Cops Look Into Chisholm Event For Clues

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The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released this age-enhanced picture of Leanna Warner, who went missing when she was 5 years old. This is how she may look like now, three years after her disappearance in 2003.

Chisholm Police Chief Scott Erickson said that they are not giving up on the search for missing Minnesota girl Leanna Warner. In fact, a new lead is keeping them very busy.

Erickson says that at the time when Leanna went missing, there was an event in Chisholm, Minn. that attracted people from different parts of the surrounding areas. Investigators have been trying to make contact with all the people that attended that event to see if any of them knows something that may lead them to Leanna.

 Leanna was last seen June 14, 2003, after leaving her home in Chisholm.

A Puzzling Disappearance

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Leanna was last seen near her house on June 14, 2003.

In the small town of Chisholm, Minn., pictures of 5-year-old Leanna Warner hang from storefront windows and telephone poles. It's a constant reminder to this community of 5,000 of a search that  started June 14, 2003 -- the day little Leanna Warner disappeared.

That afternoon Leanna and her family had just returned from a family trip. Leanna asked her mom if she could visit a nearby friend. Leanna's mom gave her permission and at 4:30 p.m., Leanna walked toward her friend's home. She wore a belted denim dress and was barefoot. The path she took would have led her to a gravel alley two houses down and then to Southwest Third Street.

On Third Street, she would have passed a few houses, ant dunes and grass peeking out from cracks in the sidewalk before getting to her friend's house. According to police, it takes an adult, walking slowly, a little less than two minutes to travel the block and a half. Leanna knocked on the door of her friend's house, but no one was home.

Police say a neighbor saw her pet a dog and she began to head west sometime between 5 and 5:15 p.m. Leanna usually checks in with her parents every 20 minutes. On this afternoon too much time passed and her mom began to worry. Forty-five minutes after Leanna first left home, her parents launched a frantic search of the neighborhood.  Shortly before 9 p.m. they called police and reported her missing.

The Investigation Continues

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Leanna goes by the nickname "Beaner".

Vaughan-Steffensrud Elementary, where Leanna attended school, became the command center for her search. Police and volunteers walked shoulder to shoulder and combed a two-mile radius around the city -- searching roads and ditches. Helicopters and boats checked woods and bodies of water. Bloodhounds tried to sniff out Leanna's scent.

Police went door to door in her neighborhood. They've followed every lead and interviewed friends and family extensively. They now believe it's likely that someone took the outgoing and fearless 5-year-old.