Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - The Unsolved Disappearance of Diana Leone (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Diana Leone, a 35-year-old mother of two, spent years trapped in a horrific, abusive relationship with a much older man. Police records document years of brutal violence, and in 1999, Diana vanished without a trace. While her boyfriend claimed she ran off, the bruises and broken bones told a different story. 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.In 1999 after a particularly brutal abusive 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 Morgan claimed she ran off with another 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?https://sinspod.co/53sourcesDomestic Violence Resourceshttp://sinspod.co/resourcesClick here to become a member of our Patreon!https://sinspod.co/patreonVisit and join our Patreon now and access our ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content & schwag! Get ad-free access for only $1 a month or ad-free and bonus episodes for $3 a monthApple Podcast Subscriptionshttps://sinspod.co/appleWe're now offering premium membership benefits on Apple Podcast Subscriptions! On your mobile deviceLet us know what you think about the episodehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2248640/open_sms Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sins-survivors-a-las-vegas-true-crime-podcast--6173686/support.

To listen ad-free, visit Zinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show! Diana Leone was a 35-year-old mother of two young children, with a softness in her cheeks, blonde curls, and 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 glamour of the Las Vegas Strip.

Police records detail years of horrible abuse, shocking incidents, and dropped charges. 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? 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, Sean. And with me, as always, is the one and only John.

I am the only John in the room. 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.

For now, let's start with Diana. Do you want to get us started? 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 five siblings, and see if you can spot the common thing here. Their names were Don, Deborah, Doug, Dean, and Denise. 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

Abacus 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, West Virginia, to his father, Harry, and his mother, Edna. His father was 40, and his mother was 37 when he was born, so that's pretty old for the 1930s. He moved here to the Las Vegas area in 1961. We looked him up on Ancestry.com, and we can see that he had a brother, John, who died in 2003, and a sister, Dolores, 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 six years younger than Diana. A few years later, they moved into a home on the site of Abaca Storage at 3200 West Tico Ave in Las Vegas. Morgan also employed a man named Fred Hackett who lived on site at the Abacus Storage with his wife, Avis. And just a note that the storage business isn't there anymore, and it's hard to see exactly where it was since it's so built up in that area. Lieutenant Mark Redden of Las Vegas Metro Police Department 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 Redden's name a lot in this episode and next week's episode. He spent nearly half his career involved in this investigation, and he never gave up on uncovering the truth about what happened. Diana and David Morgan had two children of their own. David Lee Morgan, no, not really a junior because he has a different middle name, who was born in 1986, and Leah, a daughter who was born in 1992. There's a lot to say about David and 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 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, Redden 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, in April of 1994,

Morgan was arrested for embezzlement. However, prosecutors did not file charges due to insufficient evidence. Morgan had the reputation for being particularly ruthless and a tough businessman. Peter Chris Kristof 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. He said Morgan was a smart man but had a temper. You wouldn't want him as an enemy. Kristoff also said that the wealthy businessman told him that 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, Kristoff 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. Given this and given our podcast, it'll 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.

That 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 the doctor for treatment, but that doctor refused, saying that she needed emergency trauma treatment instead,

and he 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. Later in 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

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 exact record, 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 90s, 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 14, 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 it being reported for eight months. 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 reasons that that's 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 really

protecting her at all. It also further highlights that people were really afraid of this man and what he was capable of. You might think that because Morgan didn't bother to report her missing, that 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. That is outrageous, of course, when you consider the pattern of violence against his girlfriend, where he nearly beat her 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 insane to think they wouldn't even consider him a suspect.

We mentioned that Lieutenant Redden 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 of 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 they did find blood on the carpet, none in the car. And apparently they 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. Officers 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 that their relationship

didn't appear to be what Morgan said it was. Leah, their seven-year-old daughter, drew some pictures for Detective Redden, 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 a refrigerator. She also recalled that a large square of carpet was removed from her mother's bedroom. If Diana did leave, she left all of her belongings, including her car, her clothes, all of her money, and of course, her children. It was pretty unbelievable to Redden that she would leave without at least taking her younger daughter with her. And we found that quote a little strange and wondered why the detective said she didn't leave without her daughter instead of she didn't leave without her children. 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 just been hiding out after one of many domestic violence incidents, but again, she was just gone. Her sister and best friend Patty 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 seeing or hearing from her at all for eight months. By 2001, Detective Redden 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. 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 $4,500, and they also say that her car was impounded because of non-payment. Morgan claimed that he was paying for her car insurance at the rate of $1,700 per six-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 sheriff'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 that 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 all that property, remember that she never married him, although he did ask on several occasions. And of course, at this point, she wasn't declared legally dead anyway. We'll talk next week about the very good reason that she refused. 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 23, 1942, so he would be 82 years old today. He disappeared in 1982 at age 40. His wife was named Vicky, and he 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

Safetyscapes, which involved developing and selling improved methods for escaping burning buildings. The tragic MGM Hotel fire occurred in 1980 and claimed the lives of 85 people. And with the sheer volume of tourism in Las Vegas, it seems like a pretty strong business venture. He was also looking to create a restaurant that was built inside a permanently grounded airplane near the airport. So he definitely had his hands in a few things. 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 he 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 his keys in the ignition. In a later interview, David Morgan's sister, Dolores, 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 believe 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 and 150 pounds with brown hair that was thinning in the front and hazel eyes. He would be 82 years old 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. Diana was 35 years old when she disappeared and would be 60 years old in 2024. She's 5'5 and 120 pounds and was last known to be wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans. February will mark 25 years since she was last seen. Blonde reddish hair and hazel eyes,

a previously fractured left arm and right facial bones, and two bones in her left leg had been broken. 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. David Morgan has much more history that we're going to cover in next week's episode. So until then, we remind you that what happens here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support,

please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not

constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.