Neighbor charged in Kansas boy’s death was ‘somebody we trusted,’ grieving dad says
The man accused of dumping Airen Andula’s body in a Missouri creek bed was no stranger, but a trusted neighbor who’d pay the teen to help with chores, the boy’s father said.
While a massive search was underway for the missing Kansas seventh-grader last month, authorities say Damon B. Leonard, 47, held the secret to his whereabouts. But for nearly a day, he never said a word, not even when Charles “Jody” Andula, Airen’s dad, said he asked his neighbor if he’d seen his son.
“What are you trying to cover up?” Andula said, his pain directed at Leonard. “You went and hid him. Why didn’t you just call 911 for him and they could have helped him or got him help or had a better chance of saving him?”
Leonard, 47, of Linn County, Kansas, now faces charges in both states after allegedly leading authorities to the teen’s body. Airen, 13, died of “multiple dog bite injuries,” according to an autopsy conducted by the Wyandotte County Kansas Coroner’s Office. It isn’t clear when Airen, the boy who loved Hot Wheels and Legos and could easily make friends, died.
In an hour-long call with The Star, Airen’s father described the fear he felt when he couldn’t find his son last month in the Holiday Lakes community near Pleasanton, Kansas, about an hour south of Kansas City. And he shared the shock and pain that engulfed him and his family when they learned Airen’s body was found and their neighbor was charged with abandoning it across state lines.
Authorities have released few details in the case and haven’t said what led up to the teen’s death and how and when the dog attack occurred. The family, though, knows Airen was “mauled so bad,” Andula said, that they couldn’t have an open casket.
When asked for more information about the circumstances of the dog attack, a spokesperson with the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department referred questions to Linn County prosecutors. Linn County Attorney, Justin Meeks, declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
The Star also requested the probable cause affidavit describing what led to the charges against Leonard in Linn County. His charges there include interference with law enforcement, criminal desecration and having a vicious dog at large, according to a news release from KCK police.
“At this time, after reviewing relevant law the court denies the Request for Disclosure of an Affidavit or Sworn Testimony,” the Linn County district court said.
Now Airen’s family waits to hear what will happen to Leonard as they try to understand the neighbor’s actions four days before Christmas.
“I thought he was a good guy,” Airen’s father said. “And I still could have overlooked, you know, the dog attack. That’s just a freak accident, but I can’t forgive him for what he did by trying to hide my kid from us when we were all looking for him.
“Playing along like he didn’t know where he was at when he did know — that’s what I can’t accept.”
‘Somebody we trusted’
Andula’s kids, including Airen, would often go to Leonard’s home to play with his three children. The Leonards would take the Andula kids to the swimming pool, and Leonard himself would often ask the teen to help him around the yard, Airen’s father said.
Leonard was known to have a lot of dogs, with the “nice” ones often chained up outside. He kept other ones contained, Andula said.
“These ones were kept caged or in a house or I don’t know what he did with them,” Andula said. “I know he used to say, ‘Have the kids call or text before you come up so I can put the dogs up.’
“... He knew they were bad dogs.”
But, still, Andula said Leonard was “somebody we trusted.” And Airen liked helping him.
“Damon did so much with that kid,” the father said. Their neighbor would say, “’Hey can I come get Airen? We’ll cut some wood down, I’ll pay him. I could use his help.’”
And Airen “always wanted to jump on it,” his father said, and accept the jobs.
“He lived to help people,” Andula said.
Anita Gunn, Airen’s mom who was with Andula during the call, piped in. She said her son “liked learning new things.”
“The last thing we did with him, that Saturday, the day before, he went with us to go cut down our Christmas tree,” Gunn said. “He never got to see that done before so it thrilled him.”
Her son, she said, was so excited for Christmas. He’d been eyeing a big present, wrapped in racing car paper, with his name on it.
“He asked every day, ‘Can I open it?’” Gunn said. His parents knew he would love the large Hot Wheels track.
At some point, while family and friends and law enforcement were searching for Airen, Leonard allegedly called the Bates County Sheriff’s Office and said the boy was dead and led deputies to his body, according to court records.
Leonard is scheduled for a counsel status hearing Thursday morning in Bates County, Missouri.
Andula said he’s thinking about going and just standing at the back of the courtroom and staring at him, seeing if he has anything to say.
“I want him to suffer like I’m going to for the rest of my life,” Andula said. “To live with the guilt. I brought my son down here to protect my family, get them away from the city life, get them down here.
“And then this happened. I feel like I failed to protect my own son.”
The day Airen didn’t come home
The seventh-grader left home on his bike that Sunday morning — on Dec. 21 — around 8. He was headed to his best friend’s house to feed the family’s dogs while they were away.
By 10 that morning, the teen wasn’t back yet. And his father, who had expected his son home by then, wondered where he could be.
“I got on my bike,” Andula said, “and went rolling around to go see if maybe he’s in his friend’s house playing on the computer.”
As Airen’s father approached Leonard’s home, he could see his neighbor outside, burning brush. The neighbor didn’t come over to Andula like he typically would. He just kept doing what he was doing, Andula said.
“I said, ‘Have you seen Airen?’” Andula recalled asking Leonard. “He said, ‘Yeah, he went up the hill this morning … I caught him going back down toward the dumpster.”
Andula said Leonard told him he didn’t know if Airen “‘went toward the woods or back toward you all’s house.’”
