American Greed Podcast: Neighborhood Inferno | CNBC Prime

This is the American Treat

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presented by CNBC. I'm Stacy Keach on this episode of American Greed. The 911 emergency sounded like a plane crash. It's a massive explosion in the middle of the night that destroys homes they can't get out of. Oh my god look and take lives one person thought it was the end of the world and other people said it was like being dead but this is not an accident why would someone do this intentionally 300 thousand dollars that's what was done for three hundred thousand dollars As they separate this insurance fraud gone wrong investigators close in on the suspicious months Arathi surely feels horrible, we did something wrong and her scammer boyfriend Mark Leonard never felt bad about hurting anyone, he didn't care, he had a demon inside him and when the law gets closer Leonard calls for more violence I'm sorry I never thought you were a murderer a murderer sir on the south side of Indianapolis Indiana Richmond Hill looks like

neighborhood

s all over the country everyone practically knows everyone.

It felt like a small community of a small town in a big city but it was very quiet 10:30 11 at night you couldn't hear anything among the many families who lived here in the fall of 2012 our school teacher Jennifer Longworth and her husband , an audio engineer named Dion, this backyard was about a third of the garden. Dion's father, John Longworth, says that since he built a house in Richmond Hill in 2005, his son worked diligently to create his own little Eden, he had blackberries, raspberries, apples, pears and many types of flowers of which he actually knew the Latin names of all of them. them on Saturday, November 10, 2012, the son who helped generate a reward for Dion shines unusually warm on him and his neighbors as this perfect day turns into night, families settle in to watch TV or snuggle in bed .

I probably hadn't been asleep but maybe 20 minutes and the loudest ungodly sound I've ever heard in my life just woke us up out of bed like it was a huge baby it was big and it was a huge explosion our house shook so hard that I thought a car had actually hit our house, Richmond Hill resident Doug Aldrich, items were falling off the wall, we really didn't know at the time, at that point, what had happened. I see smoke, we hear sirens right now, you need to go immediately, but whatever. Was it important enough? Does anyone have any idea what the hell exploded?

It's a blast so powerful it moves the needle on an earthquake sensor 26 miles away. Isolation falls from the sky like snow and the neighbors emerge into a dark suburban hell. In fact, he heard people screaming. Because they were panicking, I remember seeing neighbors walking away from the explosion drenched in blood. People are not supposed to see that in their lives you know your neighbors bleeding and it was just chaos in the middle of this chaos. Kelley says her husband is running. outside then he comes back with news all he was saying was he left he left he left I said what he left he said the house the house left and I looked at him still half asleep and I said I don't know where you're talking about I said I'm standing in the house our house is not our house the neighbor's house is no longer the missing house belongs to a nurse named Muntz Ronnie Shirley her next door neighbor's old people have also been hit hard I went from being there with a soda in my hand watching television until flying around the room.

I remember hearing my youngest daughter scream. I'm bleeding. I remember my ex-wife yelling something at him and then the lights went out. Neighbors rescued Aldi and his family members before a rapidly spreading fire consumed them. collapsed house I'm on the scene I'm at the back of this incident and we have extensive damage to many houses throughout this area we have a lot of frantic people vacuuming on the other side of Shirley's house the explosion has destroyed the Longworth house kills Jennifer instantly and traps Dion under two stories of rubble. Air carries people out of here through a small opening in the rubble.

Dion calls the neighbors and talks to some of the firefighters under the command of Italian Chief Mark Culver. In fact, you could see it. and I heard him and he was begging us to get him out one of my guys was actually lying with him he had his hands on him but you're talking about an opening that was a few inches wide to try to get him out two firefighters struggled to get Dion out. Running against the elements in this powder keg of exposed wood give us water on the Northside line as soon as you can so we can get these people out of power the fire crossed that house from the opposite end to where we were where the man was.

Longworth got trapped so fast I had to back off, I had to physically remove my guys for his safety because it was so hot, so fast, these men trained to save lives must all retreat as they removed him mustard in the street and Dion Longworth just 34 year old dies in the flames that some of us will live with for the rest of our lives it's one of those things you wish you never saw in the morning Dion's father receives the news that all parents fear and that's when it just hits the bottom falls on you, yeah, well that's the most horrible feeling I've ever had.

I don't know how to attribute it because I've never had it with anything else. We will need representatives from unsafe buildings or some code enforcement agency. We have several houses that are damaged, so you will need an inspection. Hall around Richmond Hill, neighbors are dealing with a tragedy and in the mornings, news reports at first light provide the first real view of what happened, it was described as a war zone and upon entering. In the Richmond Hill subdivision you can clearly see why I cried. I just couldn't believe how bad it was. No, I mean, it looked like someone dropped the bomb in the middle of our

neighborhood

.

If a plane had crashed within that neighborhood, they are. probably causing less damage and I just looked at it, oh my God, if you had told me 40 people had died, I would have believed you, it's not something I was used to seeing in Indianapolis, these houses some were destroyed, rich reporter Van Wyk , some caught fire. some collapsed, some were smashed, some fell off their foundation every time you thought you had seen it all, you looked at another house, turned the corner and realized how bad the houses are, obviously Roone in other places, the damage It's harder to see, but no. less real, you know, when you looked at it from the outside you didn't know they were damaged, but they weren't square, they were uninhabitable.

Structural damage totals at least $4.4 million and 200 residents were forced to leave their homes. More than 80 houses are damaged, three are completely destroyed and approximately 30 must be demolished before authorities blame a natural gas explosion inside the home of Montserrat and Shirley, who happened to be absent that Saturday at 11 p.m. :10 hours. and the next day her neighbor Liz Kelly Cesar near the rubble and goes to comfort her and she looked at me and said I'm so sorry and I said motsi why are you sorry your house bluehub you are also a victim just like me and she said The neighbors said such horrible things about me listen Monte I don't hear all that I said it's just gossip and I said you're a victim which I said the Lord put it in my heart to pray with Would you mind if I prayed for you?

She would do it, please. Shirley's apology will take on new meaning as her neighbors learn that the real cause of this deadly disaster was Creed, and in grief, she makes people do stupid things after the devastating explosion in her Richmond. Hill's home, Montserrat, surely lies literally at the center of this tragic story. A neighbor's phone call, that's how Muntz surely learned that her neighbors feared she might be dead after an explosion. - Shirley's house next door was probably born in Puerto Rico. known to many as Muncie moved to the US at age 25 Roddy de Mott is surely an educated professional a registered nurse comes here from Puerto Rico she is living the American dream in 2003 she, under her then husband, built a approximately 2,800-square-foot home in Richmond Hill complete with four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a great room with a gas fireplace.

When they divorced seven years later, she maintains the home, living there with her 11-year-old daughter and a Persian cat named snowball in November 2011 Shirley is headed to Crazy Street to a bar on the south side of Indianapolis when she enters she sees a man staring at her his name is Mark Leonard and she likes what she sees Mark Leonard's friend Mark Duckworth what attracted her the first time it was probably the blonde hair and blue eyes. he was always tanned and had his hair highlighted to the max former marion county prosecutor denise robinson she later found out he drove a nice vehicle a hummer seemed well dressed seemed to be flashing good money he drove a hummer pulling out a big wad of bills An average woman likes a man with money and he was polite and sweet and he was fun that night Shirley and Leonard talked for hours he says he has his own construction business and also buys and sells cars when the night is over he tells her takes him home and stays for a short night, does she know that she is not the first woman to fall under his spell in his words?

I remember I was looking for someone to pamper and treat like a lady years before he probably ever came into the picture. Joanne Engel says she meets Marc Leonard on a dating website called a lot of fish quiet well, he said he was a businessman and that he really wanted someone he could settle down with, who can complete him, raising a disabled son alone. Engel is a nurse who spent her career caring for others, now she believes she has met a man who will take care of her, she told me several times that she couldn't wait to hear my voice again and that she couldn't wait to see me and she said that I just to complete this world and I made it happy in the Town Angle says that Leonard insists on paying everything at first, eventually, however, she says that he borrows a small amount of money from her and seems to have no problem paying Engel back everything.

What he told me, everything fits together like a puzzle that I didn't see. any red flag, any reason not to trust him, he presented himself as someone who was genuinely giving in and who actually cared enough not to take advantage of me, so Angle says Leonard asks him for a loan of ten thousand dollars To replace a machine he needs to complete a big construction job, he goes to this job. I'll win three hundred thousand dollars, he goes. I'm a month away from completing it and someone came and stole this big machine from work and without that machine I can't finish. work I don't know what I'm going to do blinded my love angle says she gives him the money and he soon returns asking for $30,000 more when she says no, Leonard dumps the same day and Engel says she never sees him or his ten grand again I was really looking for someone like him so yeah it broke my heart.

Authorities say Angle is not his only victim. I think Mark Leonard mainly preyed on women's insecurities, he preyed on older women who hadn't had a man. in their lives for a significant period of time told them I care about them pretended to care about them Leonard's own relatives say he is a money-addicted scammer and police records say he has also pulled off numerous other love and insurance scams in In the past, Mark Leonard had a Harley, he had a Cadillac, he liked the car lifestyle, but he also liked the faster lifestyle of going to casinos, going out with friends and spending money, so in Montserrat surely knows Leonard and brings him home in November 2011.

She may be attracted to him, but it's clear that she also has something he wants. She had a house. She had a job. He had a pension plan for Mark Leonard. This was the culmination of all the scams he had come up with in the past. Within weeks of meeting, Mark Leonard and Montserrat II surely live together in her Richmond Hill home, ride motorcycles and visit a nearby casino, and she takes care of him when he gets sick, but if Leonard came looking for a meal ticket, soon He finds out that this is not the case.

What he thought turns out that Shirley has been living beyond her means she's buried in credit card debt, has declared bankruptcy, and owes more on her house than it's worth, but that won't stop her scheming very quickly afterwards. Upon meeting her, he convinced her to increase the coverage of the content. on her home from basically $100,000 to $300,000, so in essence, by tripling the coverage for the contents of her home, with this policy change there will be money to help pay for Shirley's two mortgages plus $300,000 for the contents of the home If it is completely destroyed and soon Leonard begins to convince himself, surely this is what is going to happen at first she resisted she said no, she didn't want to have anything to do with this but from her testimony mark Leonard persisted mark Leonard took him toMontserrat II probably and said it was something they could get.

I think she was physically attracted to Mark. Leonard didn't want to lose him. Indianapolis Police Department. Detective Sergeant Jeffrey bet she was very stressed about her financial situation and was probably thinking this could be a way out for her. He probably later says that he thinks they'll just start a small fire and on the last weekend of October 2012 they put her plan into action. She leaves her snowball cat at a local pound and her daughter stays at Glen's house. She stops a friend of Mark Leonard who she says he helped convince her that this would all be easy.

She and Leonard are headed to a casino, but they are safe and will surely be seen there. They wait for news that Leonard's acquaintance, Gary Thompson, has done what Mark will pay him $5,000 to do. Gary Thompson was alleged to have poured gasoline all over the house and then set it on fire and left the scene. Gary Thompson finally did it for whatever reason he didn't do that he said he was afraid he didn't want to drive there and they would catch him driving the vehicle but the plan is far from over and next week they tried again this time Once authorities say they changed tactics by trying to use natural gas from the home's fireplace and a spark from an older model thermostat to ignite it, and for the second weekend in a row, Shirley moves her feet away from her daughter and her cat and then He heads with Leonard to the casino and waits, either there was too much natural gas or the ignition switch that the thermostat wasn't enough to turn on the domestic gas that was present, many of us if we try this kind of thing and fail, we might find it.

We would have thought better, but obviously he had no doubts at all. Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry Mark Leonard was hell-bent on making sure this happened and, on the third try, Mark goes to work with his half-brother Bob, promising him $10,000 for his help. On Friday, November 9, Leonard goes to a bar and chats with one of the experts. The owners ironically the name of the bar was Gaslight and the bartender is actually a full time employee of the gas company and literally in the video the bartenders make a gesture with their hands and then what indicated what he was saying was that it would fill up. like a balloon until it burst later that night with her daughter in the babysitter and Kitty in the kennel.

Muncie heads to the casino with Mark and says Bob is holding on to her brother's white truck meanwhile at the casino, Muncie in pink and Leonard in black. They spend hours doing practically nothing, the purpose of doing so was obvious and that is that they had an alibi of where they were when the incident occurred, time runs just after 11:00 to 10:00 p.m. Shirley gets the call that they were expecting him and learns that she has gotten into something much bigger than expected. I don't think any of them had any idea of ​​the magnitude of the damage that would be caused by creating that explosion.

It's probably not the easiest thing to do, but with three tries they managed it over the next few days. Shirley and Leonard followed police officers and insurance investigators saying they have no idea what caused the explosion and even when the consequences of their plan become clear, they remain determined to collect. For her once loud misdeed, Shirley, for example, told the insurance company that she had purchased some expensive items, including a Picasso painting. It would be very, very unusual for someone who lived in a middle-income subdivision in Indianapolis to claim that he owned a Picasso, and especially if they were claiming that they bought a Picasso that they were going to put on the wall of their suburban home.

Shirley's insurance company rejects her claims and before long neighbors begin to wonder if something is going on in hopes of exonerating herself. Shirley speaks to reporters a few days after the explosion. Richmond Hill resident Doug Aldrich seems sincere, we call it the fake tears interview. The consensus even in the Annapolis area on social media like this is not good due to its destructive nature. Arson can be a very difficult crime to solve, but Mario Garza of the Indianapolis Fire Department. The department, aided by investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, will discover that not all evidence has been destroyed.

This was the epicenter of the explosion, police believe it originated inside the house near the burned car and that is where detectives set the fire. Investigators and federal ATF agents are focusing to find out what caused this massive destruction. Residential gas lines should have a reducing regulator that reduces the pressure of gas entering a home at Montserrat and Shirley's home, however investigators see that someone replaced the regulator with a part. straight pipe that allows gas to flow into the house at a higher pressure than normal there is no logical reason to remove it in fact it is a safety risk to remove it your appliances are not working there is too much gas entering your house just If you are asking for trouble, the only reason to remove the step-down regulator would be to put a large amount of natural gas into your residence.

Arson investigators also spend weeks exhaustively searching for a missing chimney valve called a Dante valve and find nothing if you remove that Dante valve. the gas flow arrives much faster, it is not regulated and the house arrives much faster with natural gas. They also find evidence that the house's microwave and the nearby cylinder exploded from the inside. We believed that this cylinder was put in the microwave with a liquid the microwave was on a timer it was set to turn on at a certain time the microwave turned on a microwave heated the liquid inside the container and it exploded and that shear force, spark and heat ignited the natural gas that exploded the In the house there are also many things that investigators do not find any items of value are suspiciously absent there were no televisions there were no computers there was no jewelry we found remote controls but no televisions, so the typical things you would find or expect find in the house we didn't find while Garza searches through the rubble Detective Sergeant Jeffrey Bet begins asking questions about Shirley and Leonard.

I learned that Mark Leonard was a person who liked to commit fraud. He had done it on several occasions. I found out that there were previous cases. arsons that had been committed between people he had known among his relatives I found out that he was in debt I found out that Montserrat Shirley was in debt and that they needed money with this information it's time to take a closer look at the casino alibi tape of Leonard and Shirley The first time I saw it, the casino seemed to confirm his alibi, former prosecutor Denise Robinson, except when you started watching him and asking questions like, how long did they gamble, where did they go? and then you start to realize that they are sitting in the same place for hours. at the same time and you start watching the tape and you see things like 11 at night is approaching, the letter is showing, for example, he looks at his wrist watch and there is more.

A neighbor says that on the day of the explosion he saw two men leaving the house. Mark Leonard's white truck and entered Shirley's house and Leonard's relatives say that Mark and Bob have been moving valuables from the house before the incident and then there are snowballs. Three trips to Kemmal. I am a cat owner myself. I don't see any reason to board. a cat, if I'm only going to be away for a day or two, I leave enough food and water and it takes care of itself, all of this adds up to a strong circumstantial case, but yet researchers haven't found any direct link.

Mark Duckworth is a former Exotic Dancer who says he met Mark Leonard when Leonard came to him looking for work in the 1980s, around the time of the explosion, talked to his old friend and asked him what he was doing. He told me: I'm looking. a Ferrari online I told him how can he afford a Ferrari, he said our house blew up, the tsunami winds came through and blew up the chimney, we are getting $300,000, but the most important thing about what Leonard says is when he said it, this whole conversation It happened before the real thing.

There had been an explosion that seemed to be a huge coincidence in terms of what happened in the end and I don't believe in coincidences, so when Mark Duckworth found out about the Richmond Hill explosion after the call, he says he knows who is responsible and He has no choice but to tell the police he knew too much, anyone with common sense would know I knew too much, he said too much, he told me too much, days after Duckworth told his story, five hundred people gathered at st. Barnabas Catholic Church for the funeral of Jennifer and Dion Longworth it seems like a waste of wonderful people to die so young that night authorities announced that the Richmond Hill case has become an active homicide investigation four days before Christmas police take action as of yesterday we file charges against Mark Leonard Monterey Shirley and Bob Leonard the three individuals were arrested this morning and are in custody I'm sorry I never thought you were a murderer you are a murderer sir after your arrests Mark Leonard Montserrat II surely and Bob Leonard faced charges of conspiracy to commit arson, 45 counts of arson and two counts of felony murder inside the Marion County Jail.

Mark Leonard knows that if convicted, he could face life in prison without parole. He also learns from court documents that a large part of the case against him has to do with his conversation with Md. aka his old friend Mark Duckworth sues not Leonard makes a new friend a fellow inmate named Smitty who he believes can help fix things mark Leonard believed that Smitty was a person who was involved in a Southside motorcycle gang that had a history of killing people and he believed that Smitty would know someone who could kill someone. Smitty does nothing to dissuade Leonard from this idea and asks Leonard to draw a map pointing the way to Duckworth's house.

Hello, this is a prepaid call from Mark to Jay, an inmate at the Marion County Jail. Then, in mid-March 2013, Smitty helps Leonard call a guy outside named Jay so they can work out the details. Look, this way will get me out of jail almost instantly if you haven't called 9-1-1. her cell phone, do it and well, I have three sentences that I wrote and if she had only said these three sentences within that 9-1-1 call just before, she will get me out of here quickly, no, she didn't refund it. I meant that I didn't mean to frame Mark and Muncie for their own house in Richmond Hills that was originally offering $15,000 Leonard says if Jay makes it there will be an extra 500, yeah, because this will make a big difference here and it's a little harder to do, You know, so yeah, I'll take it down there for sure, no problem how soon you think you can get out of the hole if you do it that way, right there, I'd say no.

More than a few days into this plan, Leonard sees freedom in sight and the authorities say he might be on to something. Mark Duckworth's boss was murdered. If that phone call had been made, he would have made me seriously reconsider whether we had enough evidence to move forward. The case, but there is a big problem. Smitty is friends with Hartley Mark, he is a prison snitch and Jay is not a hitman. Mark Leonard thought Jay was a badass motorcycle killer and was going to solve all of his problems when he's actually an ATF agent. Weeks after the call, prosecutors charged Leonard with an additional count of conspiracy to commit murder.

It's not his only setback in 2015. Shirley strikes a deal to provide authorities with an inside look at the conspiracy that led to the destruction of Richmond Hill. Completing the picture, she certainly gave us an inside perspective following her guilty plea, authorities announced more arrests, including Mark Leonard's employee Gary Thompson, who helped with the first two attempts, and Glenn arrests Leonard's friend who knew about the plots that were kept silent. We are ready. We've been ready, but it's time to bring this case to a jury nearly three years after the explosion that decimated Richmond Hill. Marc Leonard's trial begins when it's time for opening arguments.

Leonard's lawyer makes a bold move. She admits that Leonard caused the explosion, but says he didn't intend to kill anyone, calling it a stupid, selfish insurance fraud that went terribly wrong, rich Van Wyk when I heard that I didn't believe it and the reporters around me were the same. stunned. I have never heard anything like that from a defense attorney, prosecutor Denise Robinson. she doesn't buy the argument that Shirley went to such lengths to protect Snowball and his daughter, maybe they didn't know they were going to blow up the entire neighborhood, but they knew the extent of what they were doing because they cared. more for her daughter and her cat than for her neighbors over the course of six weeks the prosecution calls more than 160 witnesses with Monserrate II Shirley as the star afterthe closing arguments the jury takes less than four hours to find Mark Leonard guilty of all charges a month later at the sentencing the judge calls him the worst of the worst and without a doubt to life in prison without parole plus 75 years after his own trial Bob Leonard is also sentenced to two life sentences plus 70 years Leonard's assistant Gary Thompson pleads guilty and spends 20 years behind bars and Glen Halts, who knew of the plot but kept quiet, also pleads guilty to helping a criminal and receives a 3-year sentence after pleading guilty and telling authorities what he knows.

Some neighbors were worried that Shirley would escape. There are 52. The charges that were released include the demolition of at least 33 houses and she was able to get out with nothing more than time served. That doesn't seem right to me in any way. Her attorney argues that she has a history of abuse that made her susceptible to coercion. and controlled, but prosecutor Denise Robinson says there are no excuses, she had a daughter, she had an education, she had a family that would have listened to her, who would have welcomed her, who would have protected her and she did not go to any of those sources, but she just allowed this to happen and then after it happened she lied about it and she bears responsibility for what happened, she was just as guilty as if she herself had turned on that valve or turned on the microwave.

In the end, Shirley escapes a life sentence without parole, but receives fifty years in prison. prison to think about his

greed

in January 2018 while serving his sentence mark Leonard dies of natural causes years after the explosion the lots where the Shirley and Longworth houses once stood remain empty some neighbors have left Richmond Hill others have rebuilt , but for those who survived that November night 2012 there are scars left, a lot of people say, you know, I can't just get over it. I don't think it's something you can overcome. people lost their lives. I lost everything. I lost my sense of security. get over it you learn to live with it the first two years I relived it every day every day I know it just played over and over in your mind.

It got to the point where my wife sent me to a psychiatrist because every time she saw the videos on TV she would light up, she would start crying, she is still so irritating that someone can be like that. Greedy that they would do this, I mean the sentences have been handed down, they will never see the light out of that prison as long as they live, they start pressuring us to recover three hundred thousand dollars, that's what was done for $300,000, thanks for listening to the

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American reading presented by CNBC I'm Stacy Keach you