Circumstances of Disappearance
Ledkins was last seen at her home in Kansas City, MO. She took no extra clothing or money with her when she was last seen in 1985.

The day Jody disappeared she was arguing with her boyfriend and other boys about wanting to accompany them somewhere. When the boys said no, she left and walked around the corner to a friend's house. There, she called her mother and asked for a ride home, but her mother didn't have her car. She told her mother that she would find another ride.

When Jody was missing, her mother called Jody's juvenile caseworker. Jody had been put into an informal juvenile court probation program after she and a friend pushed a security guard in 1984. The caseworker prepared two warrants listing her as an endangered juvenile whom police were to arrest. The mother thought the warrants also meant that juvenile authorities had filed a missing-persons report with police. She later found out that the police were never notified.
Because of the misunderstanding, it was two years after Jody disappeared before police began their investigation. There has been no sign of her since. In 1997, Kansas City police reclassified the missing-persons case as a homicide.