Disappearance of LeeAnna Warner

On June 14, 2003, five-year-old LeeAnna Warner disappeared while walking home from a friend's house in Chisholm, Minnesota. She was last seen walking barefoot between 5:00 and 5:15 p.m. on Southwest Second or Third Street, a route she had reportedly walked alone many times before. Her family had moved to Chisholm only a few months prior to her disappearance.

LeeAnna had gone to visit a friend but found no one home, so she turned around to walk back. When she failed to return by 5 p.m., her mother, Kaelin Whittaker (formerly Kaelin Warner), began searching the neighborhood with the help of local residents. By 9 p.m., after an extensive but unsuccessful search, her parents reported her missing to the Chisholm Police Department.

Authorities launched a large search involving police, firefighters, volunteers, and bloodhound trackers, checking garages, barns, sheds, and abandoned iron ore mines. A month after her disappearance, a townsperson found child's footprints near Longyear Lake, prompting police to drain the lake, but no further evidence was found. A renewed search in the summer of 2004 also failed to produce new evidence, and no further official searches have been conducted since.

Investigators have not found definitive evidence of an abduction but consider kidnapping the most likely explanation, reasoning that LeeAnna would likely have been found had she simply wandered off. Over the years, police have received more than 1,700 leads without identifying a viable suspect. In 2020, then-Police Chief Vern Manner stated that several persons of interest could not be cleared due to lack of evidence. In 2025, Police Chief James Vukad said the case remained open, active, and a top departmental priority, citing continued use of advanced DNA profiling techniques.

Several theories and individuals have been examined in connection with the case. Matthew James Curtis, arrested in August 2003 on child pornography charges, was investigated due to his proximity to LeeAnna, but no evidence tied him to her disappearance; he died by apparent suicide in September 2003, a death some have disputed without supporting evidence. Convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III came under scrutiny after investigators found references to LeeAnna's case in his encrypted files and online diary, but a timeline of his activities indicated he was not in the Chisholm area at the time of her disappearance. Witnesses also reported unidentified individuals and vehicles in the neighborhood around the time LeeAnna vanished, none of whom have been identified. LeeAnna's parents were not considered suspects and were not asked to take polygraph tests.

The case received local media coverage and was featured on America's Most Wanted in July 2003, as well as later coverage by People Magazine and the True Crime Garage podcast in 2021. As of 2026, LeeAnna Warner has not been found and her disappearance remains unsolved.