Leigh Occhi: the 1992 disappearance and the renewed Tupelo search

The disappearance recorded in Mississippi

Leigh Occhi was thirteen when she disappeared in Tupelo, Mississippi, on August 27, 1992. The Mississippi Repository for Missing and Unidentified Persons records that she was last seen that morning at her home and identifies the case as missing and open.

Contemporary-to-the-search reporting by WCBI gives the essential account of the discovery: her mother returned from work to find Leigh gone and blood in the house. Those facts explain the concern surrounding the disappearance. They do not, on their own, identify a perpetrator or establish a complete sequence of events inside the home.

What the 2025 search established

On January 29, 2025, local reporters observed a renewed search around the former home and a nearby drainage ditch. The agencies involved included the FBI, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and local authorities. WCBI reported that the MBI Cold Case Unit confirmed its involvement; university anthropology specialists and public-works personnel also assisted.

The presence of investigators and excavation equipment was a verified development. It was not an announcement that Leigh had been found. Reporting on a search should retain that distinction, especially when photographs of the activity circulate separately from the agencies' limited public statements.

A legal declaration did not close the case

WCBI also reported that a court had declared Leigh legally dead in 2024 after her parents petitioned. A legal declaration and the resolution of a disappearance are different matters. The state university's repository continued to display an open missing-person record when checked on September 22, 2026.

The repository provides identifying information, the agency case number and official contact routes for anyone with relevant information. Those are more useful than theories naming people who have not been established as responsible. The record supports a disappearance, a later legal declaration and continuing investigative work; it does not support a solved case or a confident reconstruction of what happened to Leigh.