Episode 111-The Murder of Jeni Gray and the Abduction of Leigh Cooper in Boone

Located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Appalachian State University is a four-year-college that also has a satellite campus in Hickory. The school was founded 125 years ago when Dr. B.B. Dougherty, his brother D.D. Dougherty, and D.D.’s wife, Lillie began dreaming of a way to help children in the state participate in educational opportunities in the heart of the mountains. App State began as Watauga Academy, progressed to the Appalachian Training School for Teachers, then the two-year Appalachian State Normal School, and later, the four-year Appalachian State Teachers College. The school now enrolls more than 21,000 students and more than 150 undergraduate and 80 graduate majors. It offers 17 varsity sports, more than 20 club sports, and more than 80 ways to participate in intramural sports. The campus and surrounding town of Boone truly come alive during football season, when visitors don black and gold, set up tailgates for miles, and cheer along with the cannons that are fired every time the Mountaineers score a touchdown.

Access to outdoor activities is a big draw for many students both in and out of the state, as they are close to ski slopes, whitewater rafting, hiking, kayaking, fishing, and much more. The main campus is located right in the heart of downtown Boone, and King Street offers plenty of places to eat, drink, gather, and shop for treasures at the local consignment and antique stores. There’s also a robust performing arts scene. Employees at App State often joke about the “Boonerang” experience, where so many students either end up staying in the area after graduation or returning to work in the town or university not long after. They joke that they can’t stay away.

A Close-Knit Town

People instantly feel welcome in Boone, and that they are part of a close-knit community where people look out for one another. It’s why two crimes that occurred in fall of 1989 shocked the residents so much and stripped away that feeling of safety and security. It was also a cautionary tale that no matter how safe you feel in any given place, there’s always a chance to evil to sneak in at any moment.

Twenty-seven-year-old Jeni Gray was one of those people that enjoyed her time in Boone so much that she decided to make it her permanent home. Originally from Durham, she graduated from Jordan High School in Durham in 1980. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from App State, she worked for the Mount Airy News. In September of 1989 she was working as a writer with the Appalachian State University news bureau. She was last seen around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 24, 1989, by her two roommates. Jeni told them she had a lot of things she had to get done that morning before meeting her parents for 11 a.m. services at First Baptist Church in Boone. They lived out of town, and she was excited for their visit.

Jeni Gray Disappears

At first, her parents were concerned when they couldn’t find Jeni at the service, then thought maybe she had gotten tied up talking to someone she knew in town. They called her apartment, and her roommates were concerned that she had missed the church service. Her car was located in the parking lot of the Watauga Democrat, which was where she normally parked before going out walking on a two-mile loop through town that was her preferred route. Her purse, wallet, and other belongings were found inside the car. Police completed two block-by-block searches of the downtown area of Boone and sent divers into a nearby duck pond on campus during the search for Jeni. Her family, friends, and police were baffled as to what could have happened to her. They began to worry that she had gotten injured while out on one of the local trails. Jeni’s roommates said her walk through town was a regular routine, and she always wore a blue track suit while out exercising.

The crime series “Sins and Secrets” featured this story on Season Three, Episode 13 back in 2012. Investigators revealed that when Jeni disappeared, a man had been harassing women in town on that Sunday morning. He was targeted women who were alone walking or running. Police quickly tracked him down and discovered he was a drifter passing through town on the way to Tennessee. He admitted to bothering the women, and agreed to take a polygraph, which he failed. But a failed polygraph does not give police the grounds to arrest someone without any other physical evidence. So, they were forced to let him go but kept him under a close watch.

Women in the community became fearful after Jeni went missing. This was not a woman who would have left on her own—she was likely out exercising when she vanished. There were no signs to her pointing at leaving town suddenly on her own. Female students at App State and other local women were warned by the police not to run or walk alone and to implement a buddy system whenever they could.

A Brutal Assault

Seven days later, on October 1, 1989, the local media reported that a 24-year-old local man named Daniel Brian Lee had been arrested and charged with rape, three counts of first-degree sexual offense, kidnapping, and armed robbery. His bond was set at $3 million. Sheriff James Lyons said the kidnapping had occurred in Boone, but the assault had occurred outside of town. At first, residents thought the arrest was tied to Jeni Gray. But if that was the case, why had she still not been found?

They soon learned the latest victim was not Jeni Gray, and she still remained missing. The sheriff also would not tell the public if the Daniel Lee’s alleged victim had been an App State student or employee. The media dug up all the information they could about the suspect.

Daniel Lee was a local who had attended Watauga High School and earned a high-school equivalency certificate from Caldwell Community College. His father, Jacob, told the press that his son worked as a dishwasher at Blowing Rock Hospital and that he wasn’t sure what had happened after police took him in for questioning. He also mentioned Daniel had undergone brain surgery about 15 months earlier, after doctors discovered he had an aneurysm.

