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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.
Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.
My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. Today, I'm discussing the murder of Leon Lorelis.
Just after midnight on May 10th, 1996, a motorist in Brown County, Texas calls 911. They report that they'd been driving along Farm Road 2126 when they saw a burning car. It was parked just off the road near the entrance to a gun range.
Just a few minutes later, a second motorist calls 911, and they report that they saw a body lying near the burning car. When the fire department and sheriff's deputies show up, the car is engulfed in flames. While inspecting the scene, they find the body of 30-year-old Leon Loreles. He'd been shot in the back of the head, execution style. Leon's family believes they know what happened to him, but their suspicions have never been confirmed.
This is the case of Leon Lorelis. Juan Leon Lorelis was born on January 3rd, 1966 in Mason, Texas. Although his first name was technically Juan, no one ever called him by that. He was referred to as Leon since pretty much the second he was born, so that's the name I'm going to use for him here. Leon was the youngest of nine children. The child closest in age to him was 12 years older.
Because of this huge age difference between the siblings, Leon had stronger relationships with his nieces and nephews, many of whom were his age. He was especially close to his niece Arlene, who was only two years younger than him. Arlene considered Leon to be more like a big brother and a best friend than an uncle. Because they lived so close to each other, Arlene would often walk over to Leon's just to hang out.
They also attended high school together. Leon would swing by and pick up Arlene every morning before class. Arlene told me about this time with Leon. In high school, we both played in the high school band together. So we were, you know, we connected in that way and we went on football trips together. Also, we would go dancing on Saturday nights. We were both like
So we pretty much just hung out together most of the time. So yeah, he loved dancing and music and band. And those are the things that we really connected with when we got older. Leon did well in school when he was able to attend. Unfortunately, both of his parents suffered from some pretty serious health issues. And because Leon was the only one still living at home with his parents, he became their primary caretaker.
All of his siblings were way older than him and out of the house by the time that he became a teenager. So at an early age, he had to get a permit to drive them to doctor's appointments and to pharmacies and stuff like that. And he'd have to make sure that they took their medication and on time and everything.
And, you know, basically run the household and care for both of his parents. But not once did he ever complain or ask for help. It was just like he just took on that role and he was happy to do it. Of course, that meant that he got to miss out a lot of, you know, normal things that teenagers get to do.
But he never once complained. He loved taking care of everyone. He took care of me. He took care of my children. That was just who he was. Leon's main passions were cooking and music. His favorite song was Celine Dion's Because You Love Me, and his all-time favorite artist was Madonna. Leon's niece Stephanie told the Fall Line podcast, quote,
Leon loved to dance. He just loved, loved to dance. He used to have a jukebox in his room with disco lights on the bottom. And I remember as soon as I got home from school, I dropped my stuff at my house and ran next door, and we listened to music.
Despite missing a lot of school, Leon did graduate from Brady High School. Two years later, Arlene did the same. She and Leon remained best friends. After Arlene gave birth to her first child, she moved 100 miles west of Brady to the city of San Angelo, Texas. When her son was about a year and a half old, Arlene and her husband went through a divorce. By this time, both of Leon's parents had passed away, so he moved in with Arlene and helped care for her son.
A few years later, Arlene gave birth to another son. She, her two sons, and Leon then moved to Brownwood, a town of less than 20,000 people in Central Texas. Not long after they settled in, Arlene had a third son, and Leon was all in. During the day, Leon would take care of all three boys while Arlene worked, then
Then at night, he would work the graveyard shift at Kroger Grocery. When I had my first son, he moved with me to San Angelo and he took care of him and raised him while I worked during the day. And then a couple years later, I had a couple more children and he moved with me to Brownwood. And he took care of all three of my boys while I worked during the day and that's when he started working the midnight shift.
And thinking back on it, that was just a lot for him to take on, you know, watching my kids after he just got done working the graveyard shift. But he felt my kids were like his own. And so he was happy to do that. He's the one that taught them their colors and ABCs and how to write their name. And yeah, he just basically felt like they were his own and he was happy to help me with it.
