On Monday night, December 13, 2004, Roswell Nurse Leslie Beebe entered the The Derby Food & Spirits sports bar at 9850 Nesbit Ferry Road, in Alpharetta, Georgia. She was still dressed in her work clothes, magenta scrubs and white nursing shoes. According to witnesses she seemed to be looking for someone, and was there less than 15 minutes.

Leslie didn’t show up for work the next day, and did not use her checking account, credit cards, or pick up her paycheck. Her 2000 Volkswagen Jetta disappeared with her.

Leslie was planning on a Christmas trip to her home state of New York. She was described by those who knew her as outgoing, vivacious, a life of the party type. The Derby’s manager described her as hugging “everybody” whenever she came in to have drinks with friends. And even in photos published, it seems you can see this could be true – she has a big, open smile and rosy cheeks, looks like she’s in the middle of laughing.

Leslie was found dead on December 21, 2004, in unincorporated Sandy Springs, Georgia, near the intersection of Forestwood Lane and Forestwood Drive.

In this AJC article, published Dec. 23, 2004, by Doug Nurse, Lynn Mahovsky, a resident of the subdivision, said the following:

“…”It wasn’t there Monday…”

Meaning Monday, December 20, 2004, the day before a neighborhood resident named James Bailey found Leslie, slumped over the steering wheel, and called the police. Mrs. Mahovsky is referring to Leslie’s silver Volkswagen Jetta.

If that is the case, then why, in this article published in the Hudson, NY Register-Star, (Beebe was originally from Hudson NY area), on December 22, 2004, did reporter Susan Gibbs write the following:

“…Beebe’s car had been parked in the Sandy Springs location for several days (emphasis mine ~ S.H.), when James Bailey, a man who lived nearby, decided to investigate. Bailey opened the door when he saw a blond woman slumped behind the wheel of the silver Volkswagen Jetta. He realized she was dead and called authorities…”?

Could have been sloppy reporting. An epidemic of it, spread somehow to Henry Farber of the AJC, who wrote this article, published on December 24, 2004, where he quotes Mr. Bailey:

“…’The car was out there about a week,’ (emphasis mine ~ S.H.), said James Bailey, who lives in a house across the street from the parking spot. He found the body and called police.

‘I assumed the car was with the neighbors,’ Bailey said Thursday. ‘My assumption is that she was in the car the whole time’ after her disappearance…”

What is hard to determine is who would have been in a better position to notice these things. If the Mahovskys lived a bit down the block from where Leslie’s car sat, they may not have noticed it as readily as someone who lived directly across the street, as appears to be the case with Mr. Bailey. If it’s a question of geography, then, Lynn Mahovsky could be mistaken about the Jetta not being there on December 20, and Mr. Bailey more accurate in his account.

It’s a nice neighborhood, the 30328 zip code where Leslie’s car was found with her body inside. If she was already deceased when the car was parked there, the person who left the car and put her behind the wheel was fit – Leslie was 5’7″ and weighed 140 – and probably didn’t look too out of place in an upper-middle-class suburb.

There has been no local coverage of Leslie’s death and disappearance for several days. Police are keeping mum, as is Leslie’s family, apparently at the request of the Fulton County Police. The discrepancy in accounts I noticed and outlined above could be easily cleared up, I’m sure. But I figured it was worth it to note it, and to also be one writer locally who reminds a few readers that this happened, and to the public it is still a mystery.

For her family’s sake, a mystery one hopes is cleared up much sooner than later.

(This subject and others are covered in-depth in my crime blog, www.planethuff.com/darkside.)