The following appears courtesy of the 6/2/99 online edition of The San
Rizzo says he only meant to hurt himself
By John Tedesco and Karisa King
Express-News Staff Writers
Recovering from a police standoff last week that left him critically
wounded, a
remorseful Leonard Rizzo said Wednesday he only planned to harm himself
when he
pointed a derringer at a San Antonio SWAT officer, who then opened fire
on him.
"I honestly can't tell you what happened," Rizzo said in an interview
from his
hospital room at Brooke Army Medical Center, where he is listed in
stable
condition recovering from a bullet wound to the abdomen. "I had no
intention of
shooting him. I had no intention of shooting anyone other than myself.
All I
had was a little derringer."
Rizzo, 47, held police at bay for four hours Saturday at his trailer on
the
5400 block of Copperhead Trail after a violent argument between him and
his
girlfriend, Susan McDaniel.
Meanwhile, McDaniel said Wednesday she still loves the man who she said
stabbed
her, threatened to cut her into pieces, place the remains in a bag and
bury
them.
"I do love the man," McDaniel said, adding she is willing to retract her
statement to police. "What happened, I didn't want to happen. I don't
understand why he did what he did. I'd like to hear from him."
Rizzo said Wednesday the fight was over crucial information McDaniel had
about
the whereabouts of his missing wife, Monika.
Monika Rizzo last was seen May 5, 1997, when she walked out of her
office at
the city's Department of Human Services, leaving behind her purse.
Two months later, on July 4, a San Antonio homicide detective received a
tip
that human remains were in the back yard of the Rizzos' Pecan Valley
home on
the 4400 block of Forest Green Street.
Rizzo's son gave officers permission to search the property — where they
found
human bones, hair and body fluids in the back yard and barbecue pit,
according
to a search warrant affidavit.
Today, police believe at least a portion of the hundreds of bone
fragments
belong to Monika Rizzo, but they haven't declared the case a homicide,
pending
the results of further DNA testing.
Steve Hansen, chief investigator at the Bexar County medical examiner's
office,
said DNA tests being made at the Armed Forces Institute in Washington,
D.C.,
finally may determine whether the bones are Monika Rizzo's.
Investigators shipped the bones last year to the Washington laboratory,
but
haven't received a written report on tests results.
"As soon as the official results are delivered to the San Antonio Police
Department's homicide unit, we will have the information with which to
properly
respond to questions about this case," police officials said Wednesday.
Conflicting statements attributed to police officials commenting on
earlier DNA
tests in the Rizzo case added to doubts about what really happened to
Monika
Rizzo.
At one point, a police official said the bones may be the remains of
more than
one person, but an earlier autopsy concluded the bones were those of one
adult
female.
Leonard Rizzo, garbed in a turquoise hospital gown and under the
watchful eyes
of a hospital administrator and a Bexar County deputy, said McDaniel
claimed to
have seen his wife — alive.
Their conversation escalated into a fight Friday when Rizzo pressed her
for
more information and she kept changing her story, he said.
"She claimed to have basically run into her (Monika), here and there,
and a
couple other places, even out of state," Rizzo said, refusing to specify
the
locations.
McDaniel, 38, denied Rizzo's claims that she had taunted him with
knowledge of
his missing wife Friday.
Rizzo was arrested Friday at 6:23 p.m. when police responded to a
domestic
disturbance call and found McDaniel bleeding and running from the
trailer.
Charged with assault with bodily injury, Rizzo was freed six hours later
and
returned to the trailer after a friend posted $3,500 bond.
A second fight erupted between the couple when Rizzo came home.
Shaken and bloody, McDaniel went to a convenience store Saturday morning
and
called police to escort her back to the trailer to retrieve her
belongings.
The woman told police that Rizzo threatened to "kill her, chop her up,
put her
in a garbage bag and bury her," according to a police report.
Rizzo said his girlfriend had stabbed herself — a charge McDaniel
denied.
McDaniel said that when she met Rizzo in March, he wasn't shy about
revealing
his infamy as the man whose back yard contained bones thought to belong
to his
missing wife.
"I felt sorry for him. He laid it on me that he was a victim here," she
said.
"He's very convincing.
"He's cried over and over to me about his wife, that he misses her,"
McDaniel
said, adding she believes his innocence.
Rizzo said their relationship was nothing serious but often turbulent.
"We were going out, but it doesn't particularly mean that she was my
girlfriend," Rizzo said. "She had baggage in her life that I didn't care
to be
involved in."
