The Unsolved Disappearance of Diana Leone (Part 1)

Episode #53 Diana Leone Part 1

[Shaun] 

Diana Leone was a 35-year-old mother of two young children with softness in her cheeks, blond curls, with a spooked and haunted look in her eyes, foreshadowing what was coming. 

In the late 1980s Diana, not much more than a child herself, was caught in a terrifying abusive relationship with a monstrous man decades older than her just minutes from the glamor of the Las Vegas strip.

Police records detail years of horrible abuse, shocking incidents, and dropped charges.

[John] 

In 1999 after a particularly brutal incident, Diana disappeared without a trace. Her family, not the monster she shared a home with, reported her missing months later once they realized she was gone. 

Her boyfriend David claimed she ran off with a man, but the bruises and broken bones pointed to a different story. Where did she go? Is there anyone who knows what truly happened that night?

(Music - Pause for 8 seconds)

[Shaun] 

Hi and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I’m your host, Shaun, and with me as always, is the one and only John.

[John] 

I am the only John in the room.

[Shaun] 

The case we’re bringing you today is going to be split up into two parts. 

Initially, we learned about the horrifying domestic violence case and the disappearance of Diana Leone, and this week we’re going to cover that, but we quickly fell down the rabbit hole when researching Diana’s much older boyfriend, and the father of her two children, David Morgan.

What we soon realized is that we thought this all began with the single disappearance of a 35-year-old mother of two, but that's not where it started at all. 

There are actually FOUR missing people, all of them connected to one person. People in his orbit have a nasty habit of disappearing with examples stretching back to the 1970s, but we’ll cover those next week.

But for now, let's start with Diana. Do you want to get us started?

[John]

Of course. Diana Leone was born on August 3rd, 1964, so she’d be about 60 years old today. Her parents were named Hector and Dixie, and she had 5 siblings (see if you can spot the common thing here) named Dawn, Debra, Doug, Dean, and Denice.

Diana’s sister’s Boss introduced her to David Morgan in 1981 when she was only 16 years old, which led to Diana working for Morgan at Aabacus Storage, just west of the Las Vegas strip on Sunset. At the time, David Morgan was 50 years old. 

Morgan was born in 1931 in Fairmont, Vest Virginia to his father Harry and his mother Edna. His father was 40, and his mother was 37 when he was born, which is pretty old for the 1930s, and he moved to the Las Vegas area in 1961. 

We looked him up on Ancestry.com and we can see he has a brother John who died in 2003 and a sister Delores who died in 1997 (more about her next week). We also know that he was married twice before he met Diana. His first wife was named Margaret and his second wife was named Marie. 

With his wife Marie, he had two children, a son named Nevada Paul, and a daughter named Alicia. Tragically, his son died in a motorcycle accident in 1989. 

At some point, and it’s not clear when, David and Diana began having a relationship, and by the time she was 19, she had moved into his place with him and his two children – Note that Nevada was just 6 years younger than Diana.

A few years later they moved to a home on the site of Aabacus Storage at 3200 W. Teco Ave. in Las Vegas. Morgan also employed a man named Fred Hackett who also lived on-site at the Abacus Storage with his wife Avis. 

Just a note that this storage business isn't there anymore, and it’s hard to see exactly where it was since it's so built up now

Lt Mark Reddon of the Las Vegas Metro Police described it like this “Back then there was one big storage unit on a desert lot and a junkyard with a couple of homes” You'll hear Reddon’s name a lot this week and next. He spent nearly half his career involved in this investigation and never gave up on uncovering the truth about what happened.

[Shaun] 

Diana and David Morgan had two children of their own, David Lee Morgan (note, not really a Junior because he has a different middle name), who was born in 1986, and Lea, who was born in 1992.

There’s a lot to say about David in his career and what he got up to. He co-owned and operated the Abacus Mini Storage with Diana (we’re not sure when that became a co-owned business but this was reported in the RJ), which was a part of the “Abacus Industrial Trailer Park” which also included an interstate moving company. He also owned an independent trucking company and he was a long haul driver in the company, often out of town for that. 

In 2007 he owned property in the Valley worth more than $20 million. The Review-Journal reported that he also had property in Brazil, and they also said he had a wife there.

In an interview, Reddon talked about other things that Morgan was involved with including more than a few illegal schemes, including moving contraband cigarettes, changing the VIN numbers on stolen boats in Lake Mead, building a house, then raffling it off to a co-conspirator who then gave it back to him (that must have been a tax fraud scheme), and also producing fraudulent titles for Cadillacs.

Safe to say that Morgan was a man who was allegedly involved in some shady business for years.

According to reporting, Morgan was arrested in April 1994 for embezzlement, however, prosecutors did not file charges due to insufficient evidence.

Morgan had a reputation for being particularly ruthless and a tough businessman.  Peter "Chris" Christoff told the Review-Journal that he met him when he rented one of the company’s storage units. He’d known David for more than 14 years, and over that time, they talked often about business and life. Morgan was a smart man but had a temper, Christoff said. "You wouldn't want him as an enemy.”

