Pike County Court House Records

Woman found dead in apartment

By Preston Knight -- pknight@nvdaily.com

WOODSTOCK -- A 53-year-old woman was found dead in her apartment by a neighbor and her landlord Thursday morning, and the Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office is now waiting for a cause of death from the Office of the Medical Examiner.

Carla Sue Leonard, of 18880 Old Valley Pike, was dead when deputies arrived just before 9 a.m., Capt. Tom Hodges said. The case has been classified as an unattended death.

Neighbor Robert Walter and the landlord, who would only give his name as Kenny H., found Leonard and contacted police. Walter said the landlord approached him to notify him that he had not seen Leonard for a couple of days, and the two went to her apartment looking for her.

The apartment is one of three above Gail's General Store, just outside of the town limits.

"I looked in the kitchen window, and she was on the floor, hunched over," said Walter, who turned 40 Thursday. "I yelled, 'Carla, Carla, Carla,' but there was no response. ... I figured she was dead when she didn't respond."

The landlord, who is of Thai descent and by his own admission is not easy to understand, repeatedly said "big trouble" as he talked about Leonard and her boyfriend, Dan Lee Ingham II. For about 30 minutes, he was lamenting in an animated fashion about how often he tried to get police to intervene with his tenants because of their apparent substance abuse problems.

Court records and the Sheriff's Office give some insight into the issues the landlord raised. Last week, Leonard and Ingham, 39, both were charged with assault and battery of a family member after an argument turned physical, according to a complaint filed in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. Leonard was also charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

Ingham has been in the Shenandoah County Jail since the Aug. 14 incident, Hodges said.

Leonard was arrested April 21 and charged with malicious wounding and public drunkenness following a fight with Ingham. A complaint states that she stabbed him with a kitchen knife after an argument about her being drunk became physical. After Ingham called police, Leonard threatened him with a beer bottle, it states. He was treated at the scene, police have said.

Kentucky News: Earthquake Shakes Our Region

(Pikeville, Ky) - A magnitude 5.9 earthquake centered about 30 miles northwest of Richmond, Virginia struck at 1:51pm Tuesday, and was felt all across our region. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was actually felt all across the east coast. Parts of the Pentagon, White House and the Capitol were evacuated, as were most buildings in the city of Pikeville. There were no reports of injuries related to the earthquake. Paul Maynard, Public Service Director for the city of Pikeville said that members of the Pikeville Fire Department conducted inspections of the downtown buildings, and didn't find any major structural issues. He did confirm that a few small cracks were discovered in a stairwell of the Pike County Courthouse, but that structural engineers would be looking at them to make sure they didn't compromise the structural integrity of the building. Because of those small cracks found, the Pike County Courthouse was closed for the remainder of the day Tuesday, but reopened Wednesday morning. East Coast earthquakes are far less common than in the west, but tend to be felt over a much broader area. Tuesday's earthquake of a magnitude 5.9 tied the record for the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Virginia. But, to put things into perspective, Tuesday's quake was 60,000 times less powerful than the one that devestated Japan earlier this year.

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