Leichia M. Reilly was born on October 5, 1963 in West Seneca, NY to Patrick and Suzanne (nee Sharrow) Reilly. Patrick Frances Reilly was born on September 2, 1937 in Buffalo, and Suzanne was born on July 27, 1939 in Lackawanna. The couple were married on August 19, 1961 and had three children together: Brian, Leichia, and Denise. Her first name pronounced ‘Lee-sha,’ Ms. Reilly was raised in a Roman Catholic family in Lockport, NY; her dad was in the banking field, and retired from Marine Midland Bank as a Regional Executive Vice President. A strong student, Leichia excelled at academics and especially loved art, literature, and writing. After graduating from Mount Mercy Academy in 1982 she went on to attend Buffalo State College, and at the time of her disappearance was employed as a server at a pizzeria. She had dreams of one day becoming a writer, and many of her paintings and artwork were on display in the Reilly family home for many years after she disappeared.

Leichia was 5’5, weighed 120 pounds, had brown eyes and dark hair she wore short. She had freckles on her face, moles dotted across her chest, arms, and back and a large scar on her left knee; she also had pierced ears. Reilly was last seen wearing a black waist-length coat with red trim, a sleeveless charcoal-colored cotton jumpsuit with an elastic waistband, a round-necked sweater with multiple colors (including purple and red), and perforated ‘medical grade’ shoes with medium sized heels; she was using a red purse with a shoulder strap. Described by those that loved her as ‘vibrant and full of life,’ Leichia loved art, writing, and books. Like most 21-year-olds, she also enjoyed hanging out with her friends, and enjoyed going to local bars and hangouts like The Pierce Arrow Restaurant, which is where she was last seen before she vanished off the face of the earth. On the frigid, snowy evening of January 30, 1985 Leichia went out dancing with an unnamed girlfriend, and according to eyewitnesses the two danced, had a few drinks, and mingled with other bar patrons. When her friend wanted to leave, Reilly told her to go on without her, and said that she would catch a ride home with someone else. Multiple people reported to investigators that they saw her leaving the establishment at around 3 AM in the company of a white man driving a blue Chevrolet Camaro, an off duty NYS Trooper that she just met named Daniel Rose. Leichia was never seen or heard from again.

There is always the possibility that the young woman may have decided to go home with a guy from the bar that night, especially since she sent her friend home without her…. But according to her family and friends, that was completely out of character for Leichia. Later on in the early morning hours of Thursday, January 31 Mr. and Mrs. Reilly became concerned after their daughter hadn’t returned home, and: ‘in her whole life, Leichia had never been away from our home for any extended period without letting us know where she was. I knew immediately that next morning that something was wrong.’ Reilly didn’t show up for a job interview she was excited about on Friday, February 1st, and didn’t report to the pizzeria for her scheduled shift the following day. Leichia’s distraught Father contacted the West Seneca police and reported her as missing, and they immediately launched an investigation into her disappearance.

A five-year veteran of the NYS Troopers, 28-year-old Rose told investigators that he arrived at the bar at around 11 PM and began drinking with several friends, including Robb Riddick, a one-time running back with the Buffalo Bills. Go Bills. Recently, a reporter reached out to Riddick regarding Reilly’s disappearance, and he told them that he ‘remembers that night well’ because of its tragic outcome. Regarding Rose as a suspect, Riddick said ‘Danny, I considered him my best friend at that time. I know they were investigating Danny for months after that. One time, I went to his place and saw an unmarked police car parked nearby. The police followed me as I left. The police later told me they were tapping my phone for a while, trying to get information about Danny.’ The former NFL player said he is ‘certain’ he remembers his friend leaving the bar with Reilly around 3 AM and if he told investigators that he didn’t it was ‘a lie:’ ‘I saw him leave with her, and other people who were with us saw the same thing. Danny told me, ‘we’ll be right back.’’ The officer came back to the bar by himself roughly 55 minutes to an hour later and immediately went into the men’s bathroom. Investigators spoke with additional, unnamed witnesses that also reported that they saw Rose walk out of the bar with Reilly on the night she disappeared.

