Post by Scumhunter on Mar 10, 2023 16:39:17 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: projectcoldcase.org)
From knoxnews.com (2017 article):
As Lee Byford stepped out of his East Knoxville home on the night of his birthday, Jan. 5, 2013, his killer was waiting for him.
The gunman, wearing a ski mask, had hidden in the cold rain behind a privacy fence at the top of the driveway overlooking Bonnie View Avenue.
Leslie "Lee" Byford had spent most of his 37th birthday working at his auto body shop and, after a quick stop at the house, was headed back out to celebrate with friends, according to witness accounts.
He had only been home for a moment. As he walked out a side door toward his SUV, the masked man ambushed him. The two briefly struggled before Byford was shot dead.
Three witnesses saw the killer running downhill through the dark toward Magnolia Avenue. Nearly five years later, that's still where the trail goes cold.
"This one haunts me," Knoxville Police Department Investigator Brandon Wardlaw said. "Because I've got nothing."
What little is known about the attack indicates it was not random, Wardlaw concludes. Byford was targeted.
By all accounts, the victim was a kindhearted, generous man. After several years of stops and starts, he was still working long hours to keep his small, custom paint shop afloat. Which is to say, Byford wasn't wealthy. But he was well-loved - a man without enemies.
"Nobody (knows) any reason why something would happen to him," Wardlaw said. "Usually there's something in somebody's background. ... But all I know is he's a guy that had a paint shop who would try to help people when they were down, and he got killed on his birthday. And I've got nothing else."
The facts of the case
Generally, killers don't bother to cover their faces.
That the gunman wore a mask suggests his motive was likely robbery, the investigator said.
And the location of the attack – along a sleepy side street, outside a house where Byford had lived for less than a year – is a strong indication the killer was after Byford specifically, because he knew where to find him.
"We've had everybody that saw (the gunman) tell us that the guy had a mask on, which makes me think it's a robbery," Wardlaw said. "But no, I don't think this is just random at all. I think it was something that was planned out, that somebody saw as an opportunity to take advantage of him."
The victim made it back to his Chevy Tahoe as the gunman rushed him. The two wrestled over the driver's side door as Byford fumbled to lock it from the inside.
Two shots were fired amid the struggle. One lodged inside the door. The other round went through the victim's ribcage and came to rest in the passenger seat, nearly striking Byford's friend and part-time employee, Gerod Murphy, who was sitting next to him.
While robbery makes sense as a motive, Wardlaw speculates the gunman may not have intended to take Byford's life.
"Usually, somebody gets killed, we've heard of them before. ... But for (Byford) to not be on anybody's radar, nobody's ever heard of him, and for him to be shot like that, makes me think it wasn't intentional.
"If somebody one day came in here and said, 'I was just trying to rob him and ended up shooting him by mistake,' I would totally believe that."
The Tahoe rolled backward down the driveway and crashed into a small ditch at the edge of the street. Murphy reached into the floorboard and mashed the gas peddle with his hand, launching the vehicle out of the ditch and farther down the hill in a bid to escape.
Inside the house, Byford's girlfriend, Tiffany Cannon, heard the gunfire and came to the front door to catch a glimpse of a man wearing a black ski mask and a blue sweatshirt.
"She described it as a kind of Memphis Tigers blue," Wardlaw said.
A neighbor at the bottom of the hill later offered a similar description of a man seen running away after the commotion.
Byford, who was pronounced dead at the scene, still had $371 cash in his pocket.
A Hardee's on the far side of Magnolia was the closest business with a security camera, but the footage revealed nothing.
Police later recovered two .45 slugs – an uncommon caliber among Knoxville crime scenes. Investigators have found no bullet before or since the slaying that appears to have been fired from the same weapon.
Two days after the shooting, Cannon's son discovered a ski mask in the driveway. Wardlaw said police already had scoured the scene for evidence. But he had no explanation for how it turned up.
"I don't think we would have missed that," he said.
Regardless, the mask yielded no DNA match. Nor did a a piece of chewing gum found by the nearby fence.
Over the next year, Byford's loved ones managed to raise enough money to offer a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case. The reward was advertised on donated billboard space along Interstate 640 East for a full year.
Police have yet to receive a single response.
"With murders," Wardlaw said, "you've got somebody throwing out something, or somebody gets in trouble and wants to help themselves out. But this one's been totally different. I've never seen one be this quiet."
