Friends and family of the 16-year-old Colorado girl whose severed head and hands were found in her mother’s freezer 19 years after she was last seen, were told conflicting stories about her mysterious disappearance, a DailyMail.com investigation has revealed. 

The teen’s body parts were discovered in January this year when a cleaning crew cleared a ‘hoarder house’ in Grand Junction, Colorado, that was sold by owner Leanne Imer, 55.

Ten months later, a DNA test revealed the gruesome remains belonged to Leanne’s daughter Amanda Overstreet, who was last seen alive in April 2005.

DailyMail.com has now discovered claims by Overstreet family members and Amanda’s childhood friends, who all have contradictory stories about what they heard had happened to the girl – including an alleged cover up of a fatal drug overdose, or a runaway teen never reported missing.

The severed head and hands of Colorado teen Amanda Overstreet, who was ‘last known to be alive in April 2005’, were found in a freezer in her mother’s Colorado home in January

Amanda was the biological daughter of the widowed homeowner Leanne, now 55. Friends have told DailyMail.com that the mom had previously claimed her daughter had run away and was never found

Several Overstreet family members in Texas, where Amanda grew up, claimed that the daughter ran away from an Amarillo gas station when Leanne took her on a road trip.

In another version of the tale, it was Leanne’s late husband Bradley Imer, Leanne’s stepfather, who took her on the road trip.

Either way, police say a missing person report was never filed.

Leanne is still living in Grand Junction. No one has been arrested or charged in connection with her daughter’s death.

Meanwhile, DailyMail.com has discovered that Amanda’s childhood friends have been desperately searching for her for years.

One friend told DailyMail.com that back in 2017, Leanne had claimed that her daughter had moved ‘out of state and has changed her name’, and allegedly discouraged them from trying to find the missing girl.

But darker allegations have also begun to emerge.

Leanne’s aunt claimed the mother admitted covering up a fatal drug overdose by Amanda, for fear that her other daughter would be taken away by Child Protective Services.

Texas friends and family claim two of Leanne’s children were previously removed from her custody by the authorities, and that Amanda was raised by her maternal grandmother Nelda Overstreet from age three until Nelda’s death from cancer in 2005.

But despite the mutating stories, and an investigation that has dragged on for 10 months, police in the leafy mountain mesa Colorado town are yet to make any arrests.

The grisly discovery was made in January this year when new residents moved into Amanda’s mother’s home in Grand Junction, Colorado, and found a chest freezer she had left behind

DailyMail.com previously revealed nauseating photos of the home’s interior, with the kitchen packed with empty soup cans, gravy packets and unwashed cookware scattered over the stove and countertops

DailyMail.com exclusively obtained shocking photos of the Pinyon Avenue home’s interior, from local realtor Joe Silzell

A group of Amanda’s friends from around her childhood home in the remote 2,000-person town of Kountze, Texas – 90 miles northeast of Houston – are getting impatient.

They have been doing their own detective work, doggedly trying to piece together the means, motive and identity of their schoolfriend’s potential killer.

Along with heartfelt messages and fond memories written beside yearbook photos posted in a private Facebook group, they swap clues gleaned from scouring public records and social media.

One member, Rachel Valentine, sat next to Amanda in their 2004 algebra class at Warren High School, taught by Amanda’s grandmother Nelda Overstreet.

Rachel, 36, described Amanda as a ‘super bubbly, happy, talkative girl’.

‘She was nice. I sat with her every day in class,’ she told DailyMail.com.

‘She told me her grandma had adopted her. I didn’t know a ton about her past, but I just know that she had a rough childhood before her grandmother adopted her.’

Cynthia Arbuckle, 60, said her home in Kountze was a regular haunt for Amanda, Cynthia’s daughter Sara, and a few other close friends.

‘The kids would hang out in Sara’s bedroom, doing their thing, making CDs,’ she said.

‘Amanda was in band and a church association at school. She was a very well-mannered child. It was, “Yes ma’am, no ma’am”, “please and thank you”.’

