know ways that they could help Faith.

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00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,920
We interviewed Faith in a couple of our episodes in December.

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00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:46,600
And Faith has started a GoFundMe to help hire a private investigator to help with Tito or

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to help find Tito.

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00:23:48,120 --> 00:23:53,560
So if you go to our Instagram, you can find the GoFundMe in the link in our bio.

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00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:59,720
And if you have some extra money, $5 goes a long way for this.

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00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:04,240
Also, wherever you're at, whatever podcast you're in right now, if you could leave us

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00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:09,720
a little review, it's so helpful to help others find these cases and to find us.

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00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:14,080
And ultimately, we just want as many people listening to this, not because we want to

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be a popular podcast, but we want people to know these cases because these are cases that

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don't necessarily get covered all of the time.

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00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:29,240
And if you would like to support Cold and Missing in 2023 as we continue our podcasting

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00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:34,560
journey again on Instagram in the link in our bio, you can buy us a coffee, which is

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00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:41,120
just a little tip that directly goes back to funding the podcast and all the expenses

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that come with it.

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00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:44,920
That's all of us though.

381
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:45,920
Thank you so much, Al.

382
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:47,080
I feel like I learned a lot.

383
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:55,760
I'm eager to look up information about this and hopefully get her name back out there.

384
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:56,760
Yeah, definitely.

385
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:58,800
Yeah, that's all from us though.

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Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.

387
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:01,400
Thanks, y'all.

388
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:24,360
Thank you so much, everybody.