'Gruesome' evidence an issue in Richmond Hill case

There are the autopsy photos of the two people who died in the Richmond Hill explosion.

Then there is the audio recording capturing the final minutes of the life of one of those victims, John Longworth, as he is screaming while trapped inside his crumbled and burning house, words heard by a firefighter on the scene and captured on a recording made by Longworth's security alarm company, which called in the moments after the blast.

To judges, attorneys and investigators in homicide cases, such macabre evidence can be difficult to absorb but comes with the territory. The question before the court Wednesday, just days ahead of the trial of Mark Leonard, the lead suspect in the murder and arson case stemming from the Richmond Hill explosion, is how much of the photos should jurors see and how much of the audio should they hear.

"What is not gruesome to us may be gruesome to a regular person," Judge John M. Marnocha told attorneys at a pretrial hearing Wednesday morning in South Bend.

Leonard's lead public defender, Diane Black, told the judge the materials were "extremely prejudicial" and could play on the sympathies of jurors in such as way as to prevent them from fairly weighing other evidence. She said witnesses in the case, such as the firefighter who was with John Longworth, could relay information that jurors need to hear.

"There's no relevant reason to have the audio recording of Mr. Longworth's last moments," Black said.

But lead prosecutor Denise Robinson told the judge the photos and the recordings were necessary to convey the cause and manner of Longworth's death. She said prosecutors will limit the amount of the grim material. But, outside of court, Robinson said such material is hard to avoid — since the victims in the case died.

Marnocha said he will wait until the evidence comes up in trial before deciding whether to expose jurors to the material. One possibility, he acknowledged, is that the audio could be used, in the event of a guilty verdict, to assess the impact of the crime on the victim before sentencing.

The issues were handled during a hearing in St. Joseph County, where the trial was moved because of the extensive media coverage in Indianapolis of the November 2012 explosion, and of the arrests of Leonard and his co-defendants.

Leonard is charged with two counts of murder — those of Longworth and his wife Jennifer — and more than 40 counts of arson in connection with the blast that also injured about a dozen people, and damaged or destroyed about 80 homes.

Prosecutors allege Leonard, his half-brother Robert Leonard, ex-girlfriend Monserrate Shirley, and Mark Leonard's former employee Gary Thompson conspired to blow up Shirley's home in the Southeastside subdivision of Richmond Hill to collect insurance money to pay for mounting gambling and credit card debts and Shirley's heavily mortgaged home.

Shirley pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for agreeing to testify for the prosecution. Part of Wednesday's hearing was devoted to how much evidence should be allowed regarding Shirley's fear of Mark Leonard, whom prosecutors consider the mastermind of the plot.

The court will begin jury selection Thursday, and opening arguments are slated for Monday.

While coverage of the case has been much less extensive in South Bend, Marnocha noted that his own eye doctor in South Bend knew someone from the Richmond Hill neighborhood. Then there's coverage accessible through the Internet. Still, attorneys say they're confident an unbiased jury can be pulled from St. Joseph County.

That process begins Thursday.

Call Robert King at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter at @RbtKing.