And he was always there for me with everything in my life. While Leon didn't have a ton of time for friends between work and helping Arlene, which he did truly seem to enjoy doing, once he moved in with his brother George in the early 1990s, that began to change. And he began making friends with his co-workers from Kroger.
By all accounts, they loved and adored him, and it may come as no surprise that Leon was incredibly generous to his friends. He would often pop into the Walmart Arlene worked at to buy presents for his co-workers. In fact, he'd actually been there less than 24 hours before his death.
Arlene told the Fall Line that when she got off work on May 9th, 1996, she walked through the parking lot and saw Leon's car. She said, quote,
It haunts me to this day, but the last time I had spoken with him was two days before that, when he came in to buy a bracelet for one of his co-workers' birthdays. Arlene then repeated, I hate myself for not going back in to see him.
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Let's talk about the night of Leon's murder. This is what we know. On May 9th, 1996, Leon left his house for work around 11.30pm. He was scheduled to start his shift at midnight. Leon was a very punctual person. He was known for getting to work early, so when he wasn't clocked in by 12.01, Leon's co-workers called his brother George to ask where Leon was. Leon was
When George said he had no idea, the co-worker called 911 to report him missing immediately. At 12.27 a.m., on what was now May 10th, a motorist called 911 to report a burning vehicle off Farm Road 2126. This area is about five miles south of Brownwood, and it's near the entrance to a gun range.
It was an area with little to no traffic, and there were no homes nearby. But despite this being a low-traffic area, there was a second motorist that drove by and called 911. This time, they reported seeing a body in front of the burning car.
When the fire department and Brown County Sheriff's deputies showed up, they found Leon's Thunderbird engulfed in flames. His body, which had not been burned, was located around 10 feet in front of the car, near a fence that ran in front of the gun range. He'd been shot in the back of the head, execution style.
Once Brown County deputies realized that Leon had been the victim of a homicide, they immediately called in the Texas Rangers. Ultimately, Ranger Bobby Grubbs was assigned to assist Brown County Sheriff Deputy Glenn Smith in leading the investigation. Arlene was notified about Leon's death around 2.30 a.m., when her cousin called her and said someone killed Leon. Of course, Arlene didn't want to believe it. She basically just remembers sobbing and dropping the phone.
But she did what she needed to for Leon. She got dressed and went to the sheriff's department where she met with some other family members. They were all desperate for answers, but no one at the station would tell them what was going on. They ended up waiting outside for hours. Then, as the sun started to rise, Ranger Grubbs asked for George and George only to go inside to speak with them.
But before George was even done speaking with Grubbs, one of Arlene's friends told her there was already an article about Leon's murder in the local newspaper.
So of course, Arlene is still waiting for answers and runs to buy a paper. When she finally gets one, she sees Leon's picture next to an article about how his body had been found next to his burning car. This is where she finds out he was shot in the back of the head. I got the call about two-ish in the morning, and I honestly don't remember even getting there to the sheriff's department or how I drove or anything, but I remember the sun was starting to come up,
And I heard somebody say that it was in the newspaper. So I looked at it and it said that he had been shot in the head execution style and we hadn't learned that part of it yet. And so it just upset me so, so much that I actually drove over there and
I'm embarrassed to say, but I yelled at them, like, how dare you put this in there before the family even knows?
And they just looked at me and I'm just like, how dare you? How dare you? Do you understand how we feel? And then nobody said anything to me. So I just walked out and just, of course, crying some more. But I was so upset. That's not how we wanted to find out. I mean, we just lost. I lost my best friend. I don't want to know that other people are reading about this yet. So, yeah, I was very upset about that part.