As the hours ticked by that Dec. 21 afternoon, Andula’s worry only intensified. Others in the lakeside community helped him search, going door to door and into the woods.
“We were taking our separate trips,” Andula said. “We went in as a group. We went out separately, just taking all the trails back here in our woods.
“I was crying before I even knew my son was really missing. ... The not knowing is more scary than knowing.“
A couple more times that day, others searching for Airen asked Leonard if he knew where the teen was. He said he didn’t, Andula said.
It just didn’t make sense that they couldn’t find Airen.
“I could yell for him or his sisters and they could be on the other side of the lake, and they would be home in about 10 minutes,” Andula said. “So I knew something was containing him. He was either in a vehicle going across state lines or trapped in somebody’s house or he was hurt really bad somewhere.”
That was the “only explanation,” Andula said.
“Because he would have been home, especially by noon,” he said. “He would have been thirsty. He would have been wanting a snack, a candy bar.
“I mean, I just know my son.”
At 6:20 that night, Andula reported his son missing. The search only grew bigger, with law enforcement helping.
With no sign of the teen, authorities suspended the search around 2 a.m. They planned to pick it back up in the daylight.
Lingering questions and pain
Before 11 a.m. the next day, Linn County Sheriff James Akes got a call from Bates County, Missouri.
Akes told The Star that the person on the phone told Akes that “they had a man in custody in connection with the disappearance of the 13-year-old.”
When Akes learned the man in custody was Leonard, whose family was heavily involved in the Linn County community — his mom is a former county commissioner and his stepbrother the former sheriff — he said he knew there was a conflict of interest for his office and he needed outside help.
“I can’t have anybody say, ‘Well, he got off of that because his mom is so and so,’” Akes said. “‘He got off on those charges, or he didn’t get charged, because his mom, or his stepbrother, Kevin, was the ex-sheriff.’ I’m not going to have that.”
So Akes made a phone call to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. But the bureau had a conflict as well. The former Linn County sheriff, Kevin Friend, is now a KBI agent.
So the bureau asked the KCK police department to take the lead.
Even after authorities located Airen’s body down a large ravine in rural Bates County, many questions lingered. Andula goes through some of them in his mind.
“When I was looking for him, where was he at, Damon?” Andula asked, directing his question to his neighbor. “That’s what I want to know. Where was my son at when I was up there asking you have you seen my son?
“Where were you hiding him? Because you didn’t have time to get him off the property yet.”
And Andula thinks back to when authorities paused the search that first night.
“Is that when he finally decided to get him off of the premises?” Andula said. “Little stuff like that I want to know. I don’t want to know how bad he was ripped up. But then again, did he coach the dogs to go attack him or did the dog just attack him? Did he try to stop it?”
He said he hopes his son didn’t suffer.
“I hope it was like one quick one to his juggler or something,” Andula said. “That’s what I’ve been told, but I don’t know if they’re just telling me that to ease my mind.
“I didn’t even get to see my son before we said goodbye. We couldn’t even identify him, he was that bad. They didn’t recommend it.”
The parents were told they could hold his hand, but they declined.
Andula said he just wanted the memory “I still had in my head at the moment.” Of his son’s smile and “cheesy, smart remarks,” he said.
“He was so loved,” Airen’s father said, his voice breaking. “He loved everybody. He didn’t have no enemies. Even if you picked on him he would still be your friend. That was his attitude.”
Life without Airen
Their son’s been gone for about three weeks now. The family never got to decorate the spruce tree that they cut down that last night they all were together.
“It’s out here in the yard still,” Andula said. “In a bucket. Never carried it in.”
Airen also never got to open that big gift covered in racing car paper that he couldn’t wait to unwrap.
His sisters accidentally opened it, thinking it was for all of them, the parents said. Airen’s other presents are still wrapped and put up. His parents say they may take those gifts out each year and put them under the tree, a symbol that their son and brother will always be with them.
When they brought Airen’s ashes home, the urn sat on the couple’s dresser for about a week. Now, it’s in the living room so everyone who comes over can see it and remember the sweet boy whose life was cut so short he never got to finish the seventh grade.
By the urn, Andula said, is a picture of their son that someone painted with angel wings behind him.
“The community has been so great,” Andula said. “That’s the only thing keeping me together right now is this community. Their support, their love, their comments.
“This little boy touched everybody’s heart.”
Airen’s dad started to cry:
“A very good kid, (he) would do anything for anybody. He was so sweet. All he wanted to do was be liked,” Andula said. “I look at him every night and every morning. Wake up in the middle of the night, if I’m not crying, she’s crying. He’s our baby.”
There are still moments when he just tears up thinking of what was taken away.
Before his son’s memorial service, the family mentioned how much Airen loved cars and Nascar. They thought it would be cool if a few people with nice vehicles would have a parade of sorts in honor of the teen.
“They ended up finding 25 locals that were willing to do that,” Andula said.
Gunn posted a video on Facebook of the parade on Facebook:
“My sons parade of racecars n trucks n motorcycles,” she wrote. “It was epic.”
Others posted about the video, too.
“It was an amazing tribute to an amazing young man,” one man wrote. “I’m sure he was in awe and loved it.”
Just another example, the couple said, of the community support they’ve received.
As Andula put it: “I know he was smiling.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2026 at 10:48 AM.
