Tonights case of 4 Bodies in the backyard.....

[canadianmysterygrl]

I missed alot of it. Can anyone provide names and episode details. Has this ever been resolved yet?
Thanks.

[canadianmysterygrl]

Ok I found this....anyone know more? This was written in 1999.


Rizzo shot during standoff with cops

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 T- shirt 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.



Sunday, May 30, 1999

[Brent88]

I've seen that case before on Lifetime. Very spooky case.

[canadianmysterygrl]

I got this note from a reporter who I had emiled about this case.

Anne;
In searching our archives the last mention of Rizzo's case was in 2000, when the DA dropped four felony charges against him stemming from the standoff and a separate drug case. The 1st Assistant DA did not make himself available for comment regarding the dismissal. Apparently the prosecution ran into problems with inadmissable evidence and witness testimony, especially from the girlfriend he assaulted. But he was sentenced to 14 months in prison for assault.
As for the girlfriend with whom he was fighting, she was assaulted, but not with life-threatening injuries.
According to our story, Rizzo should have been released from prison about one year ago.
Thank you,
Laura Jesse
Reporter
San Antonio Express-News
210.250.3171