According to retired West Seneca Police Captain James Unger, ‘we have a decent timeline of when she was there, when she left, and then essentially after that, there is no sighting of her after that.’ Paul Schwartzmeyer told investigators that he spent the night at Rose’s apartment in Lackawanna the night of Reilly’s disappearance but said that his friend left shortly after they got there to ‘go to some girl’s house.’ When Schwartzmeyer woke up the next morning at around 10:00 AM, Rose told him that the girl he planned on visiting wasn’t home and that the woman he had left the bar with the night before was ‘some blonde’ but wasn’t Reilly. Daniel Rose was let go from the NYS Troopers for poor ‘job performance’ and ‘bad behavior’ related to ‘unrelated charges’ after Reilly disappeared (I’ve seen it reported as taking place two weeks, ten weeks, and a year afterwards). In an interview with The Buffalo News, the retired Director of Public Information for the NYS Police Lieutenant Michael Wright said that Rose had been ‘relieved of duty’ and was no longer employed with them. When asked why he had been terminated and if it had anything to do with Reilly’s disappearance he declined to comment.

The day after Reilly disappeared Rose called into work sick; when questioned by investigators about what he did that day he refused to answer. After the state police were notified of Reilly’s disappearance he was taken off road patrol and was put on desk duty ‘pending further investigation.’ Retired West Seneca Detective Edward A. Tyzcka worked on Reilly’s case for sixteen years, and he pointed out that just a few days after she vanished Rose hired a top defense attorney (the late Harold J. Boreanaz) to represent him and brought the lawyer with him to his interview. ‘That would make you think, well, here’s a guy who could help us. He saw the person we were looking for, why would he not help us?’ … ‘Once he got represented by a lawyer, that put a kibosh on anything we could do.’ Investigators from West Seneca waited two weeks after Reilly disappeared to speak with Rose, and on February 14, 1985 he told investigators that on the evening she disappeared he had been out drinking with buddies and he spoke to several women, including Reilly. During the interview Rose shared he was ‘consistently drinking’ and estimated that he spoke to ‘between six and 10 young women’ that evening. When investigators showed him a picture of Reilly, he said he met her for the first time that night but only spoke with her briefly. He also said that at about 3:00 AM he went out to the parking lot with a young woman named Cathy for about twenty minutes, and specified that it wasn’t with Reilly. Rose told detectives that he didn’t know what happened to Leichia or who she even was, and after giving his initial statement he refused to speak to them again and cooperate any further.

Convinced that Reilly was dead, investigators spent thousands of combined man hours looking for her body, using everything from cadaver dogs to helicopters to aid in their efforts. Beginning on February 4, 1986 and ending on the 26th (in an attempt to be completely accurate, I’ve seen it reported as taking place from the 5th to the 27th), investigators dug through the Chaffee Landfill (located at 10860 Olean Road) during a brutal winter storm after receiving a tip that her body had been disposed of there in a dumpster. The search resulted in nothing.

Even when he was employed with the NYS Troopers Daniel Rose had problems behaving himself and being a law-abiding citizen: in April 1982 he stood trial after being charged with third degree assault after getting into an altercation with Bradford Burnham at a Lyons Police station after he arrested him at a nearby bar. Apparently Rose and a girlfriend met another trooper and his wife out at The Tom Jones club for a night of drinking, and he was off duty at the time of the altercation. Reportedly nineteen-year-old Burnham was making ‘obscene references to the Newark Police Department, and a shouting match ensued.’ He was arrested by Rose for harassment and resisting arrest and was taken to the local police substation for booking. Burnham said that the officer ‘hit him on the head without provocation as he stepped out of a patrol car near the Lyons police station.’ Additionally, while at the station Lyons LE left the trooper alone with the suspect, and after hearing a scuffle they returned and found him on the floor with blood on his face: Rose had struck him in the head. After reviewing the case, the grand jury dismissed the original charges against Burnham and instead returned an indictment against Daniel Rose. When the case was brought to trial a verdict was made after a Wayne County Jury deliberated for only two hours: he was found not guilty. It was a unanimous decision and Rose was able to keep his job as a NYS Trooper.

