Richmond Hill Trial of Bob Leonard, Day 3
9:00 a.m. – Court called into session.
9:12 a.m. – Scott Alexander, 8415 Alcona Drive, called as a witness.
Alexander: "We received a phone call from ADT that there had been a breach in our home."
9:15 a.m. – Prosecutors play audio from the 911 call made by ADT about the burglar alarm at the Alexanders' home.
9:18 a.m. – Alexander: "We were wondering what was going on. We saw some fire in the background."
9:21 a.m. – Alexander says the force of the blast pushed his home off its foundation.
9:21 a.m. – Alexander dismissed.
9:22 a.m. – Eileen Brown, 8429 Alcona Drive, called as a witness.
Brown: "We were all sitting there and there was this enormous blast that lifted us all off the couch. As I was going up, I was able to see the walls of my house go in and out, so it was a tremendous force. At the same time, the front door, that was dead-bolted, was blown open."
9:27 a.m. – Brown says she took off running in her socks to her mother's house on Flicker Court.
Brown: "As I was running, I looked down the street and saw the destruction and fire that was already spreading."
9:33 a.m. – Brown dismissed.
9:45 a.m. – Court takes brief recess for juror who has coughing attack.
10:00 a.m. – Court resumes session.
10:27 a.m. – Brenda Mescall, 3959 Towhees Drive, called as witness.
Mescall: "[There was] an extremely loud noise. My front door, which was dead-bolted, was blown open. My ceiling came down. The garage door was completely caved in. The entire brick around the front of the house had become loose and had to be replaced."
10:36 a.m. – Mescall dismissed.
10:38 a.m. – Doug Aldridge, 3953 Towhees Drive, called as a witness by the prosecution.
Aldridge: "The house down the street blew up."
Aldridge: "I looked over and my wife and son were on the floor. My son was covering his head."
Aldridge: "My house looks directly down Fieldfare Way. I looked down and saw there was no house there. I told my son we needed to get down there. We had to pry the door open to get out."
Aldridge: "People were coming out of their house screaming hysterically. I noticed that the house next door [to 8349 Fieldfare Way] was pretty much destroyed."
Aldridge says he busted in the door at the Cole residence when they told him from inside they couldn't get out.
10:49 a.m. – Defense attorney Mark Inman begins cross-examination:
Inman: "You knew a lot of your neighbors. You were a part of the neighborhood association. You witnessed a sort of outpouring of generosity."
Aldridge: "Somehow the word just got out. People just started showing up with food and water. They said, 'We heard and just had to help.'"
Inman: "At some point one of your neighbors, Monserrate Shirley, showed up at the school. What did she say to you?"
Deputy Prosecutor Denise Robinson: "Objection. Hearsay."
Inman: "She's going to testify…"
Judge Frances Gull sustains objection.
10:53 a.m. – Aldridge dismissed as a witness.
10:54 a.m. – Prosecution enters testimony of Pamela Brainard, who is unable to attend the trial, into evidence.
10:57 a.m. – Court recesses for break.
11:15 a.m. – Court resumes session.
11:55 a.m. – Rachna Patel, 8324 Fieldfare Way, testimony entered by stipulation.
11:58 a.m. – Dana Michelle Smith-Waddey, 8330 Fieldfare Way, called as witness.
Smith-Waddey: "It was the biggest noise I've ever heard in my life. We heard the boom and then the house shook and then your body shook."
Smith-Waddey says the explosion shattered her bathroom mirror and sent shards flying in the wall opposite.
12:03 p.m. – Deputy Prosecutor Mark Hollingsworth: "If the explosion had happened a few minutes earlier you would have been standing right in front of [the mirror]. Is that correct?"
Smith-Waddey: "Yes sir."
12:06 p.m. – Smith-Waddey: "Amojean Olvey was running toward me frantic saying she couldn't get to her mom and dad. I grabbed her because I didn't want her to run back in."
