36 Years Ago She Was Kidnapped Out Of Her Apartment Then Stabbed Before Being Found On Christmas Eve And Her Killer Has Finally Been Identified

Jacksonville, Florida. 17-year-old Leslie McCray dreamed of being a model, but in the meantime, she was going to college at the University of North Florida back in 1985.

Leslie had her very own apartment close to St. John’s Avenue, and she shared it along with her 21-year-old boyfriend.

“According to The Florida Times-Union, Leslie’s 21-year-old roommate and boyfriend was awoken on the morning of Christmas Eve, around 3 a.m,” Project Cold Case explained in a profile on Leslie.

“He found a man kneeling by his bed and armed with a knife. The man reportedly tied up the boyfriend’s hands and feet with neckties. The unknown man would then take Leslie out the back door of the apartment.”

Leslie’s boyfriend managed to get loose from his restraints, and as soon as he did, he called the police to say that Leslie had been kidnapped.

It was approximately 6 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, and just a few hours after he made that call, Leslie was sadly found dead along Old Middleburg Road by some people walking by.

She was missing her clothes, and she had been assaulted before being brutally stabbed several times.

Leslie’s cause of death was a fatal cut to her neck.

Project Cold Case; pictured above is 17-year-old Leslie McCray

If true crime defines your free time, this is for you: join Chip Chick’s True Crime Tribe.

Now, police at the time said that they believed Leslie’s boyfriend’s account of what happened, and they did not consider him to be a suspect in her kidnapping and murder.

36 years went by without Leslie’s family having any answers or insights into who took her life.

That all changed yesterday when the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office shared a press conference on social media in which they announced they finally had identified the person responsible for kidnapping and murdering Leslie.

Chief of Investigations T.K. Waters explained that David Nelson Austin, 59, was just indicted for first-degree murder.

David is already behind bars in Michigan, where he is already serving out a life sentence after being convicted of multiple sexual assaults.

More About: