Twenty-two-year-old Matthew Leach beaten to death in 1992
SHIAWASSEE COUNTY -- The Shiwassee County Sheriff's Department has solved every cold case in the county except for one, the mysterious death of 22-year-old Matthew Leach in 1992.
The youngest of five children, Matthew was well liked by the residents of his hometown of Lennon.
"Girls loved him. He had a real sense of humor," Matthew's mother Jeanette Leach remembers.
On July 24th, Matthew went to dinner with his ex-girlfriend at the Colonial Restaurant in Flint.
"He left the restaurant about 10:30 p.m., walking by himself, and that was that last time anyone saw Mr. Leach," said Shiawassee Co. Sheriff's Detective Michael Gute, who recently took over Matthew's case.
Three days passed and still no sign of Matthew.
"It's odd because different times when my kids have gotten in trouble, I've known that I needed to get a hold of them but I had no inkling he going to be gone," Jeanette said.
By day five, Matthew's parents filed a missing person's report.
Two days later Matthew's body was discovered in a field in Shiawassee County.
He had been beaten to death with a blunt object.
"To hit somebody this many times repeatedly to cause these kind of injuries, somebody was extremely upset with Mr. Leach," Det. Gute adds.
Det. Gute says his department will not let the case go cold.
"We want the suspects to know we're not stopping. Just because it's been 20 years, we're still going forward with it. We're not going to stop until the people who did this are in prison," Gute says.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers of Mid-Michigan at (517) 483-STOP.