Smith-Waddey: "There were sounds and screams that night that I'll remember forever."
Smith-Waddey says she heard Gina Salas yelling, "Moncie! Moncie! You're alive!" over and over again into the phone.
12:13 p.m. – Defense begins cross-examination. Attorney Mark Inman asks Smith-Waddey to point on the map where she was at when the phone call between Salas and Shirley took place.
Inman: "The phone call was to Gina Salas from Moncie, is that correct?"
Smith-Waddey: "Yes."
Inman: "In the months before the explosion, you noticed a change of activity around Monserrate Shirley's house?"
Smith-Waddey: "There were a lot of different cars in the driveway. They would come and go. We didn't see a lot of Moncie and Brook, but now I know it was Mark riding his motorcycle in and out."
12:17 p.m. – Smith-Waddey dismissed.
12:17 p.m. – Court recesses for lunch.
1:56 p.m. – Benjamin Chastain, 8355 Andrusia Lane, called as a witness.
Chastain says he received a call from ADT about an alarm at his house.
Chastain: "About the same time I started getting texts from friends asking if I was OK."
2:00 p.m. – Prosecutors enter audio recording of 911 call made by ADT on night of explosion for Chastain residence.
2:06 p.m. – Chastain dismissed.
2:07 p.m. – Jason Gifford, 3930 Towhees Drive, called as a witness. Gifford says he was at a friend's house nearby when the explosion occurred.
Gifford: "All of us in the house felt it. The first initial thought was it was a gas explosion."
Gifford: "At first, I couldn't understand my wife. She had to call back. All she kept saying was, 'Our house, our house.'"
Gifford: "As I walked in, you could see the flames behind our house. I just ran in as quickly as I could to see if my wife and kids were OK. And they were."
2:15 p.m. – Gifford says his home had to be destroyed and rebuilt.
2:15 p.m. – Gifford dismissed.
2:17 p.m. – Elizabeth Kelley, 3936 Towhees Drive, called as witness.
2:20 p.m. – Kelley says she knew who Monserrate Shirley was prior to the explosion but hadn't been formally introduced.
Kelley; "The loudest noise I've ever heard in my life woke me up. My husband ran into the house yelling, 'It's gone! It's gone!' I said, what do you mean? Our house is right here. He said the neighbors' house was gone. I went out and looked and the house was gone and there was about a 3-foot fire."
2:25 p.m. – Kelley says she ran into Monserrate Shirley when she was allowed back into her house three days later. Kelley says Shirley looked like she had been crying for several days.
Kelley: "She said, 'I'm so sorry.' I said, Moncie, your house blew up. You're a victim too. Why are you sorry? She said, 'The neighbors are saying horrible things about me.' I said, I don't listen to those things. Then I asked if I could pray with her."
2:34 p.m. – Kelley says her house had to be demolished.
2:34 p.m. – Defense attorney Mark Inman begins cross-examination.
2:34 p.m. – Inman: "Did you see Ms. Shirley on television a couple days after you spoke to her?"
Kelley: "Yes sir."
Inman: "You told her you thought she was a victim. Is that the way she acted on TV?"
Kelley: "Yes it was."
Inman: "In your mind, do you think she's a victim now?"
Kelley: "No sir."
2:36 p.m. – Kelley dismissed.
2:36 p.m. – Sara Vitaniemi, 3956 Towhees Drive, called as witness.
Vitaniemi: "At first I felt a rumble, then a loud noise, and then glass. IT blew out all the glass downstairs. I immediately sat up in bed. I ran to the window and saw a fire. My neighbor helped me get shoes on my kids. They couldn't walk. They were scared."
2:44 p.m. – Vitaniemi says her house had to be demolished due to the damage.
2:45 p.m. – Defense attorney Ted Minch begins cross-examination.
Minch: "Did you know Monserrate Shirley?"
Vitaniemi: "I did."
Minch: "Did you talk to her on the 10th? What was her demeanor?"
