The Search for Leah Croucher: Leah's sister reveals horrendous trolling the family received after her disappearance
Scammers even phoned sister Jade pretending to be Leah herselfThe Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent’s Nightmare will lay bare the horrific trolling Leah’s family received in the days and months after she had gone missing.
Leah was just 19 when she vanished on her way to work in Milton Keynes, Bucks, in February 2019.
A huge manhunt ensued, with the search spanning into months and then sadly years.
Tragically, Leah’s body was eventually discovered in the loft of a stranger’s house in October 2022. An inquest found she had been unlawfully killed.
But all the time she was missing, her devastated family had received a constant barrage of vile messages and fake ransom requests.
Leah’s big sister, Jade, speaks about the trolling they endured in U&W’s new crime documentary, The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent’s Nightmare.
Leah Croucher’s sister lifts lid on trolling in new crime documentary
Jade speaks out alongside her parents, John and Claire, in The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent’s Nightmare.
Tragically, Leah and Jade’s 24-year-old brother Haydon died in 2019. His death came nine months after Leah had vanished.
Haydon found his beloved sister’s disappearance so difficult to cope with that he took his own life. His death was later recorded as suicide.
The new U&W documentary is a two-part mini series. The second episode begins with Jade recalling the horrendous messages the family received while Leah was still missing – and in the wake of Haydon’s death.
They had launched a missing persons appeal on Facebook. But it unfortunately drew unwanted attention from across the globe.
Jade says: “I woke up to my phone ringing. I picked up and someone was saying, ‘Hey sis, it’s Leah – I can’t believe our brother is dead. I need to come home’.”
She continues: “I had missed FaceTime calls but I was too scared to answer them. I took it to the police and the police enquired. It wasn’t Leah, it was somebody trolling me.
“I think that was the hardest thing I’d ever dealt with. I’d just lost my brother and had messages that implied my sister wanted to come home. And it was never her.
“That is a moment where you think, ‘How much evil is in this world?'”
Leah Croucher documentary reveals fake ransom requests
Jade goes on to reveal how fraudsters were trying to trick the family into parting with money. There were multiple fake ransom requests – and they were sick.
“We received ransom messages from people saying they had Leah or knew where she was,” Jade says. “If we didn’t pay them within a certain amount of time, they said they would do all manor of awful things to her.”
Leah’s grieving mum Claire also recalls the horror of these scams.
“They said [to Jade], ‘We have your sister she has served a purpose but now she has contracted a disease and is no good to us. So we will leave her at a medical facility in three days time if you pay £1,800. If you are late, we will cut her throat and you will never find her remains’.”
Claire adds: “It was somebody in Brazil trying their luck.
“Thankfully we had enough faith in the police to deal with it appropriately. But we were warned, ‘It is your their life now’.”
Who killed Leah Croucher?
The Croucher family’s worst fears came in October 2022. Leah’s remains were found in a stranger’s house less than half a mile from their home.
An inquest later ruled that Leah had been “unlawfully killed” by sex offender Neil Maxwell. But no justice could be served.
Maxwell had worked as a handyman in the property where Leah was discovered. He had died in April 2019, two months after Leah was reported missing. Maxwell was found hanged in a bike shed.
When is The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent’s Nightmare on?
The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent’s Nightmare will air on U&W. Viewers will also be able to stream the two-part documentary for free on U.
The first instalment will air at 9pm tonight (Tuesday, October 13, 2026). The story continues tomorrow evening, with the second episode airing at 9pm on Wednesday, October 14.
Both episodes are 75 minutes long.
This will be an incredibly difficult watch, but also a powerful and important one.