After reading the article, Arlene went back to the sheriff's department to be with her family. By that time, George had finally finished speaking with Grubbs. Arlene told George what she'd just read in the paper, and he confirmed that it was all true. Leon's family was in disbelief. They had so many questions. Like, why had Leon been out by the gun range? He lived on the opposite side of Brownwood, and his work Kroger was in the downtown area. It didn't make any sense.
While the family started planning Leon's funeral, investigators continued looking into his murder.
Unfortunately, due to the fire, there wasn't a lot of evidence left at the scene for investigators to collect. The day after Leon's death, Brown County Chief Deputy Sheriff Glenn Smith told the media that investigators had a lead. Less than 15 minutes before the first motorist called police about seeing Leon's car on fire, a witness had seen two vehicles moving slowly on the shoulder of the road a short distance from the gun range.
One vehicle was Leon's Thunderbird. The other was a late-model flatbed pickup, possibly a Ford, with tinted windows, chrome mirrors, and a gooseneck trailer ball mounted up on the bed of the pickup. The pickup has been reported as several different colors, including white, red, and red and white. Smith said that besides the flatbed truck tip, investigators didn't have any other leads, and no motive had been established.
Crime Stoppers Kroger and Leon's family each offered a $1,000 reward in hopes that more tips would be brought in. Now, investigators have been really tight-lipped with the media and the family about any other possible leads that may have developed. From the very beginning, investigators have refused to speak with any family member other than Leon's brother, George.
To be honest, the police didn't really communicate much. They also would not speak to any of the females. They only would speak to my Uncle George. So basically, he would have to, you know, relay the messages to us because they wouldn't speak to us. And, you know, I know those were his brothers and sisters, but...
Honestly, I was the one that was the closest and knew him the best, but they would not speak to me. Now, I know that sometimes police departments will limit communication to a single family member or a set of family members just to keep things simple. I have to imagine it would be almost impossible to keep a ton of family members up to date on a case by speaking to them individually.
But that's not what happened here. The police didn't just choose George as their primary contact for the family. They literally refused to speak to anyone else. Not even for an interview to learn more about Leon's life, his habits, his friends, all those things investigators usually ask about. Arlene says that to this day, she and other family members have never had the chance to speak with investigators. And no one has seen Leon's file, including his autopsy report.
In May 2022, Arlene told CBS3 WRBL, quote, I don't know exactly where he was shot. I don't know what kind of gun was used. I don't know if shells were found or if they were tested because they never told us.
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Within a few months of Leon's murder, the family was unhappy with how authorities were handling the investigation. So they hired a private investigator. My uncle George and I decided that we just weren't getting any answers from the Sheriff's Department or the Texas Rangers. So we decided to hire a PI. He came highly recommended. He was from Dallas. And from, you know, us being from a small town, we thought, okay, that should be good.
And he was there less than a week. We paid him $4,000, which I had to use all of my savings to do that. And he came back and told my uncle that the town was highly corrupt. Law enforcement, all of it was corrupt. He had been threatened and that he would not continue working.
And to this day, I keep trying to contact him to ask him for a copy of his report, which he will, he refuses to speak to me. He won't answer my emails or anything. Other podcasters have tried. I have a lawyer asking now because he refuses to give us anything. I just want to know who threatened you. What did they say? Why?
Why won't you give us a report? We actually paid him and we got nothing. With the PI off the case and no help from authorities, the case went cold. There were few updates given to the media until 2005. That's when the Unsolved Crimes investigative team, otherwise known as the Texas Rangers Cold Case Squad, looked into Leon's murder. But no solid leads were established.
Three years later, in 2008, there was finally some movement in Leon's case. Bobby Grubbs, who was now the sheriff of Brown County, announced that investigators had been able to, quote, "...develop some information that wasn't initially brought forward."
Lead Detective Jimmy Simpson said, quote, "'There were persons of interest that the sheriff directed me toward, to either get them eliminated as persons of interest or go forward. They have not been able to be eliminated as persons of interest in this case. They are the focal point of the investigation. I feel like we are progressing, but we need additional information to bring closure to the investigation.'"