Vitaniemi: "She seemed upset. Obviously I was panicked."
Minch: "Did you describe Ms. Shirley's demeanor to the detective as being hysterical?"
Vitaniemi: "I honestly don't recall."
2:48 p.m. – Vitaniemi dismissed.
2:49 p.m. – Court recesses for break.
3:41 p.m. – Stephen Belt, 8333 Alcona Drive, called as a witness.
Belt: "Just a loud boom … I thought maybe a car hit the house. My wife said she saw the ceiling raise up about 6 inches. We ran outside and the place looked like a warzone."
Belt: "My wife told me I probably better get the water hose hooked up and wet down the roof. She thought that would help us. I wasn't really thinking clearly, so I was just trying to do what she said."
3:51 p.m. – Belt: "The house twisted off its foundation. The blast hit this corner of the house and spun it a little bit. It was beyond repair. It had to be torn down."
3:52 p.m. – Belt dismissed.
3:54 p.m. – Vicky Koerner, 8332 Alcona Drive, called as witness.
Koerner says her house had to be destroyed and rebuilt. They bought the Olvey family property and eventually rebuilt a house there, which they moved into.
Koerner says her son Michael was driving home on Alcona Drive and witnesses the explosion.
Koerner: "He thought it was a terrorist attack. He was crazy, out of his mind."
3:58 p.m. – Koerner: "I heard screaming, pounding on the door."
Koerner says her son went to the Olvey house and helped rescue one of the girls who was trapped.
Koerner: "Then he came back and collapsed, crying, not knowing what has possessed him to do that."
4:06 p.m. – Koerner dismissed.
4:07 p.m. – Steven Lambert, 8338 Alcona Drive, called as witness.
Lambert: "I was awoken by my wife yelling. I was hit by a large wooden carving in the head that was hanging above the bed. I looked out where the windows used to be and all I could see was fire."
4:15 p.m. – Lambert says his entire house was shifted 6 inches off its foundation.
4:21 p.m. – Lambert dismissed.
4:42 p.m. – Stephen Pridemore, 8404 Alcona Drive, called as witness.
Pridemore says he is a retired, 42-year veteran of the Indianapolis Police Department.
Pridemore: "We didn't hear any kind of explosion, but the glass from the windows was all shattering. We were knocked out of bed by the explosion."
Pridemore: "My neighbor called out and said, 'We need help, somebody's trapped here.'"
Pridemore: "I could see [the Longworths'] home was almost completely leveled to the ground."
Pridemore: "I could see where the chimney was there was a hole, and there was somebody trapped down there. I could see his arm reaching up. It had blood on it, but he was clearly still alive."
4:50 p.m. – Pridemore: "They made a valiant effort to get through that small opening, but they just couldn't get through it. At that point, the fire was burning through the floor."
4:55 p.m. – Deputy Prosecutor Denise Robinson asks Pridemore if he recalls walking his dog the weekend before the explosion. He says yes, because he and his wife smelled natural gas at the time.
Pridemore: "It got our immediate attention that there was an extremely strong smell of natural gas."
4:57 p.m. – Pridemore says he saw three men standing outside 8349 Fieldfare Way by a white van. He didn't recognize any of them.
Pridemore: "They were all three white males. One of them had a bunch of tattoos all over his upper torso. One of them had light, bleached-looking hair."
5:50 p.m. – Inman asks when Pridemore gave his statement to investigators. Pridemore says he can't recall.
Inman: "Did anyone ever come back and talk to you about those three individuals?"
Pridemore: "No."
Inman: "No more questions."
5:12 p.m. – Pridemore dismissed.
5:13 p.m. – Court adjourned for the day.
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Call 6 Investigator Rafael Sanchez and Senior Digital Correspondent Jordan Fischer will be in Fort Wayne covering the trial every day. Download the RTV6 app to get the latest live blog posts as the proceedings unfold.
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