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Leo Koury

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Leo Koury (left) and age progression (right)

Leo Koury (left) and age progression (right)

Real Name: Leo Joseph Koury
Aliases: Mike Decker
Wanted For: Murder, Attempted Murder, Arson, Fraud, Extortion
Missing Since: October 30, 1978

Case[]

Details: Fifty-four-year-old Leo Koury has eluded the FBI and Virginia police since October 1978. According to the FBI, he led a racketeering enterprise in Richmond, Virginia, that committed crimes such as murder, fraud, and extortion. However, he was also a volunteer softball umpire, a member of the American Legion, and an active member of his local church. He and his wife, Jeanette, had four children. According to FBI Special Agent Jack Colwell, people close to him described him as nice, caring, and sensitive.
Koury was a successful restaurant and bar owner who was fiercely competitive. He first entered the restaurant business in the 1950s. In the 1960s, he opened some of Richmond's first nightclubs, bars, and restaurants that catered primarily to the gay community. He called himself "The Godfather of the Gay Community."
When the women's bar "Smitty's" closed in the early 1960s, Koury took it over and renamed it "Leo's." By the early 1970s, it had become a men's bar. In 1976, he gave the bar to a relative, who renamed it "The Male Box." In 1975, Koury purchased a former restaurant, "Rathskeller's," and reopened it as a gay bar, the "Dial Tone." It featured a unique setup in which each table had a phone for customers to call other tables and introduce themselves. He also opened another gay bar, "The 409 Club."
Koury realized that if he monopolized Richmond's gay bar scene, he could raise prices because his gay customers would have nowhere else to go. At the time, they could be legally denied service due to their sexuality. Many gay bars had also had their liquor licenses revoked by Virginia's Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority because it was illegal to host "homosexual gatherings."
In the early 1970s, local businessmen opened rival gay clubs and started to erode Koury's wealth and influence. Allegedly, he began a series of retaliatory acts, including murder, assault, and extortion, to intimidate and scare off his competitors and regain control of the local gay nightlife.
Ray Bentley and two partners opened the "Cha-Cha Palace," an after-hours gay nightclub. The club became popular, while Koury's bars lost business. One day, Koury invited Bentley to meet him at the Dial Tone. They met at the back of the bar, where Koury was surrounded by three big, "burly" men. Koury pulled out a bank bag filled with thousands of dollars and offered to buy out Bentley's share of the Cha-Cha Palace. Although Koury told him to "think very carefully" about it, Bentley rejected the offer.
Soon afterward, someone drove by the Cha-Cha Palace and shot a bullet through one of its windows. Then, on March 19, 1975, thirty-seven-year-old Charles "Chuck" Kernaghan, a bouncer at the Cha-Cha Palace, disappeared, allegedly after having a dispute with Koury.
Reportedly, Koury also tried to force his rivals out of business by sending in thugs to terrorize the patrons. Around 12:30am on January 15, 1977, three masked men burst through the front door of the Male Box (the gay bar Koury had given to his relative) and brutally attacked innocent customers by firing a shotgun into the crowd. Thirty-six-year-old customer Albert Thomas died from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and two others were seriously injured. At the time, the gay community feared the shooting was a homophobic hate crime. When the Male Box reopened days later, customers were too afraid to return.
While the FBI suspected Koury was responsible, they could not indict him because his inner circle was extremely loyal. They often targeted vulnerable groups, such as the gay community, as victims of their scams and extortions. In October 1977, Koury gave a pistol to an inner circle member, Edwin "Eddie" Loehr, and asked him to kill restaurant owner James "Jim" Hilliard. Koury had sold the Dial Tone to Hilliard a year earlier, and Hilliard had turned it into a successful restaurant. Koury was angered that Hilliard would not sell the restaurant back to him.