Cynthia said she and Nelda became friends through their daughters’ friendship.

Nelda explained that Amanda called her ‘mom’ after she took over custody of the three-year-old girl from Leanne in 1992.

A group of Amanda’s friends from around her childhood home in the remote 2,000-person town of Kountze, Texas have been doing their own detective work, doggedly trying to piece together what happened to the teenage girl

The backyard of the property was littered with old wood, skeletons of electrical goods and other detritus

‘She told me it was because of neglect,’ Cynthia told DailyMail.com. ‘She didn’t go into details. She never said the word “abuse”. I just took it that she wasn’t apt to be a mother to a three-year-old.

‘Amanda never went to visit her or anything after she was adopted. Even Nelda didn’t have that much conversation with her own daughter [Leanne].’

Amanda seemed to flourish under Nelda’s nurturing, albeit strict, care. But in 2004, tragedy struck when Nelda was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.

Amanda was moved from Kountze High School briefly to nearby Warren High. Her hometown friends lost touch. And as 59-year-old Nelda slipped away, it seems Leanne reappeared in her biological daughter’s life, whisking her away to Colorado.

‘Her grandma died in July 2005. Amanda didn’t even go to her funeral, which is weird, because she loved her grandmother,’ said Rachel. ‘I don’t remember ever being like “I’m moving”. She just left.

‘She was supposed to graduate in 2007. In 2004-2005 she was 15, about to be 16. They say someone last saw her in April 2005.’

Cynthia said Overstreet family members asked Leanne where Amanda was when she showed up to Nelda’s funeral without her daughter.

‘She was like, “Oh, she ran away.” She just blew it off, according to her family at the time,’ Cynthia told DailyMail.com.

The mystery languished for years, but the schoolmates’ investigation was rekindled when they decided to try to find Amanda to invite her to their 10-year class reunion in 2017.

DailyMail.com obtained photos of Amanda as a teenager, shared by old school friends and taken from a yearbook at her high school in Texas

Texas friends and family said Amanda was being raised by her maternal grandmother Nelda Overstreet from age three until Nelda’s death from cancer in 2005

Amanda’s stepfather, Bradley Imer, died aged 61 from a cardiac arrest after a bad case of covid-19

In the renewed flurry of activity, Amanda’s close friend Tasha Hester, 35, began her own investigation using Facebook to find relatives and gather information.

She managed to track down Amanda’s cousin in 2017, and got the first full account of her friend’s disappearance – or at least, one version of it.

The cousin, Kelly Fridelle, 47, said she was told that Amanda had run away while being taken from Grand Junction back to Texas to stay with family members, and was never found.

Kelly admitted that her family was ‘suspicious.’

‘When Nelda was in hospice dying, LeAnn (sic) called Nelda’s sister and said she couldn’t keep Amanda anymore (they didn’t have a good relationship),’ Kelly told Tasha in a Facebook private message in 2017, which Tasha screenshotted and shared with her online group.

‘Our family wired money to LeAnn so she could drive Amanda from Colorado to Kountze. The next day we received a call from LeAnn from her home in Colorado.

‘She said they we[re] coming home the day before and when they stopped at a gas station in Amarillo Texas, Amanda ran away. LeAnn said they couldn’t find her so they went home to Colorado.

‘Our family was suspicious. We called law enforcement and tried to file a missing persons report but we didn’t have enough info. We have hired a private investigator. Found no leads. Every year, we search deceased Jane Doe records for matching descriptions.’

Amanda’s cousin Kelly Fridelle, 47, said family was alway suspicious about Leanne’s version of Amanda’s dissappearance

Kelly added that she thought Leanne’s story was ‘fishy’.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Cynthia was unimpressed.

‘They said they were concerned, yet they didn’t do anything,’ she told DailyMail.com.

‘I think they were a bit in awe, like, what can we do? She’s a runaway. We’re way down here in the southeast corner of Texas, and Grand Junction is on the other side of Colorado. They just didn’t know who to talk to.’

