INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The Latest on the death of the he man who authorities said was the mastermind behind a deadly 2012 house explosion in Indianapolis (all times local):
4:35 p.m.
An Indiana Department of Correction spokesman says a man convicted in connection with a deadly Indianapolis house explosion died of natural causes.
Department spokesman Doug Garrison confirmed the cause of death for 48-year-old Mark Leonard on Tuesday afternoon.
Garrison says Leonard died at an Indianapolis hospital after being transferred from the Wabash Valley Correction Facility in southwestern Indiana. The department initially said he was found dead at the prison, but later clarified he died at the hospital.
An autopsy was planned Wednesday.
Leonard was serving two life sentences without parole, plus 75 years, for the November 2012 natural gas explosion that destroyed his then-girlfriend’s home and killed two next-door neighbors.
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3:36 p.m.
An Indiana Department of Correction spokesman says a man convicted in connection with a deadly Indianapolis house explosion has been found dead.
Department spokesman Doug Garrison says 48-year-old Mark Leonard died Tuesday morning at an Indianapolis hospital. Garrison says the cause of death wasn’t immediately known.
Leonard was convicted in 2015 of murder, arson and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud in the November 2012 natural gas explosion that destroyed his then-girlfriend’s home and killed two next-door neighbors. That blast damaged or destroyed more than 80 homes on Indianapolis’ south side.
Leonard received two life sentences without parole, plus 75 years.
Leonard also was sentenced to an additional 50 years in February 2017 for trying to have a witness killed.
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This story has been corrected to show Leonard died at an Indianapolis hospital, not in prison.
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