Leah Irene Gail Austin was a 17-year-old female reported missing from Pickerington, Ohio, with online missing-child notices listing January 4, 2026, as the date she was last seen. Public notices identified her as a Black female and asked anyone with information to contact the Pickerington Police Department at 1-614-575-6911. The Ohio Attorney General’s missing-child listing described the case as missing from Pickerington, with a missing date of January 4, 2026, and listed Leah’s physical description as 5 feet 7 inches tall, 280 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.
The publicly available details about Leah’s disappearance are limited, but they give a small picture of the day she was last known to be seen. The Ohio Attorney General’s listing stated that Leah was last seen in Pickerington and that she was wearing black Crocs and a black coat while carrying a gray duffel bag. Those details matter because they are the kinds of identifiers investigators, community members, and businesses may rely on when trying to remember whether they saw someone walking, entering a vehicle, visiting a public place, or appearing on surveillance footage.
A missing-child alert connected to Leah’s case showed that public notice was distributed in Franklin County, Ohio, and it repeated the central facts: Leah Irene Gail Austin, age 17, missing since January 4, 2026, from Pickerington, Ohio. The alert also directed tips to the Pickerington Police Department and referred viewers to the missing-children poster for further information. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children maintained a poster page tied to case number 2073495 and provides a 24-hour call center at 1-800-THE-LOST for missing-child information.
Because Leah was a minor, her disappearance carried the added urgency that comes with any missing-child report. Public sources do not provide a detailed timeline of where she was going, who she may have been with, or what circumstances led to the missing report. They also do not provide confirmed information about a vehicle, destination, phone activity, social media activity, or a specific last-seen address beyond Pickerington. In the absence of those details, the most responsible account is careful and restrained: Leah was last seen on January 4, 2026, in Pickerington, Ohio, reportedly wearing black Crocs and a black coat and carrying a gray duffel bag, and authorities sought information from the public through official missing-child channels.
A later public missing-child alert entry showed the image status as canceled and listed an end time for the alert on February 3, 2026. The available online alert text does not, by itself, clearly state whether Leah was found alive, located deceased, or whether the alert ended for another administrative reason, so the exact resolution date and outcome are not clear from the online sources reviewed. The most accurate overview of the case is that Leah Irene Gail Austin, a 17-year-old Black female from the Pickerington, Ohio area, was reported missing after being last seen on January 4, 2026; official public listings preserved identifying details, clothing, and contact information for tips, while the broader publicly available record remains brief, leaving Leah’s story documented mainly through the essential facts of her disappearance and the community request for information.
Last Seen: Jan 04, 2026