After losing his job with the NYS Police Rose briefly operated a pizza parlor in Lackawanna called The Big Cheese. In the early 1990’s he eventually got a new position as a bricklayer, and after branches from Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca and the Southern Tier were merged into one the Bricklayers Local 3 was created; Rose worked his way up to the position of union president. He also has had his fair share of criminal charges, including multiple drunk driving arrests in 1998, 2006, and 2009. In addition to DWI’s in April of 1998 he was involved in a two-car accident in the Town of Wheatfield, and was charged with obstructing governmental administration after Niagara County Sheriff’s deputies said that he became belligerent following the collision and kicked an officer; Rose also threatened him and his family. His license was revoked for six months, he was ordered to spend 16 days on a county work program, and he was fined $940. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and was directed to appear before a victim-impact panel of relatives of people that were killed in alcohol-related car accidents. In addition to numerous drunk driving arrests, it’s also been reported that he has a lengthy history of abuse toward women.

In March 1985 retired Erie County DA Richard Arkara announced that authorities would be offering a ten thousand dollar reward for information leading to the discovery of the missing woman or the arrest of her suspected killer. Unfortunately, this offer didn’t really go anywhere nor did it seem to encourage anyone that may have been privy to any information about Reilly’s disappearance to come forward. The investigation continued, however without anything substantial coming in there was little detectives could do to advance it and quickly Leichia Reilly faded from the headlines. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years… and the case eventually went cold.

Mr. Reilly spoke very highly of the West Seneca police regarding all of their hard work and dedication in trying to solve his daughters case. Although the Reilly’s mostly preferred to stay out of the limelight, Patrick stepped up as the family’s public representative and when asked about Leichia’s disappearance said: ‘I want justice, not sympathy. I’m convinced that we have a psychotic killer who is loose in this community and it greatly distresses me that he could kill again. I know what my family has gone through, I don’t want anybody else to go through that.’ He went on to say that his family had been incapable of enjoying anything since Leichia disappeared, and: ‘intellectually, we know that Leichia has been killed, but emotionally it’s difficult to accept imagine having an incapacity for joy that’s what we have in Leichia’s case. We’ve all been robbed of her potential, in my biased subjective judgment. She was a special person, a very forgiving soul.’ Mr. Reilly also told the media that he felt all of the evidence pointed towards one individual and he hoped that anyone that had any information regarding what may have happened to his daughter would come forward and end the horrifying situation his family found themselves in.

Retired West Seneca Detective Raymond Slade told the media that even though they lacked evidence he fully believed that Reilly had been murdered the night she disappeared and her killer had managed to successfully dispose of her body in a still unknown location. By July of 1985 investigators were still unable to find any real physical evidence in relation to what may have happened to her, and despite hundreds of hours spent investigating the case, they were unable to produce any solid leads in relation to the missing woman. Since Reilly disappeared, West Seneca police have interviewed and polygraphed over 200 of her friends, family, acquaintances, and coworkers, and unfortunately it didn’t result in much helpful information that aided them in their investigation. Police even met with a self-proclaimed psychic from New Jersey, who had reportedly been helpful in other missing persons investigations. In the weeks after she vanished, Detective Tyzcka said the department spent hundreds of combined man hours searching wooded areas, dumpsters, bodies of water, and fields for any trace of her remains. In an interview before his retirement Tyzcka also said that the inability of LE to find the young woman’s body was one of the ‘most frustrating mysteries of his career.’

Multiple members of West Seneca LE said they were ‘99 percent sure’ that Reilly died of foul play the night she disappeared, and that whoever killed her also hid her body. Lieutenant Kevin Baranowski shared with The Buffalo News that: ‘nobody has ever heard from Leichia since she disappeared that night, but we cannot be 100 percent sure that she’s deceased because we never found her body.’ … ‘I am just going to say what our department has stated right along about Daniel Rose… as far as we can determine, he was the last person seen with Leichia on the night she disappeared.’ Although Rose declined to speak to the media directly, his attorney Robert L. Boreanaz shared that he had nothing to do with Reilly’s disappearance or death and that his client is ‘an innocent man. He’s never been charged because there’s no evidence against him, because he didn’t do it. Every district attorney who has been in office over the past 35 years has passed on this case because there is no case, the evidence is not there.’ In Boreanaz’s eyes, none of the witness statements or additional information found by police makes Rose a legitimate suspect, and ‘their witnesses were people who were drinking at a bar in the early morning hours, in the 1980’s, when people weren’t as careful as they are now, because of the enforcement of DWI laws.’ The attorney declined to answer why his client was fired by NYS Police but did say that ‘it had absolutely nothing to do with this matter in West Seneca.’ According to West Seneca police documents, the state agency was heavily involved in the early stages of the investigation but less so as it advanced. Like with the Bundy cases in the early to mid-1970’s, we’ve all seen how rival police agencies frequently (and purposefully) failed to share information and cooperate with one another. A part of me believes that Rose’s status as a member of law enforcement may have interfered with the investigation, at least in the beginning. I mean, the fact they waited two full weeks before interviewing him is pretty significant, in my opinion. I’m sure it took them some time to get their ducks in a row and track him down, but still… that’s a lot of time.

To me, the fact that Rose was a lifelong resident of NYS and patrolled the area for his employment suggests that he was pretty familiar with the area, and would have most likely known plenty of places where he could have disposed of a dead body. I would think he was also at the very least fairly well-versed in the law as well: I know that in 2024 to be a Trooper in New York state you ‘must have completed 60 college credit hours at an accredited college or university’ and had to take a civil service exam as well.

In a 1989 interview with the Buffalo News, retired West Seneca Detective Captain Jack Slade pointed out that Lake Erie was frozen over and there was more than two feet of snow covering the ground on the night Reilly disappeared, which would have further complicated any attempt to dispose of a body. There’s a variety of different wooded areas and waterways in WNY, such as Cazenovia Creek, 18-Mile Creek, and Cayuga Creek (as well as several others), all of which are major tributaries that feed into Lake Erie. About the case Captain Unger said that they ‘do get tips sporadically throughout every year, and we do follow up on them. Unfortunately, to this point nothing has panned out. Not having a body makes it very difficult for prosecution, and secondly, and maybe even more importantly, is that there could be potential evidence that would be on or near her body which could link us to a suspect.’ According to West Seneca Lieutenant Kevin Baranowski, as recently as 2017 investigators searched a local area after getting a tip on where Reilly’s remains might be. He declined to disclose that location, saying ‘I don’t want the killer to know where we looked.’

Reilly’s disappearance continues to be a great source of pain for those that knew and loved her, including her longtime friend and neighbor Jo’Ann Derry-Bernardo. In an interview with The Buffalo News, Bernardo said: ‘we grew up right across the street from each other. Leichia was a special person. I think about her all the time. Leichia was a very creative, very literate and funny person. She was a bright, sweet, spiritual person. I can’t imagine anyone being evil enough to want to hurt her. Her family was devastated’ … ‘I think Leichia would have settled down with someone who loved her, had a couple of kids and would have written two or three books by now.’

As of February 2024 the body of Leichia Reilly has never been recovered, and Daniel Rose has never been charged in relation to the case. He is now 66, retired, and lives in Niagara County. Erie County District Attorney Kevin Dillon told The Buffalo News that Reilly’s case had never been presented to a grand jury due to the fact that there was not enough evidence to show them, mostly due to the fact that they never found her body. Reilly’s disappearance is still listed as active by both the NYS Police and the West Seneca Police Departments. After his daughter disappeared Mr. Reilly became a fierce advocate in her case, and always felt that she was killed after refusing Daniel Rose’s sexual advances. Despite there being no evidence to help back up this theory, authorities agree that Ms. Reilly most likely met her demise through some form of foul play. About the individual that is responsible for the death of his daughter, Mr. Reilly said ‘I don’t even hate the man. What I’m interested in is truth and justice.’ …’I am absolutely convinced she’s dead.’ … ‘It’s profound, it robs your life of the capacity for joy.’ After retiring he spent his golden years serving on numerous charitable boards, which helped the Western New York areas poor and developmentally disabled populations. Unfortunately, he died on July 13, 2016 at the age of 78 before his daughter’s killer was brought to justice. Suzanne Reilly passed away on February 12, 2021. In my opinion, investigators were most likely unable to find the ‘smoking gun’ that was necessary to make a conviction stick, and let’s keep in mind that her disappearance took place in ‘pre-DNA’ days, and the little evidence investigators did have was circumstantial.