A few days later, on the night of October 26, Koury's scheme backfired. A neighbor saw an armed man lurking outside Hilliard's apartment and called the police. They found Loehr hiding under a porch, carrying a knife. A gun was found nearby. He was arrested for trespassing. This was the turning point for the FBI and directly led to Koury's indictment.
Loehr told the FBI that Koury had asked him to kill Hilliard to eliminate him as competition in the restaurant business. Loehr agreed to work with the FBI. He was equipped with a hidden microphone, and the FBI secretly recorded his conversation with Koury. During the recording, Koury said, "I can't understand you telling everybody our…business. Don't say anything on the phone. I don't care…don't say anything."
Several other members of Koury's inner circle, including former Dial Tone co-owner Charles Fisher and Loehr's cousin, Charles Walton, agreed to cooperate with the FBI in exchange for reduced sentences or dropped charges. They claimed Koury orchestrated the attacks on the Cha-Cha Palace and the Male Box and was responsible for Chuck's murder.
According to Koury's inner circle, Chuck was lured to Koury's home under the guise of discussing a truce. Koury shot and killed Chuck and removed two diamond rings from his fingers. With the help of three others, Koury placed Chuck's body in a trunk. The trunk was driven to Carter's Landing on the Rappahannock River, put on a boat, weighed down with a bumper from a 1957 Chevrolet, and thrown overboard. The police searched the river, but Chuck's body was never found.
According to Koury's inner circle, in 1975, he planned to kidnap E. Claiborne Robins Jr., the president of the A.H. Robins pharmaceutical company, and demand a $500,000 ransom from Robins' father. However, he abandoned the plot after deeming it too risky. He also staged two automobile accidents as part of an insurance fraud scheme. He was also accused of trying to persuade a witness to tape a phony telephone conversation that would make him appear innocent of the allegations against him.
Based on the surveillance tapes and testimony from his inner circle, on October 31, 1978, a federal grand jury indicted Koury. He was charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to kidnap, extortion, assault, racketeering, insurance fraud, mail fraud, loan sharking, arson, and obstruction of justice. Virginia police also charged him with Chuck's murder, the Male Box shooting, and the attempted contract murder of Hilliard.
But the day before the indictment, on October 30, Koury disappeared from Richmond, allegedly with $1 million in the trunk of his car. The FBI suspects he was tipped off, as he had friends in law enforcement. On April 20, 1979, he was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.
Since then, the FBI has recorded 165 possible sightings of Koury, mostly on the East Coast. However, there have also been sightings in South America and the Middle East. The most recent confirmed sighting of him was in São Paulo, Brazil, in December 1978. The FBI searched for him in Lebanon, where his father had moved years earlier. In September 1982, they placed eleven billboards around the United States featuring his face. They are offering a $25,000 reward for his capture. Their file on him is now thirty-eight volumes thick.
According to Agent Colwell, Koury is a competitive person, and it would not surprise him if Koury called him to simply "tweak his nose." He wants to know if Koury is alive. He believes this is all a game to Koury.
Koury's FBI psychological profile describes him as "bright, affable, manipulative, ruthless, and dangerous." They suspect he is in Florida and is involved with drugs, possibly cocaine. They believe he is still closely associated with the gay community. He has a heart condition and a bad back. He is a diabetic who requires regular insulin shots. He enjoys Lebanese food and may be working in the restaurant business. He should be considered armed and dangerous.
Extra Notes:

