Arrest in 1979 killing prompts questions

Don “Mother” Chambers, founder of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, lived long enough to make peace with the death of his son near the Astrodome 36 years ago but not long enough to see the recent arrest in the decades-old case.

The booking of an elderly Ohio man for the fatal 1979 shooting, however, is sparking more questions than answers.

Do authorities have the right man? And what prompted interest in the case more than a generation later?

The Chambers family waits to see if after all these years they’ll have answers.

“I’d like to look at him personally and say, ‘Why did you do that?’ ” Donna Chambers said last week after learning about the arrest in her brother’s death.

Defense attorneys, however, are adamant the wrong man was arrested and are pushing for the charges to be dropped.

“This is someone that has unfortunately been arrested for something he truly didn’t do,” lawyer Catherine Samaan said. “He has been misidentified.”

Leon Dudley, 69, of Ohio, was arrested in June on a decades-old warrant, shackled and shipped in chains by bus to Houston.

After 12 days in transit and a week in a Harris County jail, a state district judge here released him on minimal bond — $30,000 for a murder charge. He was allowed to return to Ohio on the condition he check in regularly by phone.

Dudley has no criminal record aside from traffic violations, according to police. He is married and has

lived in Ohio for decades.

Samaan said when Dudley heard that police had been to his door looking for him, he went to the station to ask what they wanted.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the arrest but said it is reviewing evidence.

Stephen Chambers was killed in the early morning hours of Nov. 3, 1979, outside the Dome Shadows nightclub, where his wife worked as a waitress.

Chambers and his brother-in-law, Charles Philleo, were outside the nightclub when Chambers’ wife reportedly got into an argument in the parking lot. It ended with shots fired by a man with a handgun in a 1973 Mercury sedan. Chambers was shot in the head and died later at Ben Taub Hospital. Philleo was shot in the jaw but survived; he died years later of natural causes.

The shooter fled the scene. Investigators said at the time that the shooter did not appear to have a specific target.

Suspect ‘subdued’

Police said Dudley was identified in a photo lineup and was fingered by his roommate, who said he was in the car with Dudley and saw him open fire, police said. Dudley was believed to have left the city shortly after the shooting.

An aging Harris County court file contains indictments for murder and attempted murder issued Nov. 15, 1979, and the original warrant for the arrest of Leon “Stash” Dudley.

A typed “Defendant Description” sheet describes him as having a “heavy” build on his 6-foot-1-inch frame but notes that authorities were unable to make an arrest because of “insufficient defendant descriptors.”

Samaan said her client didn’t do it. She indicated the problem is rooted in the original case investigation but declined to be specific and declined to let Dudley speak to the Chronicle.

“My duty at this point is to my client, and I’m going to take care of him,” Samaan said. “I’m sure people can understand the horror right now. He’s a good man with a good family.”

Houston Police Detective Darcus Shorten said Cold Case Unit investigators were not actively searching for a suspect in the case when the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force found an address for a Leon Dudley near Cincinnati.

Shorten described Dudley as “subdued” when questioned by police, saying he had limited conversation and did not discuss the shooting.

Chambers said her father — who founded the Bandidos in Houston in 1966 and died in 1999 — said there was no tie between the Bandidos and her brother’s death.

At the time of his son’s death, Don Chambers was in prison for a double murder near El Paso over a drug deal but was temporarily allowed out to attend the funeral.

Chambers said she’d heard about the argument outside the Dome Shadows and that her former sisterin-law, who is white, may have fired off some racial epithets.

‘No animosity’

Chambers said she lost contact with the woman long ago and has nothing to do with her.

She said she long struggled with her brother’s death but that her mother, who died in 2013, took it hardest.

“The person I don’t think was ever at peace with my brother’s murder was my mom,” Chambers said. “She used to say, ‘You don’t know what it is like to lose a child.’ ”

Chambers said she’ll wait and see what happens in court regarding Dudley or whoever killed her brother.

“One thing I have learned from this, (the killer) has to live with what he did, not me,” she said. “I have to live without my brother.”

Jeff Pike, a recent president of the Bandidos who lives in Conroe, said the club has no issue with Dudley.

“We have no animosity toward this guy,” Pike said. “I didn’t even know Don had a son.”