Richmond Hill suspect Monserrate Shirley to testify today against ex-boyfriend

SOUTH BEND — Jurors in the Richmond Hill trial are expected to hear Wednesday morning from a woman who prosecutors say was part of the plot to blow up her home with natural gas -- a blast that killed two neighbors and devastated a Far-Southside Indianapolis subdivision

Monserrate Shirley is scheduled to testify in the murder trial of her ex-boyfriend, Mark Leonard. She became one of the prosecution's key witnesses after accepting a plea deal earlier this year.

Although Shirley's testimony is key to strongly establishing Leonard as the mastermind of the arson scheme and will give jurors an idea of what he was thinking and saying around the time of the explosion, Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Denise Robinson said the prosecutors' case does not hinge on that testimony.

Robinson also said Shirley's testimony isn't critical for prosecutors to get the ultimate punishment they want for Leonard: a life in prison without parole.

"Her testimony is a piece of the puzzle," Robinson said, adding that prosecutors believed that they had strong case to obtain that sentence even before Shirley agreed to cooperate.

Prosecutors requested life imprisonment without parole for Leonard in February 2013, about two years before Shirley accepted the plea deal.

Leonard's sister testified Tuesday that he sent her an elated message the night of the fatal explosion, claiming he had won a huge jackpot at an Indiana casino.

Tammy Leonard Durham said she received a text message from Leonard the night of Nov. 10, 2012, saying he and his then-girlfriend, Shirley, were at a casino and had just won $250,000.

However, testimony from a gaming agent for the Indiana Gaming Commission indicated Leonard had only briefly played a game of blackjack at the Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg and had lost $100. Durham also said her brother messaged her to come and celebrate with him and that he would send a limo to pick her up. She also testified that Leonard mentioned flying to Las Vegas with Shirley and a doctor friend they had met at the casino.

The rest of Tuesday's testimony focused on trying to establish what prosecutors say was the motive for the fatal blast: money.

Prosecutors say Leonard is the mastermind of a scheme to blow up Shirley's house to collect about $300,000 in insurance money. Leonard, 46, is on trial on 53 charges, including murder, arson and conspiracy to commit arson.

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A reluctant witness, Durham said she was "forced here today" to testify because of her memory of those texts. Under questioning by public defender David Shircliff, Durham said her cell phone is now broken, so text messages the night of the explosion couldn't be retrieved and her testimony had to be based solely on her memory of the text messages.

Durham avoided looking at Leonard throughout her testimony. When Robinson asked her to identify Leonard and describe what he was wearing, Durham didn't move her head to look at him and only moved her eyes to the left toward the defense table.

Alan Strange, a forensic auditor for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified that Leonard and Shirley, who are both suspects in the explosion, were having financial difficulties around the time leading up to the blast. Strange said the two were living paycheck to paycheck, had a combined debt of up to $400,000 and sometimes relied on credit card cash advances.

A majority of that debt, about $300,000, was Shirley's and stemmed from a heavily mortgaged home she had once shared with her ex-husband and the dismissal of a bankruptcy filing. Strange said Shirley and Leonard's bank account was overdrawn on a few occasions, and Shirley was habitually late — sometimes by up to three months — on her mortgage payments. Leonard owed thousands of dollars in a civil lawsuit, Strange testified, and his business, Mastercraft Restoration LLC, was not producing enough cash flow. Any cash deposited to their bank accounts was used right away.

Mary Rose-Weston, an Indianapolis real-estate agent, testified that Shirley's house was listed for a short sale of $149,900 in March 2011. Rose-Weston said an offer of $140,000 was made in November 2011, but Shirley decided not to sell and the house was taken off the market a month later.

Casino officials also testified that Leonard and Shirley were at Hollywood Casino for at least 12 hours before Shirley's home at 8349 Fieldfare Way exploded around 11 p.m.

Bret Bastable, a gaming agent for the Indiana Gaming Commission, said casino records show that Leonard only played a game of blackjack for about nine minutes. He said Leonard and Shirley spent a majority of their time at an entertainment area called Hollywood on the Roof.

Video surveillance showed the two sitting at the bar for hours.

Parts of the video were played in court. The video showed Leonard and Shirley walking toward the casino around 12:30 p.m. on the day of the explosion. It also showed Leonard playing a blackjack game. Shortly before 1 p.m., the two walked over to Hollywood on the Roof, where they stayed until close to midnight.

At about 11:45 p.m. — shortly after Shirley's home exploded — she is seen on the phone, wandering around the casino. Witnesses testified over the past weeks that Shirley spoke on the phone with a few Richmond Hill residents shortly after the explosion.

Leonard and Shirley left the casino just before midnight. They went to the casino's hotel, got their car from the valet parking attendant and drove off shortly afterward.

Prosecutors also said they plan to rest their case on July 8 or July 9, and then Leonard's defense team will take testimony from their witnesses. The trial's quick progression means that a verdict could be reached within two weeks.

Witnesses have testified that Shirley's home was filled with natural gas, an excessive amount more than twice the home's normal gas consumption around the time of the blast. Prosecutors say the gas was ignited with a timing device on a microwave.

Shirley's next-door neighbors, John Dion and Jennifer Longworth, were killed in the explosion. Dion Longworth's parents and one of his sisters were at Tuesday's hearing.

Call Star reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444-6209. Follow her on Twitter:@kristine_guerra.