Christoff said the wealthy businessman told him he led a double life that included a palatial oceanfront home and a wife in South America. "He wanted to make a whole new life down there, get his money out of Vegas and just stay down there," Christoff said.

Another former business consultant named Keith Grimes told the RJ that he was a tough businessman and “when somebody missed their rent at the storage place, he would take their stuff and throw it away.”

Keith said that David was a big talker, but he never knew if he was serious or not when he mentioned there was a reason why there were so many bodies in the desert. 

[John]

Given this, and given our podcast, it will come as no surprise that Morgan was a jealous, violent man with a violent criminal past, with the evidence for that being his many arrests. In 1986 he was arrested on a battery charge. The case was dismissed when the victim refused to sign the complaint.

Morgan accused Diana of infidelity in 1989, and that same year was the first in a string of domestic violence incidents in their home where the police were involved. 

According to an affidavit, Morgan (who remember was a long haul trucker) returned home unexpectedly from an out-of-state trip, and upon entering their residence, hit Diana on the right side of her face with a metal pipe.

The court record reflects that he continued to beat her with the pipe in front of their children and stated several times he was going to kill her. He eventually took her to a doctor for treatment, but that doctor refused, saying that she needed emergency trauma treatment instead, and called 911 to get an ambulance for her.

She was taken to where else, UMC Trauma, and she was treated there. She had two broken bones in her right leg, a fractured left arm, and fractured facial bones on the right side of her face.

He was charged with attempted murder, but unfortunately, Diana refused to testify against him according to those same court documents. 

[Shaun] 

Later, in January 1992, he was accused of child endangerment, and we found some speculation online about this, but we have no further information other than this accusation.

Morgan was also arrested in 1997 and 1999 for domestic violence. As before, there was no prosecution, but It is apparent that this man is violent and has a pattern of violently terrorizing his family.

Police have said that Diana lived through ongoing violent bursts of domestic abuse in their 14-year relationship. In fact, a friend of Diana’s said that she had to undergo reconstructive surgery several times because of his many beatings.

We also located a civil lawsuit where Diana sued David in February of 1990, but unfortunately, we couldn't get the records so we’re not sure what the case pertains to. We do know that they co-owned the business together so it might have been related to that.

Throughout the 90’s Diana’s sister said that she left David on several occasions. She said that whenever this happened Diana would call her for help. Unfortunately, she always went back to him. We’ve talked too many times about how hard it is to escape a relationship like that where there are children involved, and in this case a co-owned business. It’s never as easy as “just leaving”

On or around February 14th, 2000, Diana disappeared without a trace, and of course.. Here’s where it gets strange. Neither David Morgan, their 14-year-old son, nor their 7-year-old daughter reported her missing. In fact she remained missing without being reported for 8 months.

[John]

It was finally one of Diana’s sisters who noticed she was missing and reported it, but she wished to remain anonymous, fearing retaliation from Morgan. 

There are a couple of reasons this is crazy. First, Diana only had two sisters, so when the Review-Journal printed that her sister reported her missing but wanted to remain anonymous, it's unclear how long it would take Morgan to puzzle out who that might have been, so the reporters and editors weren't protecting her at all.

It also further highlights that people were really afraid of this man and what he was capable of. 

You might also think that because Morgan didn't bother to report her missing he would be a suspect in the investigation of her disappearance, but according to news reports.. “Although police said they were investigating Morgan, they didn't name him as a suspect”.

Thats outrageous of course. When you consider the pattern of violence against his girlfriend, where he beat her nearly to death with a pipe, said repeatedly he was going to kill her after accusing her of infidelity, to the point where she needed reconstructive surgery.. More than once, it's just insane that they wouldn't “consider him a suspect”

[Shaun] 

We mentioned that Lt Reddon was involved with the case, and he has said that he did suspect Morgan, but somehow they didn't have enough evidence to charge him. 

The police did investigate her disappearance and got a search warrant for the family home in November 2000, while David was out of town, looking for human remains and blood on both the carpet and in Diana’s car. They didn't find human remains, but did find blood on the carpet (none in the car) and apparently tested the blood, but the results were never reported in the press. 

When they interviewed both of her children her son, David, told the police “all he knew was that his father told him that she had run away with another man”. They followed up on this supposed “other man” and charge of infidelity but according to them, they found this “alleged boyfriend”, and quickly determined that he had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance and said “their relationship didn't appear to be what Morgan said it was.”

[John]

Lea, their 7-year-old daughter drew some pictures for Detective Reddon including a heart, a girl, and a dog, and then said that on that night, her parents were arguing because Morgan thought Diana was having an affair. 

She also said that He then threw her mom through a plate glass window, and slammed her face into the refrigerator. She also recalled that a large square of the carpet was removed from her mother’s bedroom.

