KILLER’S WRITING
Denver slay-spree fiend penned brutal books
Lyndon McLeod appeared to bring his gruesome self-published novels to life during a deadly rampage that targeted tattoo shops around Denver.
McLeod, 47, was identified Tuesday as the shooter in a crosscity “killing spree” that left five dead and three injured, including a police officer. McLeod was fatally gunned down by cops.
Denver police Chief Paul Pazen said McLeod had been “on the radar of law enforcement” and under investigation in 2020 and 2021. No charges were ever filed and Pazen didn’t specify the nature of the probes.
Books written under a pen name, however, may help shed light on McLeod’s leanings ahead of the shooting spree.
A three-book series called “Sanction,” written under the pseudonym Roman McClay and self-published under Flat Black Ink Corp., McLeod’s old company, recounts violent, misogynistic stories that one Amazon reviewer described as an “800-page altright rant.”
“This book is packed full of rants on diversity, women, and globalization. There are fantasies of killing people involved in the BLM movement, and bizarre threats ... While others may be guilty of ignoring the necessity of violence in some extreme situations, this book fetishizes violence as the great equalizer,” the review reads.
“The only ‘real men’ to the author are men who live in the woods, have skull tattoos, and hunt bears. Anything other than this results in ‘weak men.’ One of the greatest ironies of the book is the supposed pull-yourself-upby-your-bootstraps alpha author whines that the world doesn’t mold itself to his desires.”
The second novel of the series even features a hero named Lyndon McLeod who, armed and sheathed in body armor, kills a young woman in a tattoo parlor. The fictional McLeod also boasted about meeting Unabomber Ted Kaczynski in prison.
“If there is no Unabomber there is no me,” Lyndon tells the reclusive killer in the book, according to Denver’s 9News. “We seek the same thing but from opposite ends of the extreme.”
All three books were published between 2018 and 2020.
“‘Sanction’ is an epic, visceral journey into the dark heart of every man broken by society; the one chewed up and spit out,” reads one review on GoodReads. “What if a man were to put his foot down, stand up, and bellow out with brain and balls and bile: NOT ONE MORE INCH!”
“It may at times be seen as racist, but statistics only tell fact,” reads another.
McLeod began his rampage at a Denver tattoo parlor, where he fatally shot two women, owner Alicia Cardenas, 44, and Alyssa Gunn Maldonado and injured Maldonado’s husband, Jimmy, who worked there and was expected to survive. McLeod then moved to a nearby residence, where he fired but did not injure anyone, and to another home where he wore a police badge and tactical gear and killed a man inside, identified Wednesday as Michael Swinyard, 67.
Denver police officers traded gunfire with McLeod, who escaped and fled to the nearby suburb of Lakewood, where he fatally shot Danny Scofield, 38, inside another tattoo shop.
Police caught up to him again and exchanged fire, at which point McLeod ran on foot into a Hyatt hotel and fatally shot desk clerk Sarah Steck, 28.
Lakewood police cornered McLeod and ordered him to drop his weapon, which he refused to do. McLeod hit one of the officers in the abdomen and she fired back, killing him. The officer was expected to survive.