  • This case originally aired on the January 20, 1987 Special #1 episode of Unsolved Mysteries hosted by Raymond Burr in an FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, along with Donald Eugene Webb, Victor Gerena, Claude Dallas, James Dyess, Danny Weeks, Thomas Harrelson, and Robert Litchfield.
  • It was covered in more detail in a full segment on the January 18, 1989 episode.
  • It was also profiled on America's Most Wanted.
  • It was submitted to the show by the FBI.
  • In June 1987, a member of Koury's inner circle, Carroll Loehr, was arrested and charged with Chuck's murder. He admitted he helped dispose of Chuck's body. However, he claimed Koury shot Chuck. In September, he was found not guilty of Chuck's murder.
  • Some sources spell Chuck's last name as "Kernighan," Jim's last name as "Hillier," and refer to the Cha-Cha Palace as the "Cha-Cha Club" or "Cha Cha's Palace." Some sources state: Chuck's body was later found in the Rappahannock River; Koury was a one-time police informant; he was bisexual; he purchased the Dial Tone in 1971; Eddie Loehr was arrested on October 20, 1978; and Koury was indicted on October 30, 1978.

Results: Solved. On the evening of Sunday, June 16, 1991, a man calling himself "William Franklin Biddle" was taken to Villa View Community Hospital in San Diego, California. His friend, Sam Houshan, had found him unconscious in his apartment and called for an ambulance. Earlier that day, he had complained of back pain and excessive sweating.
A CAT scan showed Biddle had a cerebral hemorrhage. Doctors realized there was nothing they could do to save him. At 3:40am on Monday, June 17, he died. It was later determined that the hemorrhage was brought on by high blood pressure. San Diego County deputy public administrator Susan Graves was put in charge of searching for his next-of-kin.
Graves learned Biddle had lived alone in a small East San Diego apartment for at least seven years. He worked part-time as a clerk at Sam's Convenience Store on University Avenue, a block from his apartment. His neighbors and co-workers said he was kind and well-liked. He helped others, lending up to $1,000 to friends in need, but mostly kept to himself. He attended Catholic services every Saturday. He was fluent in Spanish and Arabic.
Biddle had claimed his mother died during his birth, and he did not know his father. He said he was raised in a San Diego orphanage. He joined the Army at the age of sixteen and served in Vietnam. He later joined the International Red Cross. While working in Beirut, Lebanon, he suffered an emotional breakdown and received a disability retirement.
On the day of Biddle's death, Graves received an anonymous phone call, warning her not to go into his apartment. The next day, she and a sheriff's deputy searched it. She found phone bills, coins, and two billfolds with IDs in his name. In his closet, she discovered a suitcase filled with papers, including a copy of his birth certificate. She found postcards and business cards from São Paulo, Brazil, where he said he wanted to fund an orphanage. She also found a key to a Union Bank safe deposit box. In the box was $25,000 in $100 bills, four gold and diamond rings, assorted coins, and a gold dental crown.
Graves found evidence that Biddle had lied about his past. The Army had no record of discharging him. The International Red Cross had no record of an employee with his name. She also contacted people with the last name "Biddle" in his birthplace of Camden, New Jersey. None of them had heard of him.
Five days after Biddle's death, on Friday, June 21, Graves received a call from Koury's nephew, Barrett Rossi. He told her that the previous day, family members had received an anonymous phone call saying Koury might be dead. The caller gave them Graves' name and phone number. Rossi told her that Koury may have been using a different name because he was a wanted fugitive. When Rossi described Koury as short, heavy, hairy, the son of Lebanese immigrants, and a fluent Arabic speaker, she realized the description matched Biddle's.
Graves contacted the FBI and informed them of the connection between Biddle and Koury. That afternoon, they lifted fingerprints from Biddle's body and positively identified him as Koury. He was fifty-six at the time of his death. He was later buried in Richmond's Mount Calvary Cemetery.
The FBI found evidence that Koury had planned his escape. Two months before he fled, in August 1978, he requested and received a copy of Biddle's birth certificate. Two weeks before he fled, he was issued a South Carolina driver's license in Biddle's name. The FBI also alleged that his family members helped him hide from the police and remained in contact with him. Several family photographs found in his San Diego apartment were taken in the 1980s, years after he fled Richmond. However, no one was charged with helping him elude the police.
Graves and the San Diego Public Administrator's Office applied for the FBI's reward for Koury's capture. Initially, the FBI refused, claiming the reward was only for information leading to Koury's arrest. However, they later relented and paid the $25,000. Overall, they are believed to have spent more than $1 million in their search for Koury.
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