On March 18, 2008, Robert Louis Leeds, 66, of Santa Maria, California, was shot to death at Black Road Auto, the family’s scrap/junkyard business. Three other men—Terry Edward Majan Ricardo/Robert Cardenas Leal and Golden Eli Duboise/Dubois—were also killed in the same multiple-victim shooting that afternoon; all four were pronounced dead at the scene and no additional injuries were reported.

The primary suspect was the victim’s son, Lee Isaac Bedwell Leeds, who was arrested immediately after the shootings and booked on multiple counts of murder. Court records show recurring questions about his mental competency, with psychiatric evaluations ordered and a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia noted during custody and treatment at Patton State Hospital. By April 2011 a judge found him competent to stand trial, and a jury later determined he was legally sane at the time of the killings.

In July 2012 Lee Leeds was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the four murders. At sentencing he said he had not taken prescribed medications before the incident and described fears about the victims; the court imposed life-without-parole, including for the killing of his father, Robert Louis Leeds. Anyone who knew Robert, the business, or the people involved and has information is asked to come forward.