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My understanding is that she was last seen at Walmart. Her car was found at Albertson's parking lot, which wasn't there when she went missing.

And it had been just parked there and left. So I was told that she was going to meet with a friend that night and never showed up.

45-year-old Leona Kinsey disappeared from La Grande, Oregon on October 25, 1999.

Leona was last spotted by a friend at a local Walmart. And according to that friend, Leona said she was going to meet someone at a nearby Albertson's grocery store. After that, she planned to stop by her friend's house around 7pm.

Leona never showed up at her friend's house and was never seen or heard from again.

In part 1, we discuss the circumstances surrounding Leona's disappearance, and how those close to her began pointing fingers at each other. In the beginning, investigators had many people to look at. But as time went on, they began to focus in on one man.

The more that they learned about this man, they began to believe that he might just be the one who made Leona disappear.

On Marissa, and from Wondery, this is Episode 275 of The Vanished. Part 2 of Leona Kinsey's story.

When Leona Kinsey first disappeared, many people suspected Leona's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Lonnie. And some people still do to this very day.

However, from the very beginning, there was also another name floating around. John. On the day that Leona disappeared, she had told her friend Nancy that she was going to meet a man at the local Albertson's grocery store.

But she only told Nancy this man's nickname, Mexican John. But Nancy didn't seem to know much more about this guy beyond his nickname.

Investigators later learned that John went by John or Juan Pena Lomas.

One of Leona's friends told investigators that John had lived on Leona's property for some period of time in the past, and that he was a major methamphetamine supplier in the local area.

This friend hadn't seen John in the Le Grande area since Leona disappeared. But recalled Leona saying that John had thrown a tantrum, because she refused to sleep with him and trashed her house during his tantrum.

Leona's friend Nancy also remembered John staying on Leona's property a while back, and she too was aware that he was a big methamphetamine supplier.

Nancy told investigators that she was under the impression that he was connected to the Mexican Mafia, which made locals intimidated of John and his connections.

It seemed as though those close to Leona all knew bits and pieces of information about John, and that helped investigators piece things together.

Lonnie said that John was Leona's methamphetamine supplier, and that they would meet at the Albertsons grocery store to do their transactions. The same store where Leona's vehicle was found after her disappearance, and also the same store she told Nancy that she was planning to meet someone the night she went missing.

After Leona's disappearance, everyone stopped seeing John around town, and it wouldn't be until 2001 that the police caught up to him.

It was at this time that he was arrested on unrelated charges.

John told the detective that he had lived with Leona for a period of about three months, but that he had moved out the February prior to her October disappearance.

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