Cynthia said she then chased down Leanne herself via phone.

‘Leanne goes, “Well I looked for two hours and I didn’t find her, so I came back home”,’ Cynthia told DailyMail.com.

‘I said, “You didn’t file a police report?” She goes, “Who am I gonna file it with? We weren’t from there.” I said, “With the local county!” And then she kind of got huffy and hung up.’

Cynthia said she is certain that in this retelling, Leanne claimed the gas station where Amanda ran away was in Waco, in McLennan County, Texas, not Amarillo.

‘I swear, because I called McLennan County the next day. I even wrote it down at the time and I called the county sheriff there. I see people saying Amarillo, but she told me Waco.’

Speaking to Tasha via Facebook messenger in 2017, Kelly admitted that the Amarillo road trip story ‘is fishy’

She also claimed Amanda’s mother ‘is not a good person’ and that the family regrets sending the girl to Colorado with her

By that time, Leanne had married Coloradan Bradley Imer and bought a home on Pinyon Avenue in Grand Junction where she raised her then-teenage daughter, Elsie Belle Imer, now 21.

That is the house where Amanda’s bodyparts were found in the freezer

The Mesa County, Colorado Sheriff’s Office, leading the murder probe, told DailyMail.com they have not found any missing person reports filed for Amanda in Colorado or Texas.

Leanne also texted a slightly different story to Tasha and another close friend of Amanda’s, claiming her daughter was ‘out of state’.

Leanne’s aunt Pam Overstreet told Tasha in 2017 that Amanda’s mother had allegedly covered up the girl’s death after she ‘overdosed’

‘I haven’t seen her in years, we don’t talk,’ said Leanne’s 2017 message, obtained by DailyMail.com.

‘I did hear online somewhere that she maybe out of state and has changed her name. She hasn’t had any contact with her family as far as I know in years.’

Amanda’s friends say when they tried to look for the missing teen, Leanne did not seem pleased.

‘When friends went looking for her 10 years ago [they] were told to stop,’ said Cynthia.

‘They tried to search for her for years,’ said Amanda’s math class buddy Rachel. ‘The mom found out about it and said they needed to drop it because “she just ran away and that’s that.”

‘She does not want them looking for her.’

Tasha texted with another Overstreet family member in 2017, who took the allegations from ‘fishy’ to outright conspiratorial.

Leanne’s aunt, Pam Overstreet, 73, told Tasha in private Facebook messages that Amanda had ‘overdosed’ and her mother covered it up.

Pam, 73, claimed Amanda was ‘just allowed to die and then she was secretly buried’

She admitted she was ‘ashamed’ for ‘doing nothing’ about what allegedly happened to Amanda

She claimed the fatal incident took place in Colorado around 2005 to 2007

‘She over dosed about 10 … 12. Yrs back,’ Pam claimed in the 2017 messages – placing her death around 2005 to 2007. ‘She was in Colorado when it happened.

‘She over dosed and instead of getting her help, she was just allowed to die, then she was secretly buried,’ she added.

‘I’m ashamed of myself for doing nothing, I have not stopped crying because she was just dumped. I had no proof, just bits and pieces and what her aunt told me.

Pam told Tasha that Leanne was afraid the authorities ‘would take her child away from her if the hospital was contacted, so she chose 1 child over another. She just panicked.’

Public records show Leanne had two other children over whom she did not appear to have custody: Michael, born in 1985, and Madison, born in 1999.

Court filings from Leanne’s 1999 divorce from Amanda’s biological father Paul Jayroe, 59, say that the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services was temporarily appointed ‘sole managing conservator’ of Amanda.

The Texas judge ordered the department to write a report including Amanda’s ‘whereabouts and physical condition’ once a year until she turned 18. It is unclear if this occurred.

Two decades from her disappearance, Amanda’s friends have not given up. They have turned over all the messages they obtained to the police.