If Diana did leave, She left all of her belongings, including her car, clothes, and all of her money, and of course her children. It was pretty unbelievable to Reddon that she would leave without at least taking her younger daughter with her. (We found that quote a little strange and wondered why the detectives said “she didn't leave without her daughter” instead of “she didn't leave without her children”.)

[Shaun] 

Of course, there were theories, the two biggest being that she met with foul play, and the second being that she had simply “left and started a new life”. We hear that one a lot when someone disappears, but it's unclear how often that actually happens in life. 

People who have disappeared without a trace aren't often found to have done that. It’s pretty hard to just “start a new life” when you have children and a business you’re leaving behind, so we’re not sure who actually believed that.

She could have been hiding out after one of the many DV incidents, but again she was just gone. Her sister and best friend also pointed out that previously, if she left, she came to them, but of course they hadn't heard from her, which is why her sister ultimately reported her missing after not hearing from her for 8 months.

By 2001, Detective Reddon told the Las Vegas Sun that he thought she was most likely dead. He was the one that said she wouldn't leave her children behind, and of course, she wouldn’t. 

As he said “the more he searched for reasons she left, the more he started suspecting that she might have been killed.” given that she hadn't contacted her family in a year, and with a history of domestic violence.

He also pointed out that any reasonable boyfriend or husband would have reported her disappearance.

[John]

Strangely, in 2002, David sued Diana in the 8th judicial District for breach of contract and over some alleged debt. The court documents allege that Morgan “lent” Diana $30,000 to buy a 2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.

According to court documents, Morgan said that he “paid her debt” to someone named Al Sorrentino for $4500, and they also say that her car was impounded because of nonpayment.

Morgan claimed he was paying for car insurance at a rate of $1700 for every 6-month period since September of 1999. All in all, he demanded $46,700 plus attorney’s fees.

Because she was missing and likely deceased, of course she didn't respond to the lawsuit, so a default judgment was levied and Morgan forced a Sherriff’s sale of her personal property. All of that property would have passed on to her children, but he got it instead. 

Morgan knew enough to know he could put anything he wanted in the court documents and it would be uncontested which is pretty sinister. 

If you’re wondering why he didn't just automatically get that property, remember that she never married him although he did ask on several occasions (and she wasnt declared legally dead at that point). We’ll talk next week about the very good reason she refused.

[Shaun] 

Before Diana’s disappearance, there was another person in David Morgan’s orbit who also disappeared. His name was Donald Richard Cowan. He was born January 23rd, 1942, so he would be 82 today. He disappeared in 1982 at Age 40.

His wife was named Vickie and he’d lived in Las Vegas for many years. He seems like an interesting person who had his hands in a lot of different businesses almost like an early “Shark Tank” investor. 

He was looking for investors for a business called “Safety Scapes” which involved developing and selling improved methods for escaping burning buildings. The tragic MGM fire occurred in 1980 and claimed the lives of 85 people, and with the sheer volume of tourism in Las Vegas, that seems like a pretty strong business venture.

He was also looking to create a restaurant that was built inside a large permanently grounded airplane near the airport. So he definitely had his hands in a a few things.

[John]

Donald was last seen on December 21st, 1982, and his disappearance was investigated by Detective Bob Allen with Las Vegas Metro. Allen said that Cowan was “into a lot of people for a lot of money”. He said that he didn't hold a traditional job per se, but had his money tied up in various stocks and projects. Before his disappearance, he’d met with the Securities and Exchange Commission and given a deposition to them to help in their investigation of stock fraud by his business associates here in Las Vegas. 

His abandoned 1979 Cadillac was found on January 4, 1983, at the Stardust Hotel with the windows rolled down, his briefcase with business papers inside, and the keys in the ignition.

In a later interview, David Morgan’s sister, Deloris, made the claim that Morgan had something to do with Cowan’s disappearance though we have no other information other than the claim she made to the police. 

However, we would add that his disappearance was often mentioned by investigators in the same articles discussing Diana’s disappearance, which seems to indicate investigators believed there was some credibility to her claims. 

Donald was described as a 40 year old white man, between 5’8” and 5’10” and between 135 - 150 lbs with brown hair that was thinning in the front, and hazel eyes… he would be 82 today. As we mentioned his car was found at the Stardust hotel, which has now been closed for nearly 20 years. 

Anyone with information about Donald is urged to contact Las Vegas Metro police at (702) 828-3111.

We will share his photo and links to his profile on Namus. 

[Shaun] 

Diana was 35 years old when she disappeared and would be 60 years old in 2024. She is 5’5” and 120 lbs and was last known to be wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans. 

February will mark 25 years since she was last seen. 

She has blonde/reddish hair and hazel eyes, a previously fractured left arm and right facial bones, and two bones in her left leg. Her ears are pierced and she has a scar on her left finger, scarring on the fingertips of her left hand, and a scar on her left cheek. 

Anyone who has information about her whereabouts can call the ​​Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at 702-229-4172

[John]

David Morgan has much more history that we’re going to cover in next week’s episode so until then we’ll remind you that what happens here happens everywhere.