Family, police seek answers to Faulkner’s disappearance 3 years later

Published 7:05 pm Tuesday, July 2, 2019

For most families, the Fourth of July is a celebration of summer and fun.

But for Ricky and Susan Faulkner, the fireworks and festivities are a reminder of another year that has passed since their daughter Lelia went missing from their Pike County home.

Three years later, investigators are seeking the public’s help to bring forward new leads as the case gets colder.

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“Everything is kind of at a standstill right now; we’ve run down every lead that we have and come up with dead ends,” said Troy Johnson, lead investigator. “As of right now we’ve done everything within our power.”

According to the Faulkners, Lelia, 29, walked out of her Pike County home on July 4, 2016, leaving behind her young daughter.

Ricky Faulkner, Lelia’s father, said she left their home around 2 p.m. that day after getting into an argument with her mother. He said his daughter had been living with them for two days while looking for a new place to live after an argument with her boyfriend at the time.

Lelia had been using an EBT card for help buying food, but hasn’t used it since she disap-peared. She didn’t have a driver’s license and there have been no signs of her phone be-ing used since her disappearance, investigators said.

Susan Faulkner said the family just wants to find closure so that they can move forward.

“I can’t even explain what it would mean to us,” she said. “Every time we have spare time we’re searching different areas and looking for information. It would just be a Godsend for someone to come forward and for us to be able to find her or to find out what happened. This year, we’re planning on going out to the stadium (during the fireworks show) and passing out fliers hoping that somebody who sees this that hasn’t seen this before might see her picture and be able to tell us what happened.”

The family is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the discovery of Lelia or her remains.

Johnson said there have been many rumors brought forward in the years since the disap-pearance, but he is hoping that this new push for information will bring forward some-thing concrete and credible.

“Once this got started, we heard the same scenario over and over again and checked it out, but nothing ever came out of it,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to stop anyone from com-ing and telling us what we’ve heard; we want people to tell us that too. But we really want to hear from somebody that hasn’t just heard, but knows what happened.”

Halos Investigations, a private investigation company investigating the case, has stated that foul play is suspected in the case, but Johnson said the Sheriff’s Office still has noth-ing to point toward foul play.

A cold case agent with the FBI is also assisting the department in the case.

“The last two to three months we’ve started back at the beginning, re-examining every-thing that we have and everything that we know, in hopes of discovering something we didn’t know,” said Sheriff Russell Thomas. “We want to give the family closure. We want answers and we won’t rest until we get some.”

Anybody with information on Faulkner’s whereabouts can contact the Pike County Sheriff’s Office at 334-566-4347, Halos Investigations at 662-664-3057 or 228-326-3020, or Crimestoppers of Central Alabama at 334-215-7867.