Kansas files murder charge in case of boy killed by dog. Records hidden from public view
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and the Linn County Attorney’s Office have filed a 2nd degree murder charge against a 47-year-old man whose vicious dogs allegedly mauled his 13-year-old neighbor to death days before Christmas.
On the morning of Dec. 21, 2025, Airen Andula — described as a quiet and conscientious seventh grader from Pleasanton, Kansas — was riding his bicycle from his family’s mobile home along a gravel path when, it is alleged, a vicious dog or dogs owned by their once-trusted neighbor, Damon B. Leonard, allegedly attacked the boy and mauled him to death.
When Airen failed to return home later that morning to his parents, Charles “Jody” Andula, Anita Gunn and his two sisters, his seeming disappearance trigged a massive search by neighbors and multiple law enforcement that lasted late into that Sunday night and into the wee hours of Monday morning.
But later on that Monday, Leonard, 47, contacted police deputies to say that he knew where Airen was and that he was dead.
He said, according to court documents, that he had driven some 30 miles east to Bates County, Missouri, where he deposited the child’s body in a remote, rural area along a creek bed at the bottom of a steep ravine, before returning to his home.
Leonard was arrested that day. He was charged in Bates County, Missouri with abandonment of a corpse and initially pleaded not guilty.
He was charged in Linn County, Kansas with interference with law enforcement, criminal desecration and having a vicious dog at large.
Recent developments in the case
On May 22, after spending 145 days in jail, Leonard pleaded guilty to abandonment of a corpse.
One week later, on Friday, he was sentenced by a Bates County Circuit Court judge to four years in prison, with credit for 152 days served.
One day prior to being sentenced in Bates County, the Linn County Attorney’s Office and the Kansas attorney general expanded on the three previous counts to bring the number to five and include a charge of 2nd degree murder.
That murder charge is a level two felony, which according to Kansas sentencing guidelines carries a sentence of about 15 to 16 1/2 years. Also added was an involuntary manslaughter charge, a level five felony that carries a sentence of about 4 to 4 1/2 years.
The other charges remain the same: felony interference with law enforcement and two misdemeanors: criminal desecration related to the unauthorized control of a dead body and permitting a dangerous animal to be at large.
On Monday, Danedri Herbert, the director of communications of the Kansas attorney general, said no trial date has yet been set.
Nor are there any scheduled upcoming hearings in the case, which has been assigned to Judge Rhonda E. Cole of the 6th Judicial District which oversees Linn, Miami and Bourbon counties.
Lack of transparency
Attempts by The Star to gather additional information on the case, numbered LN-2025-CR-000121, were not successful.
The case, for unexplained reasons, has not been made available to the public on the Kansas Judicial Branch public database, as is common to cases that have not been sealed by a judge or are before a grand jury.
Kobach’s office did not proffer an explanation. The Linn County Clerk’s office said it could neither confirm not deny that the case existed or whether charges had been filed.
Calls to the 6th Judicial District to reach Judge Cole were not returned.
The lack of transparency regarding the case in one of but a number of twists that have occurred since Airen, at about 8 a.m., pedaled from his home just four days before Christmas and took a gravel path around the lake that is central to the Holiday Lakes community east of Pleasanton.
It was supposed to be a 5-minute ride. Airen was headed to the home of his friends, the Clough family, to feed and tend to their pets at the top of a small rise.
He never made it.
What is alleged, is that Airen was attacked and killed by one or more of Leonard’s dogs as Airen approached Leonard’s property located barely 70 feet from the Cloughs’. It was well-known that Leonard had aggressive dogs, including mixed mastiff and pit bull breeds that often ran free, neighbors would later say.
Jody Andula on that Sunday had asked Leonard, considered a trusted neighbor, whether he had seen Airen. Andula said that Leonard has told him that he had seen him earlier in the day, but had not seen him afterward, while the search for the seventh grader continued.
The event, and subsequent arrest, shocked the community of 1,200, located about an hour south of Kansas City, as the Leonard family was well known in Linn County.
His mother had been a former county commissioner. His stepbrother, a former sheriff, was actively employed by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Because of conflicts of interest, the investigation into Airen’s death was turned over to the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department.
The police reported that Airen died of “multiple dog bite injuries.”
“I still could have overlooked, you know, the dog attack,” Jody Andula told The Star previously. “That’s just a freak accident, but I can’t forgive him for what he did 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.”