A May 3 police report states Rizzo called police and told the responding
officer that his exgirlfriend wouldn't leave. She left without incident,
according to the report.
On Saturday, when an officer escorted the woman to get her things, Rizzo
answered the door — a derringer in hand. He was distraught over his
missing
wife, he later told the San Antonio Express-News.
The police officer retreated with the woman, and police cleared out
surrounding
homes.
Rizzo stood on his porch, drinking a diet RC Cola, pointing the
derringer at
his head, laughing at police.
The standoff ended, police said, when Rizzo fired a round in an unknown
direction, then reportedly pointed the gun at a SWAT officer, who shot
him once
in the abdomen.
Rizzo was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer and later
with
possession of a controlled substance after paramedics reported finding a
plastic bag with a substance believed to be methamphetamines in Rizzo's
pocket.
Rizzo denied being on drugs at the time and said his girlfriend had made
up the
story that he threatened to chop her into pieces.
Meanwhile, Bill McKinney, Monika Rizzo's father, has lost patience with
each
new surge in the case.
He faults police bungling and mismanagement of the investigation for the
fact
no suspect has been arrested.
In August 1998, his wife, Monika McKinney, went to police with five
pages of
written questions about the investigation. That was before the McKinneys
learned about conflicting DNA results from the Bexar County medical
examiner's
office and the Dallasbased GeneScreen Labs Inc.
"There's absolutely no coordination whatsoever," McKinney said.
Staff Writer Bill Hendricks contributed to this report.
Wednesday, Jun 2,1999
------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 5/29/99 online edition of The
San
Rizzo shot by police during standoff
By Adolfo Pesquera
Express-News Staff Writer
A violent Friday night brawl between Leonard Rizzo and his girlfriend
resumed
Saturday morning, ending in an armed confrontation with police that left
Rizzo
critically wounded.
According to police and witnesses, Rizzo, 47, husband of Monika Rizzo,
now
missing for two years, taunted police for four hours while he held a
small
caliber handgun to his head, loudly threatening suicide as he sipped a
diet RC
Cola on the porch of a trailer home in the 5400 block of Copperhead
Trail on
the Southeast Side.
At 11:05 a.m. Saturday, a Special Weapons and Tactics officer fired a
single
shot when Rizzo pointed his gun at the officer.
Rizzo was in critical condition Saturday at Brooke Army Medical Center
with a
bullet injury to the lower abdomen. He was to be charged by proxy for
aggravated assault on a public servant.
Looking scraggly and, according to one neighbor, as if he hadn't slept
in three
days, Rizzo was arrested at 6:23 p.m. Friday after police responded to a
domestic disturbance call at the trailer.
He was freed about six hours later and returned to the trailer after a
friend
posted his $3,500 bond for a charge of assault with bodily injury.
"He tried to kill me," cried a distraught woman with short blonde hair,
wearing
blue jeans, a black Tshirt and identified by a friend as 'Cycle Sue.'
"He stabbed me all over the body. He beat me with a hammer."
She made the statements to reporters and a dozen neighbors at the scene
after
Rizzo was shot.
Bill McKinney, father of Rizzo's missing wife, found himself in the odd
position of hoping the man he has held responsible for his daughter's
disappearance would come through this latest crisis alive.
After receiving a phone call from a neighbor, McKinney put down his
coffee and
flew out the door as his wife was heading for the shower, he said.
"I don't want anything to happen to Mr. Rizzo this morning. Ending it
here does
not end our grief. He's the answer man and someday he's going to get our
questions answered," McKinney said.
McKinney stood vigil along with residents of Copperhead Trail, who were
rousted
from their homes by police securing the area around Rizzo.
The standoff began after Rizzo returned to the trailer and a second
fight
flared up between the couple. The girlfriend walked to a convenience
store
several blocks away and called police to escort her back into the
trailer to
retrieve her belongings, said Randy Lee Grissom, an acquaintance of
Rizzo.
According to police dispatch records, the woman said her "boyfriend beat
her up
yesterday, he's back and threatening to kill her."
An officer arrived at the convenience store at 7:15 a.m. and escorted
her to
the trailer home. Police said Rizzo came to the porch with a gun and the
officer retreated with the woman.
Greg Lambert, who lives next door to the trailer Rizzo moved into less
than two
weeks ago, said he watched the standoff through his window for about 30
minutes
before police moved him out.
