YELLOW SPRINGS CASE DETAILS ADD MYSTERY
Yellow Springs man’s cleaned jacket, debit card were both found.
Seven months after Leonid Clark went missing in Yellow Springs and nearly four months since Greene County launched a homicide investigation into his death, the family is still waiting for answers.
While Greene County investigators said they are confident the case will be solved, new details have emerged that heighten the mystery into Clark’s death.
According to Eric and Jackie Clark, Leonid’s adoptive parents, a jacket they believe Leonid was wearing the day he disappeared, Jan. 13, showed up about a month later in their carport. Eric Clark said it was stuffed under patio furniture that was stored for winter, and the jacket was discovered after a wind storm blew the stack of furniture down.
The Clarks said the jacket had been cleaned because “Lonya lived in it” and it would have smelled of smoke.
Four days before Leonid’s body was discovered, someone found Leonid’s debit card on the Antioch College campus near where a reported break-in occurred. The card was relatively clean and didn’t appear to have been in the elements for months, according to the Clarks.
Among the many questions for the Clarks, they wondered, “Why does (the jacket) show up just as clean like it had never been worn? Why does his stuff show up in weird places completely clean?”
Eric Clark said the card was given to him, and he turned it over to Yellow Springs police.
“Our opinion is that someone had Lonya’s wallet, broke into the science building, dropped his card to be found and thus making it look like Lonya was responsible, even though it’s clear he had been deceased for quite a while,” Eric Clark said.
While the parents wait for answers and news of an arrest, their 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son are receiving counseling. The Clarks said when they are in town, people appear to be “walking on egg shells” around them, afraid to ask questions. Eric Clark said they just don’t have many answers to provide.
The relevance of the debit card and the jacket is unclear to the homicide investigation. Capt. Sean Magoteaux said the jacket was taken into evidence, and tests are being done on it to determine if it can provide any clues to what happened.
Detective Duane Gilbert is working the case full-time and Deputy Tom Sexton, a former Yellow Springs police officer, is also working on the case.
Magoteaux said they’ve conducted at least 50 interviews, worked “countless man hours” and noted leads continue to come into the office and are followed.
“We are looking at a couple of individuals that we feel strongly about,” Magoteaux said. “These types of cases go more smoothly with the help of the public. I am confident it will be solved.”
Magoteaux said the possible suspects in the case are still believed to be in the area.
“At this point, all options are open. It’s possible that more than one person is involved,” he said.
The Greene County Sheriff ’s Office has not released details of how Clark was killed. Magoteaux said that information has not been released in an effort to preserve the integrity of the case.
“Only the person would know how it was done,” Magoteaux said.
Clark’s body was discovered April 12 along the bank of the Little Miami River in the Glen Helen Nature Preserve. Investigators believe the body had been dumped upriver and high waters carried the body downstream.
Magoteaux said the Grinnel Road bridge, which spans about a quarter-mile upstream from where the body was found, is the possible dump site.
From 2010 until his disappearance in January, Leonid Clark was involved in 40 calls for emergency service, either for police or medics, according to Police Chief Brian Carlson.
Eighteen of those calls occurred from 2017 to 2019, Carlson said.
“The majority of t he interactions were assisting Mr. Clark with food vouchers, clothes and a place to stay (PD Lobby) when the weather was too cold,” Carlson said.
The Clarks said Leonid was troubled through much of his adult life, and he was first diagnosed as schizophrenic when he ran into trouble in Missouri while returning from a trip to Colorado. They said he received the same diagnosis in November 2018 when he was admitted for about a week at a local psychiatric hospital.
“When he was on medication he was OK. He accepted the diagnosis. He talked openly and we had good conversations. When he was off his meds, he thought he had ADHD. He wouldn’t believe that he was schizophrenic,” Jackie Clark said.
Whether real or imagined, Leonid Clark often acted paranoid, talking about conspiracy theories, according to his parents.
Eric Clark said he wants to know the truth.
“I suspect there’s a dozen people that know exactly what happened and where he was,” Eric Clark said. “If people know something and are too afraid to say something, I think that’s telling too. There’s a murderer out there who’s scaring people ... It’s frightening.”
A $5,000 reward is being offered for information that helps investigators solve the case. To provide a tip, call the sheriff ’s tip line at (937) 5624819 or call Detective Gilbert directly at (937) 562-4813.