To the public, it appeared that the Boone Police Department wasn’t yet convinced the rape of this new Boone victim was tied to Jeni Gray’s disappearance. The police chief, R. Zane Tester, said, “We are still looking at other options regarding Jeni Gray being missing, but obviously, this arrest is leading us in a direction, too.

A Victim Revealed

On October 2, the media published the name of the rape victim. She was Leigh Martin Cooper, a 20-year-old student at App State and a member of the university’s cross country team. Leigh said she’d gone for a run on Friday, September 30. Before she left, she wrote a note for her boyfriend, explaining she would be back from her run around 6:30 p.m. so they could go to dinner together. She did her normal two-mile loop around campus before turning onto a secondary road off Highway 321. She was on Meadowview Drive when a white car blocked her path. The man inside pointed a gun at her and demanded she get in the car. Because she was on an isolated road, with no other people around, she felt she had no choice but to get in the car. Leigh said the man drove around the back roads of Boone for about 20 minutes before stopping the car. He bound her writs with a bandanna he had in the vehicle. He asked her if she was an App State student and said he had been out looking for one. Then he brought up Jeni Gray’s name and told Leigh he had killed her and that her body was about a half mile up the road from where they were parked. Leigh later said she believed him when he gave the brutal details of Jeni’s death, and knew she needed to earn his trust and comply with his demands so that she might be able to find a way to escape. Daniel sexually assaulted her for hours. He pointed a loaded gun at her head and played Russian Roulette. He asked if anyone back home was expecting her, and she lied and said no. Then, he told her he had decided not to kill her yet and wanted to take her back to his house.

A Chance to Escape

As night fell, he pulled into roadside convenience store. Leigh said she had hoped there would be a lot of people around, but they were the only customers. Daniel kept her wrists bound and warned her not to get out of the car. While he was inside, standing in front of the beer coolers, an SUV pulled into the parking lot. The male driver got out of the vehicle and went inside the store while Leigh tried to gather her courage. When the driver came back out, she noticed Daniel was still in the back of the store, so she exited Daniel’s car and jumped into the SUV, telling the driver she’d been kidnapped and asking him to get her out of there quickly. He drove to a nearby friend’s house where they called 911. She discovered she was in the Rutherwood community between Boone and the town of Triplett.

After Leigh was taken to the hospital, she told the police she had seen an envelope when her abductor opened up the glove compartment in his car. She was able to remember the name on the envelope and that, coupled with a description of his car, led police to quickly apprehend Daniel Lee at his residence. They knew he’d been arrested before for petty crimes like driving while under the influence and possession of marijuana. Leigh also told them he’d confessed to murdering Jeni Gray. Under her direction, police began searching a wooded area of U.S. 321 south of Boone, where Leigh’s assault occurred, but they turned up no sign of the missing young woman.

When police couldn’t locate Jeni’s body, they were fearful Daniel Lee was a copycat rapist who didn’t really know where Jeni’s body was. Plus, they still had the man from Tennessee who’d been harassing women the morning Jeni disappeared. They wondered if he was still involved. Leigh was adamant that they keep looking for Jeni. She believed Daniel Lee had murdered her and would have done the same to Leigh if she hadn’t escaped. He’d been fixated on abducting women connected to the university.

Jeni Gray is Found

On October 9, a small crew from the police department recanvassed the area where Leigh had taken them. It was about a half mile from where the sexual assault on Leigh had occurred. This time, the results were different. They discovered the body of a young woman in an area near an unpaved secondary road at Jakes Mountain near Boone. A piece of jewelry she was wearing helped identify her as Jeni Gray. The North Carolina Chief Medical Examiner determined her cause of death was strangulation, and she had also been beaten, likely with a bloody stick found near her body. This lined up with the details Daniel had shared about Jeni’s death with Leigh. He was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree rape.

In mid-December of 1989, a Superior Court judge ruled that Daniel Brian Lee was mentally competent to stand trial for murder in the death of Jeni Gray. The trial was moved to Avery County, as Daniel’s attorneys argued there had been too much pre-trial publicity for him to get a fair trial in Watauga County. But before jury selection could begin, Daniel Lee pleaded guilty to the murder of Jeni Gray, but said he was innocent of the rape charge connected with her death. He admitted to abducting her as she was taking her walk in downtown Boone, later strangling her with her own sweatshirt and bra on Jake’s Mountain, three miles away from his home. He claimed he was not guilty of the sex offense part of the crime because he abused her, shooting a BB gun into her body cavity after her death.

Police found strands of Jeni’s hair in Daniel’s car. Fibers in the vehicle also matched those of her clothes she was wearing at the time. Leigh Cooper testified during the sentencing hearing that Daniel said he had taken Jeni’s watch and underwear, and these items were missing from her body when she was found.

