Police in Vernon County are investigating a double homicide in a small southwest Missouri community this Memorial Day.
Authorities found 14-year-old Kylie M. Leyva (b.) and 18-year-old Anne E. Reed, both of Nevada, with multiple stab wounds to the neck early Sunday evening in a house in the 600 block of North Cedar Street.
Authorities found 14-year-old Kylie M. Leyva (b.) and 18-year-old Anne E. Reed, both of Nevada, with multiple stab wounds to the neck early Sunday evening in a house in the 600 block of North Cedar Street.
Garrett Matthew Mason, 17, (link to myspace page at bottom) has been charged with two counts of first degree murder and armed criminal action. He is being held in the Vernon County Jail in lieu of $2 million bond.
It appears that Mason and Leyva knew each other as she is listed as one of his friends on his MySpace page.
Mason lived across the street from from Reed who lived in her own apartment; Kylie Leyva, was visiting her friend when the alleged attack took place.
Sources say that Reed was able to get out of the apartment and run next door for help. She told her neighbor who attacked she and Leyva, before she collapsed on the front step.
WDAF is reporting that Reed lived with a friend, Elizabeth Short, and her family before getting her own apartment.
Clifford Short says that he's been told that the suspect had a hit list of people that he was targeting, and that his daughter was next on the list.
The two victims were taken by ambulance to Nevada Regional Medical Center Sunday evening and then life-flighted to hospitals in Joplin, where they were pronounced dead.
Mason has little criminal history....he pleaded guilty to possession of pot and drug paraphernalia in March of this year and was given probation.
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New Details Emerge In Text Message Murders Of Nevada Teens:
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| Kylie Leyva (l.) and Anne "Annie" Reed |
Nearly two years after two teen aged girls from Nevada were allegedly stabbed to death over text messages, new details are emerging in the case.
Leviathon Lee Dipman, 20, of Nevada has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection to the deaths of fourteen year-old Kylie Leyva and eighteen year-old Anne "Annie" Reed and court documents indicate it was a conpiracy.
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| Leviathon "Levi" Dipman (mug shot VCSO) |
Garrett Matthew Mason, now 19, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for the May 24, 2009, murders of his classmates.
Authorities say Dipman's arrest was due to information received from a confidential informant. Officer Pamela Miller with the Nevada Police Department writes in the probable cause statement against Dipman, "Prior to Mr. Mason leaving the residence (Allan Harper's) to go to Ms. Reed's residence, Mr. Dipman, Mr. Mason and Mr. Harper had conversation on how Mr. Mason was going to kill both Ms. Reed and Ms. Leyva."
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| Garrett Matthew Mason (mug shot VCSO) |
The informant says that Dipman made the comment, "To go kill them, cut them up and make their blood decorate the walls." She [the confidential informant] says that Dipman, Mason and Harper, "Spoke about a butcher knife" that was in the trunk of a vehicle the group had taken on a camping trip to Stockton Lake and that "the keys to the vehicle were still in the car and all he had to was get the knife when he left."
Sandoval, who at one time lived with Annie Reed and Mason, said Harper was a former boyfriend and Dipman was her ex-fiance. Dipman and Leyva had also once been boyfriend and girlfriend but had broken up. Sandoval testified that Leyva had been one of her best friends.
Sandoval said she and Leyva had made a pact never to date Levi again, but she broke that promise when she went camping with him.
Sandoval, Dipman and Harper testified that as they were leaving to return a beer keg, Mason came running back to Harper's home as authorities with their sirens blaring were making their way to Reed's apartment.
A few hours before she was found stabbed to death Leyva had sent her mother a message saying she was having fun at Reed's watching movies. Witnesses say Reed ran from her apartment after the attack and named Mason as the person who killed her and her friend.
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| Friends left momentos on the steps of Reed's apartment |
Mason allegeldy told his friends he needed to change clothes because he had been in the same ones all weekend. Harper popped the trunk and Mason changed behind the car then slipped into the backseat.
Sandoval said Mason initially acted like he didn't not know what was going on, asking them what was up with the police, but then told the group they needed to say he had been with them the last few hours.
Dipman testified “That’s when I turned around and noticed there was blood on his arm."
Officer Miller interviewed Garrett Matthew Mason again on February 16, 2011, about Reed and Leyva's murders. He stated, "Mr. Dipman, Mr Harper and the informant were involved in the planning of the murders of Ms. Reed and Ms. Leyva.
When asked if Dipman perjured himself on the stand at Mason's prelim and if would affect his case against Mason, Vernon County Prosecutor Lynn Ewing said, "I don't see how....he just didn't give a full and complete disclosure of what happened."
Ewing says the investigation into Reed and Leyva's murders is ongoing and would not comment on whether any charges would be filed against Sandoval or Harper.
Mason's trial was scheduled to begin in April, but that trial setting has been canceled and replaced with a motion hearing on March 7th. When asked if Mason was going to plead guilty and testify for the state, Ewing responded, "Ethically, I cannot comment on that."
UPDATE-
Mason pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to two terms of life in prison, which is thirty years in the state of Missouri. Those sentences will be served concurrently (at the same time.)
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*****Link to Garrett Mason's MySpace page.
https://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet/cases/searchCases.do
09VE-CR00399 - ST V GARRETT MATTHEW MASON
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