Grubbs and Simpson never found that additional information. With the investigation pretty much at a standstill, Leon's family did what so many families feel like they have to do. They began digging into the case themselves. Through speaking with numerous potential witnesses, they did learn a few things about what happened to Leon. Arlene spoke to the co-worker who reported Leon missing after he didn't clock in to work.
The co-worker told Arlene that Leon had at least made it to the Kroger parking lot before his shift was supposed to start. The co-worker says they know for a fact Leon was there because they parked next to his car. They also remember being excited that they were going to work with Leon that night.
The co-worker told Arlene that investigators spoke with them around 4 or 5 in the morning on May 10th. They said they kept mentioning something about Leon's murder being connected to drugs. The co-worker was shocked by this and told them that drugs were not involved. They knew Leon, and he didn't do drugs. Arlene told me that investigators have since come up with another theory on why Leon was murdered. They believe it may have been because he was gay.
Law enforcement was very homophobic. The whole town was. And it's clear that it is still today. There's actual proof and recordings of law enforcement saying awful things. So I feel like that is a really good possibility or that he saw something he wasn't supposed to.
Arlene later told CBS3, quote, There's been other people who have been very vocal how gay people were treated at the time. He was not only gay, he was a Hispanic man in a very conservative small town. That was the reason he wasn't openly gay. That would have been very bad.
Leon's niece Stephanie told the Fall Line, quote,
This was a notable topic of discussion in the city. A local Brownwood man named Steve Harris has written about the town's treatment of gay people on his blog Steve's Soapbox. In June 2001, Steve spoke to the Texas Observer about his experiences. He talked about how a local radio host used the F-word during a broadcast that month.
Steve was understandably outraged, but that's not where things ended. Steve said that the day after the broadcast, a city councilman called into the show to tell the host that he'd won a six-pack of beer on a bet that Steve would protest the host's use of the slur. According to the Texas Observer, the councilman, quote, "...then prodded the host to use the word again so he could win yet another six-pack of beer."
Steve was so angry he attended the next city council meeting, but they ended up dismissing him. The Observer reported, quote, Name-calling ensued, and the personal lives of both Steve Harris and his business partner Steve Puckett were publicly called into question. Following the meeting, multiple people in trucks were videotaped driving past Steve's deli, shouting slurs and more.
He also received death threats. One caller said, quote, I heard you guys are homosexuals. We don't go for that sort around here. You're going to lose your business. We'll run you and your business out of this town.
The Observer reported, quote, that experience helped spur Harris to speak out against hate crimes, and he ended up testifying in Capitol hearings on hate crimes legislation. He says he's always been interested in hate crimes prevention and anti-hate crimes legislation, but some specific Brownwood incidents caused him to become increasingly concerned. Steve told the Observer, quote, I had read in our local paper about a lesbian who had been raped.
apparently because the attacker knew or suspected she was a lesbian. If such crimes are left unchecked, how can we expect to progress as a community? After that, Steve began researching hate crimes all around Texas. In Brownwood, he found that not a single hate crime had been reported to the state, even though crimes that appeared to have been hate crimes had been reported by the Brownwood Bulletin.
Now, I know terminology has changed so much since the 90s, but at the time of Leon's murder, people who identified as anything but straight really could be fired for their sexuality in almost all 50 states.
An executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Task Force in Philadelphia told Knight Rider newspapers, "...the majority of lesbians and gay men remain in the closet, even when there are civil rights statutes protecting their rights." They went on to say that many were afraid of discrimination, victimization, and the loss of status. "...when you come out, you come out to a nation where you can't get married, where you can get fired."
where you can get arrested for having sex, it's not a pretty picture. So with all that being said, it's completely understandable to me that Leon wasn't extremely open about his sexuality. His murder has never been officially labeled a hate crime, but many people believe it to be one.
