"That cannot be real. More: Richmond Hill: 'The scars still remain', More: Richmond Hill explosion: 'It's the toughest thing I've ever done in my career', More: Richmond Hill explosion: 7 keys that solved the case. The topic came up again around July 4. The brothers were sentenced to terms of life without parole for spearheading the conspiracy. He says he "was very surprised" to learn Snowball had been boarded on the night of the explosion. Her role in the plan and execution of this act protected her own child and the family pet, but failed to consider the obvious danger it presented to anyone else. Holts invited Leonard and Shirley to his friend's house for a pool party in the Geist neighborhood. The home was owned by his girlfriend at the time, Monserrate Shirley, who testified earlier this month that Bob. We used to cook together, have dinner together.Very charming, very lovely man.". At 11:11 p.m. on Nov. 10, 2012, a two-story home on the south side of Indianapolis exploded with the force of as much as 5 tons of TNT. She grew up in Puerto Rico with a violently abusive father who would often beat Shirley as well as her siblings and mother. He told her his friend Glenn Holts had done the same at his own house with help from Gary Thompson, who worked for Leonard at the time. It started as a bad headache, but quickly grew until he was hospitalized with an autoimmune disease serious enough he would need a blood transfusion. She remained in the house as the sole owner until the explosion. Monserrate Shirley was ordered to serve out her sentence at the Indiana Womens Prison in Indianapolis. Prosecuting Mark Leonard presented with some challenges. They'd soon get a new roommate. She asked Mark and Bob what happened that made it be an explosion instead of a fire. "[6] The witness also told investigators that Leonard talked about buying a Ferrari with the insurance money from the house. He leaves to cherish his memory his daughters: Britney Morales (Malcolm Richardson) and Maria Morales: two step-daughters Latasha (Nathan) Roberts and Kizzy Carter; three grandchildren and a host of other relatives and friends. And I wanted to be able to tell them everything., TRANSCRIPT | The full testimony of Monserrate Shirley. "She lost everything," he said. Jeff Wager, the lead homicide investigator in the case, talks about the surveillance and arrests of Mark Leonard and Monserrate Shirley: It was at a meeting with prosecutors in early 2015 that Richmond Hill residents learned of the plea deal being worked out with their former neighbor, Monserrate Shirley. That becomes eight years when good time credit is applied. He eventually improved enough to return home, but Shirley had to continue caring for him for several months. It also didnt carry much weight for the families of Dion and Jennifer Longworth, who died in the blast. Instead, on Dec. 20, 2016 - after a two-day sentencing hearing that would be the closest her former neighbors would get to seeing her on trial - Shirley was sentenced to the maximum term of 50 years in prison. ", Holts then asked who would get the money if they went through with it and Mark said, "Of course, me. Mark then asked Bob twice to "go get the part that we need." The next morning, they drove back and saw the house was still standing so they went on to Thompson's house where Leonard confronted him. Shirley said she has been reeling from the pain of people blaming her for the tragic event. She found a house with a floorplan she liked." His defense team admitted that the blaze had been intentionally set, but told jurors it was only intended to be a small fire and that murder was never his intention. And you have to weigh that out? Thompson left after a few hours and Shirley didn't hear anything else before the first attempt that Saturday. She later worked at St. Francis and Community South. She still qualifies as a practicing nurse. I should have been there.". I was introduced to this once-a-year dish at a party and she was one of the first people to give it a shot. She was upset when she got home that night and saw her nicer digital thermostat sitting on the kitchen island and the new cheaper model on the wall. Follow us on Twitter at @AOLRealEstate, or connect with AOL Real Estate on Facebook and Pinterest. [5], The most damning piece of evidence was a witness statement from one of Mark Leonard's associates, who told investigators that the weekend before the explosion, Leonard told him that "the house blew up". He said that his daughter had mentioned that the furnace wasn't working, and he wondered whether a gas leak ignited the blast. Shirley owned the home at the epicenter of the November 2012 explosion that killed two people and damaged dozens of other homes causing more than $4 million in damages. Much of Tuesdays testimony included accounts of Shirleys difficult childhood. Contribute to chinapedia/wikipedia.en development by creating an account on GitHub. Shirley: "I moved out in February of 2011. So in the end there were a couple of people who were opposed to it, and I respected that. Of the dozens and dozens of homes damaged by the blast, 33 were affected so severely they had to be demolished. "They are currently in the process of recovering the appliances from destroyed homes to help determine the cause.". ", Minch: "At no time did she ever say she was involved in the explosion?" When asked why she didn't take Leonard's hospitalization in March 2012 as an opportunity not to let him back into her home since she knew what he wanted to do by that point, she said she couldn't turn away a sick person. Prosecutors alleged that the men conspired to submit an insurance claim for a stolen motorcycle. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way, Indianapolis, IN Interactive Weather Radar, Mark Leonards friend says he knew too much, Opening statements in the trial of Mark Leonard. Its not the only weird coincidence Ive noticed in the past few months, but the name shirley was the one that stood out to me most. Shirley met Mark Leonard. "I have everybody telling me stuff that they said on the TV," she said. She and Mark then gassed up her car and drove to the casino. They claim that Leonard wanted the hit man to force the witness to call 9-1-1 and recant his statement before killing him. To this day, absolutely they had the right to do that. 2023 CIRCLE CITY BROADCASTING I, LLC. She and her daughterwent to the hotel, where Mark later joined them. At the time her friends called her, Monserrate was at a casino with Mark Leonard. [19] Judge Shelia Carlisle rejected the proposal, noting that no Indiana law authorizes the use of concurrent jury trials. Mark Leonard was the first to go on trial. She told them she didn't want anything to do with them anymore. . The host family had a lot of horses, so Shirley's daughter went to play with them under the supervision of Holts' girlfriend, Sharon, whose teen . A prosecuting attorney showed her a photo of the house that exploded and asked her who lived on either side of her. She was able to take that to the prosecutor and get a protective order against me. Prosecutors then proposed an unusual strategy involving one trial, but three separate juries, one for each defendant. She got in the van with them, and Mark asked her to give Bob $40. Thirty-three homes were damaged so severely they were deemed unrecoverable, and had to be torn down to the foundation. In another, she said Mark Leonard turned on the gas line and actually lit the fire during the second attempt. Shirley testified that friends called and told her there was a huge explosion. Leonard, his ex-girlfriend Monserrate Shirley, his half-brother Robert Leonard and Mark Leonards former employee blew up Shirleys home in the Richmond Hill subdivision to collect about $300,000 in insurance money to pay off the houses mortgage and Mark Leonards gambling and credit card debts. Shirley testified Leonard asked to see the insurance policy on the home within a few weeks of moving in. Bob had been asking for his $10,000 payment before the explosion even happened. And it wasn't the answer we were looking for. How to fix pii_email_029231e8462fca76041e Error Code? ", "Richmond Hill explosion suspects to get separate trials", "Attorneys: Change of venue likely in Monserrate Shirley case", "Richmond Hill suspect trial moved to South Bend", "Defendant in deadly Indiana explosion agrees to plea deal", "Richmond Hill trial: Informant says Mark Leonard wanted witness killed", "Home> U.S. Indianapolis House Explosion: Suspect Charged in Murder-for-Hire Plot", "Marion county prosecutor's office asks for life without parole sentences in richmond hill explosion", "Richmond Hill trial to focus on greed and desperation", "Mark Leonard convicted of murder in explosion scheme", "Mark Leonard gets life without parole for Richmond Hill explosion", "Richmond Hill explosion mastermind Mark Leonard dies", "Cause of death of Richmond Hill conspirator Mark Leonard determined", "Richmond Hill explosion culprit Mark Leonard dies at Indy hospital", "Leonard found guilty of all counts in Richmond Hill trial", "Indianapolis man get 2 life sentences in deadly house blast", "Psychologist Says Monserrate Shirley Was Abused as Child, Has 'Dependent Personality Disorder', "Monserrate Shirley sentenced to maximum 50 years in prison", "Gary Thompson sentenced in Richmond Hill explosion after pleading guilty to arson charge", "Glenn Hults sentenced to 3 years in deadly Richmond Hill blast", Affidavit of Probable Cause, Dec. 20, 2012, Affidavit of Probable Cause, April 14, 2015, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richmond_Hill_explosion&oldid=1133693717, November 2012 crimes in the United States, Articles with incomplete citations from March 2015, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 02:18. After he was done, the fireplace worked properly and they never smelled any gas inside the home because of it. Mark was a handsome man with sex appeal and a lot of money, judging by his stash of cash and fast luxury cars. He questioned her about the multiple boardings of her cat, Snowball, which he found odd. She explained that Snowball had anxiety. Shirley's daughter went with them in Leonard's Cadillac. Leonard and Shirley went to the casino on Saturday, October 27, expecting Shirley's best friend and neighbor to call when the house caught fire. Mr. Monserrate Morales was born on January 7, 1955 in Puerto Rico. TRANSCRIPT | Opening statements in the trial of Mark Leonard. Shirley told jurors he lost a number of things in the explosion, including a collection of tennis rackets and a drafting table. ", Minch: "You testified that you only used a babysitter maybe once a month, because your lifestyle with Ms. Shirley wasn't such that you went out every weekend?" They enter into evidence two golf bags with clubs and a driver. She took care of all three. In a room inside IFD Station 63 less than a mile from the Richmond Hill subdivision Carter and Shirley talked about her whereabouts on the night of the explosion. They started looking around the house at potential ways to start the fire. [12] Though the trio was eligible for the death penalty under Indiana law, prosecutors chose to pursue life sentences without parole because they believed a jury would be unlikely to impose the death penalty without any evidence that the suspects intended to cause the deaths. BREAKING: By a vote of 24-38, New York's State Senate has voted against same-sex marriage legislation. Monserrate "Moncy" Shirley, a nurse, owned the home at the center of the explosion. Shirley is originally from Puerto Rico. And I look at all the opportunity she had where she could have gone for help and she never did.. To the uninitiated, it seems to be a reference to a nickname used by the family of the deceased who are being called Shirley by their name. Follow his reporting on Twitter at @Jordan_RTV6 or on Facebook.