Authorities: 3 set deadly Ind. blast for insurance
Associated
Press/Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department - This combo made
from photos provided by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department
shows from left, Mark Leonard, 43, his wife, Shirley Leonard,
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Three people charged in a gas
explosion that devastated an Indianapolis neighborhood deliberately set
up the deadly blast to collect a big insurance payout, authorities said
Friday.
The home's owner, Monserrate Shirley; her boyfriend, Mark Leonard; and his brother, Bob Leonard, were arrested Friday and charged with murder, arson and other counts in the Nov. 10 blast that killed two people.
Shirley, 47, was facing mounting
financial woes, including $63,000 in credit card debt and worsening
bankruptcy proceedings, court documents say. And a friend of Mark
Leonard's told investigators Leonard said he had "lost a ton of money" —
about $10,000 — at a casino some three weeks before the explosion.
Investigators believe the trio had actually tried but failed to blow up Shirley's home the weekend before the successful timed explosion, according to Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry.
The fiery blast destroyed five homes, including Shirley's, and caused
widespread damage to dozens of others in the Richmond Hill subdivision
in the far south side of the city.
Curry called the explosion a "thoroughly senseless act" that killed
Shirley's next-door neighbors. He said the victims, John Dion Longworth,
a 34-year-old electronics expert, and his 36-year-old wife,
second-grade teacher Jennifer Longworth, were "in the prime of their
lives."
Randall Cable, the attorney for Shirley and Mark Leonard, said he was stunned by their arrest.
"I'm just as surprised as everyone else that they've made an arrest.
My clients have consistently indicated their innocence," he said.
Shirley and the Leonard brothers face two counts of murder as well as
33 counts of arson — one count for each of the homes damaged so badly
that officials have ordered their demolition.
Curry said his office would review whether to pursue the death
penalty or life in prison without parole against the three, who are
scheduled to appear in court Monday.
Shirley and Mark Leonard, 43, also face two counts of conspiracy to
commit arson, while Bob Leonard, 54, faces a single count. Curry said
the conspiracy charges stem from the failed explosion.
He said investigators
determined that Shirley's home filled up with gas after a gas fireplace
valve and a gas line regulator were removed. A microwave, apparently
set to start on a timer, sparked the explosion, he said.
On Friday, workers using heavy equipment were removing debris from razed homes in the neighborhood.
Doug Aldridge, the head of the Richmond Hill's crime watch group,
said after a neighborhood meeting that the allegations are "more than we
anticipated."
"Sometimes money makes people do stupid stuff," Aldridge said.
Investigators found that in December 2011, Shirley's home insurance
policy for personal property was increased to $304,000 — an amount that
was in addition to the coverage for the home itself, according to court
documents.
A probable cause affidavit says Shirley filed for bankruptcy this
year but stopped making her court-arranged payments and failed to appear
at a July bankruptcy hearing. The home's original loan was for $116,000
and a second mortgage was taken out on the home for $65,000, the
affidavit also says.
A friend of Mark Leonard's also told investigators that Leonard would
surf online dating sites "and located older, heavier women, wine and
dine them," then borrowed money and never paid them back, according to
the affidavit.
The friend said Shirley was aware of the scheming "and was OK with it
so long as he did not sleep with the women," the affidavit says.
Leonard has a criminal record that includes stalking and intimidation
and convictions on dealing and possessing cocaine, according to prison
records.
Two men, one fitting Bob
Leonard's description, were seen at Shirley's home the day of the
explosion, and Curry indicated investigators believe that's when the gas
line and valve were tampered with. He said authorities are still trying
to determine the second man's identity.
Curry said that the day before
the blast, the brothers asked an employee of local gas utility Citizens
Energy several questions, "including the differences between propane and
natural gas, the role of a regulator in a house and controlling the
flow of natural gas and how much gas it would require to fill a house."
Curry said Shirley and her
boyfriend had followed the same pattern two weekends in a row, visiting a
southern Indiana casino, dropping off Shirley's daughter with a baby
sitter and boarding the family's cat.
An affidavit says that when a
friend of Mark Leonard's called him Nov. 2, eight days before the
successful blast, Leonard told the friend "the house blew up" and that
he and Shirley were staying in an efficiency apartment.
In another call that day, Leonard told his friend he had been surfing
Craigslist "looking for a Ferrari to buy" and explained that he could
afford the luxury car because Shirley had jewelry insurance and "they
expect to get $300,000 and he would get $100,000" in the insurance
payout, according to the affidavit.
It's not clear whether investigators think Leonard believed the first
explosion attempt had succeeded. Curry's spokeswoman, Brienne Delaney,
said the office could not comment beyond what was in the court
documents.
The day after the explosion, Bob
Leonard allegedly called his son and asked him to retrieve from a white
van items he said he had salvaged from Shirley's home after the blast.
"That, of course, is impossible
because everything in the house was destroyed," Curry said. "Plus no one
was allowed access to the property after the explosion."