Arlene told me that just recently, she discovered that Leon was being harassed before he was killed. I would never have thought it, but in the last few years, I have learned that Leon did actually name two people that were after him. And according to his employees that I spoke to,
The week and two weeks before, during that time, Leon was saying that he was being harassed, that people were after him, and he was scared. He told his sister a couple of days before, and he did name people. The family has been told by multiple sources that these people had access to a truck that matched the description of the flatbed truck seen with Leon's Thunderbird near the gun range.
They were also told that this truck mysteriously disappeared after Leon was killed. This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series, Back in Crime.
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Based on all the information Leon's family has been able to put together, this is what they believe happened to him. After leaving his home at 11.30pm on May 9th, Leon made it to Kroger. Before he went inside to start his shift, the men harassing Leon met up with him. The men either asked or forced Leon to go out to Farm Road 2126 with them. Leon and the men drove separately. Of course, it's unknown if Leon was driving his own car or if one of the men was driving for him.
Just after midnight around 12.15am on what was now May 10th, a witness saw Leon's Ford Thunderbird and the flatbed truck moving slowly on the shoulder of the road a short distance from the gun range. When they get to Farm Road 2126, Leon was led to the area in front of his car. He was on his knees when someone shot him in the back of the head. Before leaving in the truck, the men set Leon's Thunderbird on fire to burn the evidence.
That's the theory many of Leon's family members believe. Investigators have never publicly stated what they believe happened to Leon. They have also never named any persons of interest. The Brown County Sheriff's Office has said Leon's case is still open and is still being investigated.
In May 2022, Arlene told CBS3 that she's, quote, "...come to terms with the fact that no one will be arrested or indicted for Leon's murder. I just want answers. I just want to know what really happened to him. And I want to know why." Which brings me right to her call to action.
Arlene is looking to hire an attorney and another private investigator to help find answers. In order to pay for these services, Arlene has set up a GoFundMe. Donating there is one way to help Leon. Well, my goal is to be able to
Hire an attorney to help me obtain the records that I am refused, such as the autopsy. I also would like to have Leon's body exhumed so that I can have a real autopsy done because honestly, I don't believe that one was performed.
Leon was sent to a totally different place than where around what always sends their bodies. He was returned within a day and we had his funeral the second day, which is highly unusual also. Then I asked if they had kept his clothing or have done any testing. And their answer was, we've done everything with what we have.
So I feel like they didn't keep any evidence. And there is an actual photo in the newspaper that morning where you can see seven sheriff's deputies standing on the ground where Leon's body was without booties, without gloves, without bags. And the owner to the gun range where the fence is, is on the other side. And that was their investigation.
There are other ways you can help, including sharing Leon's story, sharing the GoFundMe, and helping gain the attention of creators and media companies who are willing to cover Leon's case. I didn't know Leon, but he seemed like an incredible light in this world that was taken way too soon. I feel like Leon...
Was robbed of all the things that he deserved in life as he was just starting to live his life as a gay man. He was deprived of, you know, finding his love, marrying, having children, buying a home. Like all of that was taken away from him. And if anyone deserved all of those things, it was him.
So that breaks my heart to know that he never got to experience those wonderful things that he deserved. I would just like to say that it's a small town. Most people know everybody. It's been 26 years and
Please, please do it for Leon to speak up with what you know. He was a wonderful, caring, loving person and he would do it for you. Please speak up if you know anything and please let's not forget Leon. He deserves to be remembered and he deserves justice.
As a reminder, Leon Larellis was 30 years old when he was murdered in May of 1996 in Brown County, Texas. Anyone with information regarding Leon's death or events leading up to it can contact the Brown County Sheriff's Office at 325-646-5510. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.
Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. This episode contains writing and research assistance by Haley Gray and The Fall Line Podcast. I do want to give a very special shout out to The Fall Line for their assistance with this episode. Their resources and interviews were extremely helpful in telling Leon's story. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show in your podcast player.
It's a free and easy way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. And for even more content, check out my other podcast, Disappearances, only on Spotify.