Search of Enon apartment connected to Yellow Springs homicide case

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation conducted a search of an apartment on Hunter Road in Enon as part of the unsolved homicide of Leonid Clark. Greene County Capt. Sean Magoteaux said the residents of that apartment are not considered suspects in the case. RICHARD WILSON/STAFF

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation conducted a search of an apartment on Hunter Road in Enon as part of the unsolved homicide of Leonid Clark. Greene County Capt. Sean Magoteaux said the residents of that apartment are not considered suspects in the case. RICHARD WILSON/STAFF

State investigators searched an Enon apartment Friday as part of the five-month investigation into the homicide of a Yellow Springs man.

The apartment on Hunter Road was searched as part of the investigation into the homicide of Leonid Clark, 26, who went missing in January and whose body was discovered in April on the south bank of the Little Miami River outside of the village of Yellow Springs.

Details from the autopsy, including specifically how Clark was killed, have not been released by the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, which is in charge of the investigation.

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Capt. Sean Magoteaux said those details are being withheld because only the killer knows how Clark died.

Magoteaux said he is optimistic the case will be solved and that the evidence investigators have gathered will lead to an arrest and conviction.

Steve Irwin, spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, confirmed Friday that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation continues to assist Greene County investigators on the case.

Ohio BCI initially helped investigators by assisting during the search of an apartment in the Twin Coach Apartments in Yellow Springs. That search occurred about two weeks after Clark’s body was found by the river.

Investigators have said Clark’s body showed signs that he had died at the hands of another, and that decomposition and the manner in which it was found indicated that Clark’s body had been submerged.

Friday’s BCI search of the Enon apartment — with assistance from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office — comes about five months after the homicide investigation was launched. Prior to Clark’s body being found, the case was a missing person investigation.

Neighbors on Friday reported seeing investigators carrying a computer out of the apartment among other items.

Magoteaux said the residents of the Enon apartment are not suspects in the case. He also said Ohio BCI has taken on a greater role in the investigation “due to the complexity of the case.”

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Friends and family first noted Clark was missing in January. Clark was well known in Yellow Springs, where he often stayed with friends after moving out of his family’s home. He had previously taken a trip out west to visit with friends, and when he disappeared, those who knew him initially thought he may have traveled out of the area again.

With the insistence from Clark’s family that Leonid’s disappearance was unusual, extensive searches involving cadaver dogs began in February of the wooded areas surrounding the village, but there were no signs of Clark.

The sheriff’s office asks anyone with information about the case to call the tip line at (937) 562-4819.

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