[Update] Search Underway at Property Where Missing SoHum Woman Leanne Eller Last Lived

Leann Eller [Image provided by her family 9 years ago]

At least 11 law enforcement vehicles, including five marked units, are on a property off Twin Trees Road south of Benbow, where Eller was living when she vanished in the summer of 2017.

According to Mike Fridley, former Humboldt County Sheriff’s lieutenant and current cold case investigator, the search team has brought five dogs to assist today. When asked whether cadaver dogs were being used, Fridley said only that five dogs were participating in the operation.

Fridley said the search was taking place with the cooperation of the property’s current owners.

“The new property owners gave permission to search,” he explained when asked whether investigators had received a tip that led them back to the location.

The activity marks a significant development in a case that has lingered unanswered for nearly a decade.

Redheaded Blackbelt first reported Eller missing on July 31, 2017, after family members began distributing posters throughout Southern Humboldt. At the time, her mother had just filed a missing person report with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office.

According to information provided by her brother, Ricky Loyd, at the time, Eller had been living on the Twin Trees Road property for approximately two years before she disappeared. Family members became concerned after they had not heard from her for roughly six weeks, an unusually long period of silence.

Loyd said at the time that Eller’s boyfriend contacted her mother and reported that Eller had left the property more than a week earlier. Family members were troubled by reports that she had apparently departed while leaving behind most of her belongings.

Eller was described as approximately 5-foot-3 or 5-foot-4, weighing about 130 pounds, with ash-brown dyed hair cut just below shoulder length.

For community members who have spent nearly nine years without answers, however, the sight of investigators combing through the property where Eller was last known to be living represents movement in a case that has remained unresolved for nearly a decade.

Our hearts are with those that loved her as they await the result of the search today.

Update: Investigator Fridley told Redheaded Blackbelt that the search of the Twin Trees Road property has concluded. Eller was not found.