CHEERLEADER Vanished In 1998 – 18 Years Later, Her Dad Flips Through Her Old Yearbook And Notices… | HO”

Lakewood, Georgia

On the night of October 9, 1998, Lakewood High School emptied the way it always did after a homecoming win—slowly at first, then all at once. Students laughed in the parking lot. Parents called out names. Car doors slammed. Somewhere, a band member played the last few notes of a fight song that drifted across the campus before fading into the dark.

Seventeen-year-old Leysa Combmes walked away from the stadium that night wearing jeans, black Nike Cortez sneakers, and the red varsity jacket she had earned through years of discipline and leadership. She took a familiar shortcut behind the gym, a path students had used for decades.

She never made it home.

What began as a missing-person report quickly became something more disturbing—not because of what investigators found, but because of what they didn’t. No witnesses. No phone calls. No explanation. For nearly two decades, Leysa’s disappearance sat unresolved, quietly haunting a town that eventually learned to stop asking questions.

Until her father noticed something no one else ever had.

A Girl Everyone Knew—and Trusted

Leysa Combmes was born on April 23, 1981, in Lakewood, Georgia, a working-class town south of Atlanta where routines mattered and reputations lasted generations. Her mother, Altha, worked as a school secretary. Her father, Donald, was a postal worker known for never missing a route.

From early childhood, Leysa stood out—not for being loud or rebellious, but for being steady.

Teachers described her as thoughtful and generous. Classmates trusted her. She helped other students without being asked. By elementary school, she was known as “the helper.” By middle school, she was known as the one who noticed when something wasn’t right.

In high school, she became a standout athlete and leader. She ran track. She earned straight A’s. She joined the cheerleading squad and rose to co-captain. She was popular, but not reckless. Visible, but careful.

She didn’t drink. She didn’t sneak out. She didn’t disappear.

Leysa had already been accepted to Florida A&M University on a full academic scholarship. She planned to study pre-law, with dreams of becoming a civil rights attorney. Her future was not theoretical. It was scheduled.

Which is why her disappearance stunned everyone who knew her.

Quiet Warnings No One Heard

In the weeks before she vanished, Leysa began doing something she rarely did: adjusting her routines.

She changed the locker she used after practice. She took longer routes between classes. She asked friends to walk with her—small changes, subtle enough that no one thought to question them.

She also began journaling again.

Her entries shifted from college prep notes to short, unsettling lines. One read simply:

“He’s always around. Quiet. Won’t look away.”

There was no name attached. No explanation.

Leysa mentioned feeling watched. She told a friend once, half-joking, half-serious, “You ever get the feeling someone’s just waiting on you?”

Adults brushed it off. Teen nerves. Stress. Senior year pressure.

Then came a drawing left in her locker: a sketch of Leysa alone on the football field at night, a shadowy figure seated in the bleachers watching.

She threw it away.

No one reported it.

The Night She Disappeared

The homecoming game ended shortly before 9:30 p.m. Leysa changed out of her uniform, pulled on her varsity jacket, and walked toward the rear gate behind the gym—a shortcut she had taken countless times.

Her best friend, Ayana Thomas, saw her leave.

“Take the back gate,” Leysa said. “It’s quicker. I don’t want to miss dinner.”

That was the last confirmed sighting of Leysa Combmes.

By 11:15 p.m., her parents were calling friends. By midnight, police were notified. Officers responded, took notes, and suggested she may have gone to a friend’s house.

But nothing about Leysa’s life suggested she would vanish voluntarily.

Ten Days Later: The Shoes

Ten days after her disappearance, two students found a pair of black Nike Cortez sneakers near the shortcut behind the gym.

Untied.
Clean.
Undamaged.

No footprints.
No blood.
No struggle.

Police logged the shoes into evidence and released a statement: no indication of foul play.

For Leysa’s parents, the statement felt less like reassurance and more like dismissal.

Why would their daughter remove her shoes and leave them behind?

No one had an answer.

Grief Takes Another Life

As weeks turned into months, the investigation slowed.

Media attention faded. Leads dried up.

Leysa’s mother, Altha, stopped eating. She stopped attending church. She stopped sleeping.

By spring 1999, she was hospitalized multiple times for severe depression and malnutrition. In June of that year—eight months after Leysa vanished—Altha Combmes died of cardiac arrest.

Those close to the family said plainly: she died of a broken heart.

Donald Combmes buried his wife while still searching for his daughter.

A Father Who Would Not Stop

Donald refused to let Leysa’s case disappear quietly.

He resigned from his postal job before retirement. He spent their college savings on a computer. He learned how to search public records, cold-case databases, and archived police files.

He built binders.
Then shelves.
Then an entire room.

For nearly 18 years, he kept going.

February 2016: The Yearbook

On a quiet Saturday morning in February 2016, Donald climbed into his attic to sort through boxes he had avoided for years.

Inside one box labeled with Leysa’s name was her 1998 senior yearbook.

He had flipped through it many times before.

This time, he noticed something new.

A boy.

Not centered.
Not smiling.
Always in the background.

One page.
Then another.
Then another.

Behind her.
Near her.
Watching.

The boy’s name was Vincent Simp.

Donald remembered something Leysa had said years earlier:

“There’s this guy who waits outside the gym. Doesn’t talk. Just stands there.”

A Complaint Filed—and Forgotten

Digging deeper, Donald found a folded school complaint form dated October 2, 1998—one week before Leysa vanished.

In his daughter’s handwriting:

“He waits for me after practice. He doesn’t talk, but he’s always there. I think his name is Vincent S.”

A counselor had written on the back:

“Will monitor behavior. Probably nothing.”

It had never been investigated.

The Evidence That Changed Everything

Donald took his findings to the Lakewood Police Department.

A new detective reopened the case.

One overlooked item was re-tested: Leysa’s red varsity jacket, recovered near the shortcut in 1998 but never analyzed.

Touch DNA testing—technology unavailable at the time—revealed male DNA on the collar and cuffs.

It matched Vincent Simp.

The Arrest

When police searched Vincent Simp’s home, they found photographs of Leysa—taken without her knowledge—poems written about her, and sketches of cheerleaders.

During questioning, Vincent said little.

When shown the evidence, he muttered one sentence:

“She shouldn’t have run.”

Justice, Without Closure

In 2016, nearly 18 years after Leysa vanished, Vincent Simp was convicted of kidnapping and second-degree murder.

Leysa’s body was never found.

There is no grave.
No remains.
No final goodbye.

What This Case Reveals

Leysa Combmes did not vanish suddenly.

She disappeared gradually—through ignored warnings, minimized concerns, and assumptions that quiet danger was harmless.

She spoke.

She wrote.

She warned.

No one listened.

Her story is not just about one crime.

It is about how easily warning signs are dismissed.

How often girls are told, “He’s probably just shy.”

How silence can be mistaken for safety.

A Question That Remains

What if someone had asked the right question?

What if that complaint had mattered?

What if someone had looked closer—sooner?

Leysa’s father did.

Eighteen years later.

And it changed everything.

But by then, it was already too late.