Accident or Murder? The Mysterious Death of a Young Mom Found Unresponsive in Her Bathtub

The emergency call at 9:24 a.m. from Kitty Falcon, N.C. was chilling. My companion, shes laying in the tub, she wont awaken, John Jay Tolson, then, at that point, 29, told the 911 dispatcher on the morning of July 22, 2020.

The emergency call at 9:24 a.m. from Kitty Falcon, N.C. was chilling.

“My companion, she’s laying in the tub, she won’t awaken,” John “Jay” Tolson, then, at that point, 29, told the 911 dispatcher on the morning of July 22, 2020.

“I think she fell the previous evening, I don’t know,” he said, his voice shaking. “There’s blood emerging from her nose, so I can’t inspire her to awaken.”

He asserted that the lady in the tub, 38-year-old LeeAnn Hartleben, “had been drinking. She fell in the kitchen.”

Telling the dispatcher she was breathing noisily, he said, “I can’t inspire her to awaken.” Paramedics raced to Hartleben’s comfortable house in the External Banks people group where Hartleben, an ardent grounds-keeper and dough puncher, had grown up. There, they tracked down Hartleben lethargic in the tub.

The mother of two, whose kids, presently 15 and 8, were away, was transported to Sentara Norfolk General Medical clinic on the central area in Norfolk, Va.

“She was all the while breathing yet she was mind dead,” says her most memorable cousin, Trisha Cahoon, who discovered that Hartleben was in the ICU on a ventilator in the medical clinic.

“The main thing that rung a bell was that she got Coronavirus,” she says. “Furthermore, her mom was like, ‘No, [it’s on the grounds that of] obtuse power injury.'”

Specialists let the family know that Hartleben had supported obtuse power injury head wounds that were conflicting with the fall Tolson depicted in the emergency call, she says.

Hartleben likewise had wounds on her neck and arms, Cahoon says. Cahoon says she was shocked when she took in the specialist said the wounds Hartleben maintained “didn’t come from a standing position,” she says. “The specialist said except if she was on a 20-foot building and fell, this is gruff power injury to her head.”

Hartleben died on July 25, 2020, three days after she showed up at the emergency clinic.

Cahoon says she promptly realized something had some issues about her cousin’s demise. “I was like, something’s truly obscure about this,” says Cahoon.

Her interests developed when she took in Hartleben’s reason for death was administered as “complexities of obtuse power injury to the head with hepatic cirrhosis with clinical hepatic disappointment contributing,” the Workplace of the Central Clinical Analyst in Norfolk, Virginia, affirmed in a messaged articulation to Individuals.

“The way of death was administered as unsure,” the assertion said. A Family’s Journey for Equity In court records acquired by Individuals, police say they started researching the case right away.

They likewise said freely that they were examining the situation and that Tolson was an individual of interest.

Yet, Cahoon and her family contended that police were delayed to research Hartleben’s demise as a manslaughter. “They were saying there was no wrongdoing, there was no wrongdoing carried out,” says Cahoon. “That she was inebriated, fell, and hit her head, and there you have it. What’s more, she capitulated to her wounds.

“What’s more, we were like, ‘There was a wrongdoing.’ We said, ‘Kindly come explore. Kindly follow through with something. There’s detects that seem to be blood.'”

Needing replies, Cahoon and her family recruited a confidential specialist, who went to Hartleben’s home with Cahoon.

There, they recorded blood stains they could promptly see and those that were enlightened with a substance specialist on the entryways and walls in a few rooms and on Hartleben’s bedding.

“It resembled a slaughter,” says Cahoon, who posted their discoveries in a YouTube video on the #JUSTICEforLeeAnn YouTube channel. Yet, she adds, “The bath had no blood in it.”

Saying they believed they were being disregarded by policing, and her family and others went via web-based entertainment to come down on specialists.  Accordingly, on Aug. 10, 2020, Lead prosecutor Andrew Womble gave an assertion saying his office was anticipating the post-mortem report prior to choosing whether to document charges, The Coastland Times reports.

As yet pushing for replies from policing, told the Island Free Press in an Aug. 26, 2020 article that she and her family had begun the #JUSTICEforleeann lobby and walked to the Kitty Bird of prey Police headquarters.

Was the mysterious death of a young mom found unresponsive in her bathtub an accident or murder? https://t.co/Fjk6tKozPD

— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) February 2, 2023


During an ensuing city committee meeting, speakers condemned the police boss and the head prosecutor for their treatment of Hartleben’s case, The Coastland Times detailed.

Then, at that point, on Oct. 26, 2020, Tolson was captured in Bangor, Maine, after a Challenge Province Terrific Jury returned a prosecution accusing him of second-degree murder regarding Hartleben’s passing, court records show. He argued not liable and is anticipating preliminary, which is planned to start Walk 6.

His lawyer didn’t answer Individuals’ solicitation for input. The police boss and the lead prosecutor didn’t quickly answer Individuals’ solicitations for input.

‘An over the top Provider’ Hartleben and Tolson had been dating for about a month when she died, as indicated by court reports.

They met at a party in June of 2020, says Cahoon. He told her he had as of late been removed from the loft where he’d been residing and required a spot to remain.

Her kids were away “and she felt frustrated about him,” says Cahoon, so Hartleben said he could remain several evenings.

“Her most terrible imperfection is that she was an over the top provider,” she says. Their fellowship before long turned heartfelt. Tolson had been living with Hartleben for half a month when they come upon a difficult situation in their relationship, as per Cahoon. “He had become possessive,” among different issues, Cahoon claims.

Accordingly, Hartleben put every one of his effects in packs and left them on the yard and said she was cutting off the friendship, as per Cahoon. “That irritated him,” Cahoon says.

Cahoon says she has been contending energetically for her cousin, whom she thought about a dear companion, “since I love her. LeeAnn resembled my sister and she would have done that for me.”

Saying she trusts a fair consequence is given, Cahoon adds, “LeeAnn was a decent individual. She didn’t merit that by any stretch of the imagination.”

Assuming you are encountering aggressive behavior at home, call the Public Aggressive behavior at home Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org

All calls are complementary and private. The hotline is accessible all day, every day in excess of 170 dialects.

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