"He was standing on the front porch, drinking a diet RC Cola, with a
derringer
pointed to his head. He was yelling at them, saying, 'What do you want?'
laughing at the cops," Lambert said.
Police Department spokesman Al Ballew said crisis negotiators had just
gotten a
phone delivered to Rizzo, "so that they wouldn't have to yell back and
forth,"
when Rizzo ran into the back yard.
"The suspect fired one shot and immediately ran to the back chain link
fence
and pointed the weapon at a SWAT officer, who, in fear of his life,
fired one
shot," Ballew said.
Paramedics standing by immediately were brought to the yard to
administer aid
to Rizzo.
Ballew said Rizzo was to be charged with aggravated assault of a public
servant
(police officer).
Rizzo moved to Copperhead Trail only after police forcibly evicted him
May 19
from his home in the 4400 block of Forest Green Street.
In the summer of 1997, Rizzo's home was the scene of a sensational
search for
human bones.
At one point police claimed the bone fragments belonged to as many as
four
people, but the county's chief medical examiner since has said there's
no proof
there was material from more than one person.
Police say they believe the remains are from Monika Rizzo; however, they
don't
have enough evidence to assert she was murdered or even dead.
Police acknowledge her husband has been a suspect, but Rizzo always has
insisted his wife still is alive.
The day he was evicted, Rizzo was arrested for failure to pay a fine on
a
misdemeanor conviction resulting from a zoning violation; he had let the
grass
on his lawn grow too high.
Police were set to release Rizzo when two plastic bags fell from his
pants leg.
Police allege tests determined that one bag was found to contain
methamphetamine, and a drug possession charge was tacked on.
Saturday, May 29,1999
----------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 5/30/99 online edition of The
San
Woman told cops Rizzo threatened to 'chop her up'
By Karisa King
Express-News Staff Writer
Hours before police ended a standoff with Leonard Rizzo by shooting him
in the
stomach, his current girlfriend alleged the man whose back yard
contained
chopped up bone fragments told her he'd cut her into pieces, police
said.
The girlfriend, recovering from wounds Rizzo allegedly inflicted during
a
Friday night argument, asked police Saturday to accompany her to the
trailer
they shared on the Southeast Side so she could collect her belongings.
The 38-year-old woman told police Rizzo threatened to "kill her, chop
her up,
put her in a garbage bag and bury her," a police report stated.
Rizzo, 47, of the 5400 block of Copperhead Trail was listed in stable
condition
at Brooke Army Medical Center on Sunday recovering from a single gunshot
wound
in his abdomen.
Rizzo was shot after reportedly holding a police SWAT team at bay for
four
hours Saturday morning, running around his yard waving a small caliber
gun in
the air, challenging police and shouting that he planned to kill
himself.
According to police, Rizzo fired his gun once in an unknown direction,
then
pointed it at the officer who shot him.
Rizzo was being held without bond, charged with aggravated assault on a
police
officer. Police tacked on a charge of possession of a controlled
substance
after paramedics reported finding a plastic bag with 1.5 grams of a
substance
believed to be methamphetamines in the pocket of Rizzo's jeans.
Rizzo had been charged with another count of possession of
methamphetamines 10
days earlier, after being arrested for failure to pay a fine on a
misdemeanor
conviction.
It was the latest chapter in a bizarre mystery that began two years ago
when
Rizzo's 44-year-old wife, Monika, walked out of her office at the
Department of
Human Services and never returned, leaving her purse behind. Rizzo never
reported her missing.
In July 1997, investigators found 300 bits of bone and flesh in Rizzo's
barbecue pit and back yard at the couple's former home on Forest Green
Street.
Police said DNA tests indicate some of the bone fragments belong to
Rizzo's
wife.
Responding to calls from neighbors, police Friday found Rizzo's
girlfriend
covered in blood and running down the street three blocks away from
their home.
But when police asked about a bleeding gash on her left palm, Rizzo's
girlfriend said she'd cut herself with a kitchen knife. Asked why she'd
been
outside yelling when police arrived, she said she'd been chasing a dog
that had
gotten out of the fenced yard.
A witness nearby when the argument flared said Rizzo asked his
girlfriend where
she'd buried his wife, then began yelling.
Rizzo's girlfriend told police Rizzo also accused her of killing his
wife.
On Sunday, Rizzo's girlfriend was at home. She declined to comment for
this
story.
Sunday, May 30,1999