Destination unknown
When Byford came home from work that day, his girlfriend had a birthday dinner waiting for him. Why he didn't stay to eat, however, is another mystery.
Murphy, who was waiting in the SUV outside, later told police the two were heading out to meet friends for a few drinks.
Then 23 years old, Murphy was the only witness to the slaying.
Police took his statement that night, and he returned to meet with investigators twice more. After that, Murphy no longer agreed to cooperate, Wardlaw said.
Murphy did not respond to requests for comment by the USA TODAY NETWORK -Tennessee.
Cannon, Byford's girlfriend, also told police she understood that he was leaving for drinks with friends, Wardlaw said.
"She said he nearly ran right back out of the house," the investigator said. "He didn't say where (he was going)."
Cannon could not be reached for comment for this report.
If Byford had plans to go out that night, though, he didn't invite Dean Huff. Huff was his closest friend and his initial business partner in the paint shop.
Huff said when the two spoke by phone earlier that day, Byford was short-handed and rushing to finish painting a car for the money to cover the shop's overdue rent.
"The last time I spoke to him that day, he was sick," Huff said. "He had, like a sinus infection or a chest cold or something. He sounded awful."
Huff offered to swing by and help, but Byford declined.
"He said, 'Man, screw it, it's my birthday and I feel like crap. I'm sick,' " Huff said. "He said, 'I'm just gonna go home, lay down and eat some food.' And that was the last time I talked to him."
Byford wasn't dressed to go out, either, Huff contends. When his body was recovered from the Tahoe, the victim was still clad in his paint-splattered shop clothes – a gold sweatshirt, with a green thermal shirt underneath, and work pants.
"I don't really see him going out and not changing clothes," Huff said. "He must of had 30 pairs of shoes. He was the kind of guy who liked to put on something nice when he was going out."
So why did Byford return to Bonnie View Avenue at all?
'Generous to a fault'
Murphy told investigators the two had stopped at a convenience store on Dandridge Avenue at Wilder Place. While Byford went inside to buy a soda, Murphy bought marijuana for them both from someone in the parking lot.
Byford then ran by his house, supposedly to split up his half of the weed.
It was no secret he smoked weed, Huff said. In fact, Byford, who had struggled with depression since childhood, often smoked quite a bit just to self-medicate, his friend said.
In 2006, Byford also was arrested for felony possession of cocaine for resale, according to court records. The charge was dismissed a year later after he completed judicial diversion.
Huff said he's confident his friend was no longer mixed up in drug dealing.
"If he was doing that, he would have had money and the rent wouldn't have been a problem," Huff said. "Honestly, I don't think (drugs) had anything to do with his death."
Byford was getting by, but the car painting business hadn't made him a rich man, Huff said. The pricey chrome rims on his Chevy Tahoe were simply payment from a client who didn't have the cash.
"Maybe somebody thought he had money, who didn't know him well enough," Huff said.
In spite of, or perhaps because of his struggles financially and emotionally, Byford was a giving man with a deep, personal faith, his mother, Ann Marotti, recalled.
"He was generous to a fault," she said.
It was not uncommon for him to take on day-laborers who wandered by the shop looking for work. Marotti and Huff both noted that Byford had hired Murphy a couple of months earlier as a favor for a mutual friend.
"He didn't even have the money to pay him," Huff said. "But he paid him – to sweep and whatever he could find for him to do.
"He'd been through the struggle and he tried to take care of people who wanted to work."
Byford still deserves justice, his mother and best friend said. As more time passes, though, both are short on hope the killer will be found.
"I've had five years to think about it and I don't know anything more now than when it happened," Huff said. "That's the worst part of it, you know, is why? ... I think whoever did it should be in jail. But it ain't gonna change anything. I'm still not gonna see him anymore.
"I just wish he was here."
Anyone with information on Byford's death is asked to call the Knoxville Police Department at 865-215-7212.
www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2017/11/12/cold-case-authorities-haunted-unsolved-killing-kindhearted-man/835193001/
Thoughts? I stress the above article is from 2017 so some details may now be outdated however, as of today's posting date (March 10th, 2023), Lee's case is sadly still listed as an unsolved homicide on the Project: Cold Case website database.
database.projectcoldcase.org/?name=byford&gender=&race=&age=&city=&state=Tennessee&zip=&county=&weapon=&offense=&status=&year=&lea=&reported_min=&reported_max=&more=
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