Nine months after 13-year-old Leigh Occhi vanished from her Tupelo, Mississippi home in August 1992, a man from her own church did something that should have blown her case wide open.

He drove to a 15-year-old girl's house under the pretense of taking her to school. Instead, he took her to the woods, held her at knifepoint, and raped her. The girl had known him for nearly her entire life. She told police she'd never seen a single warning sign.

His name was Oscar "Mike" Kearns, and he taught Sunday school at the church Leigh and her mother attended.

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A quick recap of Part 1

Leigh Occhi had just turned 13 when she disappeared from her home on Honey Locust Drive on the morning of August 27, 1992. She'd had breakfast with her mother, Vickie Felton, before Vickie left for work as the remnants of Hurricane Andrew moved toward Tupelo. When Vickie couldn't reach Leigh by phone, she drove home to find the garage door open and blood — some of it still wet — throughout the house. Leigh had been alone for less than an hour.

Suspicion fell on Vickie almost immediately. She failed three polygraphs. But for decades, Vickie has pointed to someone else: a man from Leigh's church who she believes had far more to do with her daughter's disappearance than anyone gave him credit for.

The Sunday school teacher

Oscar Kearns — known to everyone as "Mike" — taught Sunday school and Vacation Bible School at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Tupelo, where Leigh and Vickie were members. He and Leigh shared a love of horses, though accounts differ on how close the two actually were. What isn't in dispute is that Kearns knew Leigh and her family.

He's a name that shows up in nearly every write-up of Leigh's case — but usually as a footnote. Court records tell a much fuller, and much more disturbing, story.

What the court records show

On May 6, 1993 — nine months after Leigh disappeared — Kearns called a 15-year-old girl from his church, claiming he'd overheard her talking about problems at home and wanted to check on her. He offered to drive her to school. Instead, he took her to a wooded area, pulled a knife, forced her to undress and lie on top of her own clothes, and raped her.

Leigh's crime scene included a bloodstain at a height consistent with someone around five feet tall — Leigh was 4'10". One working theory is that she was grabbed by the neck and thrown into a doorway. Kearns's victim told police he'd grabbed her by the neck. He also threatened her with a knife, the same way police believe Leigh's attacker may have controlled her. And Kearns's blood type matches the blood recovered from Leigh's home.

A pattern nobody has fully accounted for

Kearns was released on bond after his arrest, and according to court filings, he assaulted at least one more victim while out on that bond. A motion to revoke it was filed and denied. When forensic evidence came back on the first case, Kearns pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 24 years, with 16 suspended, and was paroled after serving less than four.

Within about 18 months of his release, he was back in prison — this time until 2019. Investigators tried more than once, over the years, to question him about Leigh, but he always refused. At one point he offered to take a polygraph, then backed out on his attorney's advice. He never answered a single question about what happened to Leigh Occhi. He died in 2021, two years after his final release.

Why investigators are still digging

In January 2025, FBI agents and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation's Cold Case Unit showed up at Honey Locust Drive with K-9 units and a backhoe, digging in and around a drainage ditch at the end of the cul-de-sac. Mississippi State University's forensic anthropology team spent more than twelve hours on scene. The current homeowners said a new investigator had come onto the case, developed fresh leads, and brought in equipment never used on it before.

A few months later, the forensic anthropologist who led that search told a local reporter something that may not have been meant for publication: investigators still believe Leigh's body never left the property where she lived.

Why this case still matters

Leigh Occhi would have turned 47 this year. Vickie Felton has since moved to Michigan, stopped speaking to press, and had Leigh legally declared dead in 2024. Oscar Kearns took whatever he knew to his grave. And the house on Honey Locust Drive has now belonged to another family longer than it ever belonged to Leigh's.

There's still a real possibility that new forensic testing — on evidence that's been sitting in storage for over three decades — could finally answer whether Kearns's DNA is anywhere on Leigh's clothing. Until then, this is a case built entirely out of circumstantial threads: a shared blood type, a shared church, a strikingly similar assault nine months later, and a man who never talked.

In the full episode, we walk through the court documents in detail — including a second Kearns case that seems to have vanished from the public record entirely — and lay out exactly why investigators may still believe Leigh never left home.

Listen to Part 2 of Leigh Occhi's story now, and if you haven't heard Part 1 yet, start there first.

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Missing Person: Leigh Occhi

Leigh Occhi has been missing from Tupelo, Mississippi since August 27, 1992. She is a white female with blonde hair and hazel eyes. At the time of her disappearance she was 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighed about 95 pounds. She has a strawberry birthmark at the base of her skull, small scratch scars on her right leg, and pierced ears. Leigh was 13 years old when she went missing.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Leigh Occhi, please contact the Tupelo Police Department at (662) 841-6491, or Crime Stoppers of Northeast Mississippi at 1-800-773-TIPS.