# (Missing person case) Cutting the wire to the starter relay question **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864 "2025-06-19T21:10:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/1 "2025-06-19T21:10:33Z")
Specifically, a 1993 Jeep Cherokee. _Short version:_ On March 9, 2000, Twenty-three-year-old college senior Leah Roberts left her home in North Carolina for a cross-country trip that lasted just three days and never returned. Investigators still don’t know what happened to her. Two weeks after she left, her jeep was found wrecked down an embankment in Whatcom County, Washington, by a couple jogging along Canyon Creek Road. Police discovered that a wire to the starter relay had been cut. **This would have allowed the car to accelerate without anyone depressing the gas pedal,** confirming early suspicions that no one had been in the car when it left the road and thus had been purposely wrecked. [Wiki link to story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Leah_Roberts) [smol news report](https://smol.news/p/leah-roberts-the-missing-gen-x-dharma) My question is about cutting the wire to the starter relay to make it accelerate. I’m not a mechanic by nature but I do work on my own cars. What I’m curious about is how that works exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/2 "2025-06-19T21:22:36Z")
[This has been discussed here before](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cut-starter-solenoid-wire-to-fake-a-car-crash/715345). ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/3 "2025-06-19T21:27:07Z")
It doesn’t make any sense and it really feels like either the investigators who came to that conclusion were incompetent, or, more likely, something got lost in translation. Best guess… The starter can move the vehicle on its own if is in gear. So put it in D and hold the key all the way forward and the car will drive off. If you cut a wire to the starter relay _and then wire it directly to a switched 12V source_, the car will take off on its own when you turn the key to “on”. But there’s a big difference between snipping a wire and hot wiring the starter relay. It would have been obvious to investigators and give away the whole plot. So something doesn’t make sense here, and since I can’t find an original source to the claim of a wire being snipped, I’m leaning towards some misunderstanding on the part of whomever entered this factoid into the case’s lore. Eta: ninja’d by a whole other thread, that’s a first 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/4 "2025-06-19T21:34:04Z")
> [@Ponderoid](#): > > [This has been discussed here before](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cut-starter-solenoid-wire-to-fake-a-car-crash/715345). Interesting, thanks for the link. I searched as best as I knew how. > [@steronz](#): > > Eta: ninja’d by a whole other thread, that’s a first 🙂 Don’t feel bad, you saved me from reading the entire other thread! 😮 ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/5 "2025-06-19T21:35:05Z")
It came up on a generic web search for info, and I was like wait, is that the thread I was just reading? Nope! ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/6 "2025-06-19T21:36:45Z")
I only did a search here - not a web search. ignorance fought, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/7 "2025-06-19T21:41:15Z")
Now after reading the other thread, I’m interested in this: > [@Cut starter solenoid wire to fake a car crash??](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cut-starter-solenoid-wire-to-fake-a-car-crash/715345/7): > > I had a '64 Chevy truck. It became energized early one morning. While in granny low, it crossed the street and t-boned the neighbor’s car. The police woke me up, How does this happen? By strange coincidence, I had a '65 Chev PU with a granny gear, it never misbehaved. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/8 "2025-06-19T22:57:07Z")
I guess I never paid attention to this story. 25 years and she’s never been found? ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missing-person-case-cutting-the-wire-to-the-starter-relay-question/1019864/9 "2025-06-20T16:09:02Z")
Nope.