Daniel Lee Sentenced

On April 26, 1990, Superior Court Judge Charles Lamm sentenced Daniel Lee to 12 years for kidnapping Jeni Gray. He also sentenced the 24-year-old to four life prison terms plus 15 years on charges of kidnapping, rape and sexual offense in the attack on Leigh Cooper. He would have to serve at least 100 years before being eligible for parole.

After the sentencing, Jeni’s father, Robert, told the media that he found no pleasure in the death sentence being handed down in the case. “There are no winners in a case like this and I take no glee or joy in the decision. Nothing’s done that will bring Jeni back.” He said his main objective was making sure Daniel Lee never got out of prison again.

In early January of 1997, Daniel Lee died from a cerebral hemorrhage while still incarcerated, likely connected to the aneurysm he’d had in his early 20s. He was 33 years old.

The Legacy of Leigh Cooper

Leigh Cooper did not let what Daniel Lee put her through deter her from achieving her goals. She eventually married the boyfriend she was dating at the time of her abduction and assault, Chris Wallace, and had two children. She became one of the most successful track and cross country runners for the university, earned a degree in exercise science, and was inducted into the App State University Athletic Hall of Fame. She remained in the area and went on to become a Hall of Fame coach of cross country and track at Watauga High School. She was also the first girl’s lacrosse coach at the school. She became a member of the Watauga County Sports Hall of Fame.

Barbara Daye, the former Dean of Students at Appalachian State University, said Leigh told her Daniel Lee claimed he was going to go back to the school to get more girls, after admitting his involvement in Jeni Gray’s death. In her opinion, Leigh helped stopped a potential serial killer.

In 1990, App State began an annual Walk for Awareness, a silent walk that began after nightfall, and the event often included speakers on the importance of safety and crime prevention, in honor of Jeni and Leigh that would continue for 30 years. The event ceased to exist in recent years, likely becoming a casualty of the Covid pandemic.

Leigh had shared her story of survival through magazine articles and two different television shows. With the encouragement of her father, Claude, she decided to begin the process of working on a memoir. She would narrate pieces of her story into a cassette recorder a little at a time and turn the tapes over to her father to transcribe. Their plan was to organize and edit the book once it was all on the computer.

Leigh had grown up the oldest of four children to Claude and Louise Cooper. The family moved around frequently as her father served in the U.S. Army, earning his way to being a Lt. Colonel. She was born in Panama, as her father was stationed there at the time, and they subsequently moved to Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and then back to North Carolina to Fort Bragg. Leigh discovered a love of swimming at age 11 and then began running with her dad when she was in eighth grade.

Throughout her adolescence, Leigh exhibited a high tolerance for pain, even enduring pain from a knee injury until it required surgery. Like many young female athletes, she also developed body image issues, as her upper body developed more muscular from swimming. While she excelled at both swimming and running, she eventually made the choice to focus on running. She enjoyed her solo runs and felt safe running on the various Army bases even in the evenings. That sense of security and safety would continue into her college career.

Leigh definitely had her challenges all throughout her teens and early twenties. She battled an eating disorder while experiencing shin splints and stress fractures from her training. Leigh overcame her injuries and focused on the things she could accomplish, like eating healthy and training in a safe way. She toured multiple colleges and felt the strongest connection with App State. Her parents moved to the area as well and her father became a professor of military science and commander of the ROTC at App State, while her mother taught at local public schools.

In 2016, Leigh’s father Claude published a book titled “Finding Strong.” Leigh had begun writing her life story in the summer of 2012, but she died unexpectedly from pneumonia at age 43 before she could make it through the first draft, so her dad carried it across the finish line.

In 2018, Wayne Clawson wrote and published a book titled “Jake’s Mountain Road: The Murder of Jeni Gray, the Kidnapping of Leigh Cooper and the Trial of Daniel Brian Lee.” Clawson is a native of Boone who also graduated and played football from App State. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he joined Appalachian State University and retired in 2004 after serving as the Associate Vice Chancellor for the school.

Clawson told the Watauga Democrat that he decided to publish the book after overhearing a discussion of Jeni and Daniel Lee’s trial. Then, he realized people were uninformed about what really happened in 1989. People also didn’t know that when Jeni disappeared, she had been working with a psychologist on campus to analyze rape statistics on college campuses.

Clawson had worked closely with Jeni at the university and wrote the book not long after her murder. He studied the trial transcription and interviewed several different people involved in the trial and the sentencing phase. He held off on publishing it, but after he overheard the conversation in a doctor’s waiting room, he decided it was time to set the record straight.

Proceeds from the sale of the book go to the Jeni Gray scholarship fund at App State and the Leigh Cooper Wallace Scholarship Fund at Watauga High School.

Sources:

Asheville Citizen-Times

September 30, 1989

Search Continues for Missing Boone Woman

https://www.newspapers.com/image/945236274

News and Observer

September 30, 1989

Former Durham woman still missing from Boone

https://www.newspapers.com/image/655877754

The Charlotte Observer

October 1, 1989

Kidnapping Arrest is Made