Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. [19] Judge Shelia Carlisle rejected the proposal, noting that no Indiana law authorizes the use of concurrent jury trials. The topic came up again around July 4. John Duncan was the one to call, saying something horrible had happened on her street and he wanted to make sure she and her daughterwere okay. Shirley and her boyfriend Mark Leonard were out of town for the weekend while her 12-year-old daughter stayed with friends. After court adjourned for the day, Shircliff said he attacked her inconsistencies "to show that she can tell the truth as easily as she tells a lie, and it's hard for the jury to know the difference. Shirley and Leonard had gone on television on multiple occasions following the blast to state their innocence, and to ask for privacy. A source who claimed to be in contact with the Shirley family told WISH-TV in Indianapolis that a family member had complained about smelling gas in the home at one time. [8], Prosecutors alleged that on the Friday before the explosion, Leonard and his brother Bob spoke with a neighbor who was a Citizens Energy employee, asking that person about the differences between natural gas and propane. Much of the attention since the explosion has centered on Monserrate Shirley and her boyfriend Mark Leonard, who lived at the house in the center of the blast area. She owned the house. Get caught up on the first two chapters here:Chapter I: The Night the Sky Caught Fire|Chapter II: The $4 Million Arson Plot. 2012 explosion in Richmond Hill, Indianapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, "At least 2 killed, others injured in explosion, fire in Indianapolis neighborhood", "Family breaks ground on new home in Richmond Hill subdivision after Indianapolis home explosion", "36 homes critically damaged in explosion in south side neighborhood", "Homeowner at center of explosion feels lucky to be alive", "Authorities call Richmond Hill explosion a homicide case, seek details on white van", "Probable cause suggests pattern of fraud, details inconsistencies", "Richmond Hill suspect, friend face insurance fraud charges", "Affidavit: women say richmond hill blast suspect Mark Leonard has long history of scheming", "Shattered Subdivision Offers a Trail of Clues", "Life sentences without parole sought for Indianapolis explosion suspects", "4th person arrested in Indianapolis house explosion", "Fifth suspect charged in 2012 Indianapolis south side explosion", "Mark Leonard, Indy Blast suspect, pleads not guilty in murder plot", "Jim Voyles now representing Monserrate Shirley", "Home Explosion Case: Monserrate Shirley, Mark And Bob Leonard Due In Indianapolis Court", "Richmond Hill explosion: 3 trials for price of 1? We did the right thing, for the right reason, and got the right result in the right way.. "She lost everything," he said. ", She re-iterated that she offered him her retirement savings in place of burning the home. Monserrate Shirley was a divorced Puerto Rican mother whose exotic looks quickly attracted Mark Leonard. To see the faces of the neighborhood people and the sense of relief and calmness when the verdicts came in was a good thing, Garza said. Monserrate Shirley, the Indianapolis homeowner whose house is suspected of being the source of a deadly explosion that damaged nearly 80 homes in her subdivision, was inconsolable Tuesday as. She will not learn her fate until after all four of her alleged co-conspirators has been tried. She was crying and hysterical and said the house blew up.". The defense said if prosecutors wrapped up early enough on Thursday, they could call all of their witnesses that day alone and closing arguments could be held Friday, July 10. She was wearing a jail jumpsuit, was shackled and her hair had grown long, dark and curly.IM TELLING THE TRUTH. Monserrate Shirley leaves court after learning her sentence. She met Mark Leonard at a bar on November 12, 2011. The Version table provides details related to the release that this issue/RFE will be addressed. Its been around since the late 80s, but Im sure well find more of it on our own site. On August 14, 2015, Mark Ray Leonard was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life without parole, plus an additional 75 years, on 53 counts, including murder, arson and insurance fraud. Monserrate Shirley said Mark Leonard was very, very mad., Mark Leonard said, Were going to do it again. On the other two days, Robinson still the head of the prosecutors homicide division would review pending cases and prepare for other trials on her plate. She talked about being Catholic and said it was in God's hands, but still, they should be punished.". No one else was within earshot, so far as she knew. PHOTOS: First Richmond Hill trial Mark Leonard is on. The next time, Monserrate Shirley said Mark Leonards brother, Bob, was supposed to carry out the plan. "I mean, I'm totally devastated like my neighbors are.". According to Shirleys account, she was struggling to stay financially afloat when she met Leonard, and within a month of dating, he came up with the idea. While still at the hotel, Mark asked her to call a heating & cooling company on Sunday, November 4, to see what they would charge to check on the heat because the house was too cold. Her sister had lived in the same housing complex. In one case, she said the first attempt was supposed to be tied to gasoline not natural gas. At one