Daniel D. Rose is still considered a suspect in Reilly’s case, and Lieutenant Baranowski said that detectives would ‘love’ to sit down and talk to him again sometime and that ‘there are gaps in his story, and we’d like to discuss the gaps with him.’ Investigators did admit that they have some physical evidence related to the case but refuse to reveal what exactly they have. Captain Unger said that ‘we have been in contact with, you know, state labs, federal labs, trying to see if what we have in evidence could potentially be used with the new technology. And at this point, there hasn’t been a breakthrough for what we have. But we’re hoping that in the near future, that there will be.’ About the case being solved one day Unger said ‘I certainly hope that, you know, even though Leichia’s parents have passed, she still has living relatives, and we just hope that we can give the family some sort of closure of this case.’ Reilly’s brother, sister and other surviving family members are still desperate for answers as to what happened to her, and they are still pushing to make her case a more active investigation. About Mr. Reilly, Detective Tyzcka said that ‘he was a real gentleman, and really broken up about what happened. I never got to call him up and say, we finally made an arrest. He never got closure. I feel bad about that to this day.’

About Reilly’s disappearance, Webslueths’ user ‘WNYer’ said that: ‘Maybe he hid her within an hour of the Pierce Arrow Club, and returned throughout the night (as he did leave his home again THAT night the friend staying with him at the time said) and the next day when he called off of work to finish disposing of her body. Obviously his background in Law Enforcement helped him achieve covering his tracks. They searched the landfill based on a tip she had been put in a dumpster at 7-11. The landfills are huge places and even the best Department could miss something. Perfect place to cover any foul smells bc they already stink. Or there’s the possibility of him having used lye or a fire to finish covering his tracks. Very hard to say where Leichia is and it breaks my heart her Father was never able to give her the proper burial he wanted so badly before passing. I’ll be doing my best to generate tips in the coming year because I’m sure in Niagara County or not, he’s far less intimidating to most people these days than he was back then.’

It’s worth noting, in recent years there have been a couple of local homicide convictions in WNY that were made without a body: on February 13, 1984 thirty-one year old Mark Seifert of West Seneca disappeared after being lured to a deserted country road in Machias. Although his body was never recovered, blood and tissue was found at the scene and in 1987 his brother William was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him of murder. To this day Seifert’s body has never been recovered. In 2003 46 year old Town of Tonawanda resident Michael Thuman was sentenced to five to fifteen years in prison for the shooting death of sixteen year old Duane Talmon Jr. on October 30, 1974. Investigators said the murder took place after a marijuana deal went bad, and although Talmon’s body was never recovered Thuman gave police a statement in which he admitted to the slaying. Erie County DA John J. Flynn said he recently spoke to investigators in his department regarding Reilly’s disappearance, and he said that he would not hesitate to pursue charges if new evidence was ever uncovered, but ‘unfortunately, whenever a body cannot be found, that makes it that much more difficult to solve. The deceased body provides us with cause and manner of death evidence. On many occasions, there is DNA evidence from the body. All those potential pieces of evidence are not present when we don’t have a body.’

On January 1, 2014 writer and self-proclaimed numerologist/’graphologist’ Linda Crystal published a book titled ‘Leichia Reilly, Your Family Is Waiting: The Disappearance of Leichia Reilly’ (yes, that’s the actual name). In it, Crystal writes about what she suspected may have happened to Reilly from the viewpoint of a ‘forensic astrologist.’ Not willing to spend the $4.01 on what I’m sure is a piece of hot garbage, Amazon pretty much told me all I needed to know about the text: the five reviews averaged out to 1.8/5 stars, and the general consensus seemed to be that ‘it was mostly about the writer and her ability to use horoscopes to solve murders. The title was deceiving. Not too much about the Leichia Reilly investigation.’

If Leichia Reilly were still alive in February 2024 she would be sixty years old. Anyone that has information that could be helpful in solving her case should contact either the New York State Police at 716-343-2200
or the West Seneca Police Department at 716-674-2280.