Thu., April 7, 2011

Spokane man missing after bizarre call

Michonda Weaver, center, talks about her boyfriend and waits for word of what happened to Leighton Welch, while two of her children Elijah, left, and Zackahriha (cq) have a snack in their South Hill apartment Tuesday, April 6, 2011. Weaver said she was talking to Leighton Welch on the phone a week ago when it sounded like he fell or dropped the phone and that was the last she has heard of him. Two of her three children are his and she can't conceive of why he would disappear like he has. (JESSE TINSLEY jesset@spokesman.com)

The mystery of the man’s disappearance began with what his fiancée described as a bizarre ending to a phone call.

Leighton Welch, 35, was walking in Spokane and talking on his cellphone to Michonda Weaver, his girlfriend of nearly four years.

Weaver said he described a steep cliff, then said he’d been spooked by a pit bull in the area. Then, a crash and a scream before the phone went dead. That was March 28.

Weaver (pictured above with her two children and right with Welch) has not heard from Welch since.

No one else has either, she said, and his family is frantic.

Read the rest of my story here.

Posted April 7, 2011, 6 p.m.