point you replaced the thermostat." On December 21, 2012, Monserrate Shirley, Mark Leonard, and his brother Bob Leonard were charged with 2 counts of felony murder and . I didn't do nothing wrong.". Shirley would receive over $300,000 in insurance money for the replacement of the home as well as personal items. Every day I ask myself why I didnt stop this. Mark Leonard first mentioned trying to burn the house down in February 2012, according to Shirley. "I don't know what happened. "No one.". Seven months later, on March 18, 2016, his brother Bob Leonard Jr. received his own sentence of life without parole in a courtroom in Fort Wayne, Indiana. SOUTH BEND, Ind. Two of those alleged co-conspirators were arrested as a direct result of her cooperation: Gary Thompson and Glenn Holts. Too little, too late, said Jennifer Longworths father, Don Buxton. Federal grand jury indicts man on hate crime charges after he allegedly shot 2 Jewishmen in Los Angelesin February, Pot vote has Oklahoma hungry to rake in green from Texas, Indonesia fuel depot fire kills 18, over dozen missing, Fishers firefighters assist car flipped NB over I-69. I got upset with her and sent her some derogatory texts. She wanted to put it on her plate. Glenn Hults, the final defendant to stand trial for the explosion, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge last month that may result in no additional jail time. You can't do anything," he said. She was the one who got her daughter and her cat out of the situation and left her neighbors in the situation. Shirley recalled a later conversation that she had with Bob and Mark Leonard, after the explosion. The blast the product of an insurance fraud scheme killed two people and injured dozens of others. He says he "was very surprised" to learn Snowball had been boarded on the night of the explosion. Leonard then tried to get Thompson to talk about what he did at Holts' home, but he refused, saying they shouldn't talk about it. Deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson returned from prosecuting the Richmond Hill cases to a pile of homicides waiting on her desk. Mark. It was run by the daughter of a famous American actor who was very close to the owner. All I can say is, I had one small role in this. The man he called was actually an undercover agent. "I was at one of my part-time jobs when I got a text from my daughter, which was very unusual. It's also possible she will walk free if the judge sentences. I had a homicide detective crying on the stand. In court, Shirley testified Leonard had promised to show her how to make a lot of money. In fact, they said that at the time she raised her insurance policy to $300,000, she was roughly $300,000 in debt (more than $200K between her two mortgages on top of the bankruptcy settlement left over from her divorce). The stove was electric. Much of Tuesdays testimony included accounts of Shirleys difficult childhood. We firmly believed that Gary Thompson played a role, but until she cooperated, we couldnt prove that, Robinson said. After demands for a vote on the bill, we finally received one. The cat, nicknamed Snowy, was a birthday gift for their daughter, he said, and "she misses him.". As Mark Leonards defense team would point out repeatedly throughout his trial, there was a chance, however small, that Shirleys cooperation could end with her walking free at the end. Holts invited Leonard and Shirley to his friend's house for a pool party in the Geist neighborhood. . They then worked to establish a pattern of poor decisions in her personal life and changing stories throughout the investigation. She and her boyfriend, Mark Leonard, who also lived at the residence, told authorities they had left Friday night for a weekend at Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. The inmate and Leonard drew up a contract agreeing that Leonard would pay the inmate $15,000 when he was released, the affidavit said. She and Mark then gassed up her car and drove to the casino. Prosecutors then proposed an unusual strategy involving one trial, but three separate juries, one for each defendant. Its also the name of the game of death in which our monserrate daughter will be taking us on. She even took some leave from work to stay with him longer than her paid vacation time allowed. Shirley: "In order to pay a very large amount of child support, I was working a full-time job and two part-time jobs. And then there was the arrangement that when I picked up my daughter I would get to take some of my belongings. Defense attorney Ted Minch on cross-examination: "You're not happy to be here today." Robinson could not tell them, for example, that Shirley would be facing a sentencing range of 20-50 years in prison. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. She still wiped under her eyes with a tissue several times while she was on the stand. Your email address will not be published. [9], Investigators discovered a number of allegations of insurance fraud and other scams by Leonard prior to the blast, particularly involving stolen or wrecked automobiles. Shirley's daughterwent with them in Leonard's Cadillac. While she was charged in December 2012 for her role in the explosion, she pleaded guilty to two felony conspiracy charges earlier this year in exchange for her testimony. Another woman reported that she had loaned him about $5,000 for a construction job, which he had yet to pay back. Shirley testified in Fort Wayne at the trial of Bob Leonard, Jr. one of five people accused in the deadly 2012 Richmond Hill Explosion. John Shirley, 50, of Noblesville, told The Associated Press that his daughter sent him a text message last week complaining that the furnace in the home where she lives with her mother and her. Marion County Superior Court Judge Sheila Carlisle sentenced Monserrate Shirley to spend the maximum sentence of 50 years in prison on Tuesday. We did what prosecutors are supposed to do. [28] The defense said that what became the Richmond Hill explosion was only supposed to be a "stupid and selfish insurance fraud that went horribly wrong", adding, "Precautions were taken to ensure people weren't harmed." Write For Us: Investigative Articles are Intriguing. As his court date neared, the workload ramped up. The explosion leveled 8349 Fieldfare Way, the home at the center of the explosion, and severely damaged a number of other residences, including several (on either side) which were damaged by the ensuing fire. He told her one of the reasons she needed to upgrade the policy was he planned to bring in some nicer things and do some work around the house to improve it and they would need the extra coverage to match the upgrades. Shirley gave 12 interviews and statements between the explosion and Wednesday's testimony - some for law enforcement, others for attorneys and one for the media - and defense attorneys pointed out inconsistencies between some of those. Glenn Hults, who pleaded guilty to a felony for knowing about the plot but failing to report it to police, is scheduled for sentencing on December 28. They laughed at her for asking, but it was switched back out. "No one deserves what happened," she said. The Richmond Hill explosion took place on November 10, 2012, in the Richmond Hill subdivision in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. As stated previously, the investigation and prosecution of this matter has literally taken tens of thousands of hours of effort by numerous individuals. While Shirley said he lost a lot, he pointed out the toll was much greater on his then-13-year-old daughter Brook. . Monserrate Shirley, 51, was one of five people charged in the explosion that left two people dead. Made and inspired by a love triangle, this was written by a girl from Italy. So there wasnt a great deal of pressure on us, or desire by us, to offer her anything.. She and her husband Gabriel Ferrer (son of Rosemary Clooney and Jos Ferrer, and a first cousin to George Clooney) had four children: Jordan Alexander Ferrer (born July 8, 1980), twin girls (Gabrielle Monserrate Ferrer & Dustin Boone Ferrer, born September 17, 1983), and Tessa Ferrer (born March 30, 1986). Monserrate Shirley, the Indianapolis homeowner whose house is suspected of being the source of a deadly explosion that damaged nearly 80 homes in her subdivision, was inconsolable Tuesday as she wept while speaking publicly for the first time about the horrific incident. Leonard went to pick up Thompson in the white van witnesses in the neighborhood have previously testified seeing in Shirley's driveway. 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. [18], Prosecutors initially sought to try the suspects together, but the defendants were granted the right to separate trials. A second home was reduced to rubble as well, and other houses were half-collapsed. On Friday, October 26, Leonard told Shirley to get anything sentimental out of the house. Mark Leonard is on trial in South Bend in connection to the explosion in the Richmond Hill neighborhood that killed Jennifer and Dion Longworth in November 2012. Robinson knew that. Prosecuting Mark Leonard presented with some challenges. Somebody knew that I was out of town. [1] Thirty-three homes were damaged severely enough to require demolition. It also didnt carry much weight for the families of Dion and Jennifer Longworth, who died in the blast. [36] Shirley was sentenced to 50 years in prison, the maximum possible under her plea agreement, on December 20, 2016. [38], Gary Thompson pled guilty to conspiracy to commit arson and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. They'd soon get a new roommate. Monserrate Shirley, 49, would have to testify against former boyfriend Mark Leonard and his brother in the plea deal . wishtv.com your home page, Business, Equity and Opportunities Podcast with Scott Sander. A second mortgage had been taken out on the home for $65,000 in addition to the original mortgage of $116,000. Should we not use all those witnesses? Shirleys apology rang hollow to many Richmond Hill residents in the courtroom. Its about not letting the person who was watching your game die ever have a say in your game. Authorities blamed a natural gas explosion inside the home of Monserrate Shirley, who was away at the time of the explosion. The entire day she answered questions from attorneys, repeatedly crying. Monserrate worked Friday, November 9. Defense attorney David Shircliff then said Shirley may not have provided the "means" for the explosion, but she took care of the logistics to make sure no one realized she was helping blow up her own home. I did my best. I cant give the Olveys back a peace of mind. A copy of her plea agreement was entered into evidence and handed out to each member of the jury. "I moved out in February of 2011," he said.
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