Affable. Bright. Caring. Loving. Sensitive. Those words were used by friends and family to describe Richmond, Virginia, restaurateur Leo Koury.
Manipulative. Vicious. Ruthless. Vengeful. Murderous. Those words were used by business associates and the FBI to describe Leo Koury. Both descriptions were accurate.
Leo Koury was a classic example of a Jekyll and Hyde personality. The devoted church goer and volunteer softball umpire was also an underworld boss and a cold-blooded killer. For over a dozen years, he was one of the most wanted men in America. Koury eluded detection by living a Spartan existence while in hiding, enabling him to never answer for his crimes.
Leo Koury
In the early 1960s, Leo Koury opened Richmond’s first nightclubs catering to homosexuals. In a time when gays were still frowned upon by most and could legally be refused service by businesses, Koury saw a great opportunity. His bars were dives, but they flourished because they were among the few venues where gay people could gather and feel comfortable.
Because of his virtual monopoly on the homosexual bars, Koury made a bundle by charging excessive prices. He became known as the “Godfather of the Gay Community,” and one associate described him as “the Jack Ruby of Richmond.”
Koury himself was not gay; he and his wife Jeanette had four children.
Young Leo
Koury’s stranglehold on the Richmond gay nightclubs lasted for over a decade. By the mid-1970s, however, his grip was threatened as other businessmen saw the potential profits of catering to homosexuals. Rival gay bars began opening, forcing Koury to lower his prices. Because the newer establishments were nicer than his dumps, patrons flocked to them. Koury’s businesses began to suffer.
Wanting to re-obtain his monopoly, Koury attempted to buy out his competitors. When most would not sell, Leo became lethal, sending armed thugs into the rival clubs to terrorize the patrons.
In February 1975, three customers were shot to death and several more were injured at the rival Cha Cha Club. One month later, on March 19, the club’s bouncer, Chuck Kernighan, disappeared.
In January 1977, a similar attack occurred at the Male Box, another successful rival homosexual bar taking customers away from Koury. Masked henchmen shot one man, Albert Thomas, to death and injured two others. When the Male Box reopened several days later, no one came.
The gunmen in each of the club shootings were suspected henchmen of Leo Koury, who was believed to have ordered the shootings, but nothing linked any of his goons to the incidents. His underlings were extremely loyal; he took care of them and they, in turn, kept their mouths shut.
Koury Is Suspected
The shootings at the gay clubs were investigated as hate crimes until one of Koury’s underlings, Eddie Loehr, was caught trying to kill business rival Jim Hilliard at his home on the evening of October 20, 1978. A neighbor had seen a man with a gun lurking around the home and called the police. They responded before Loehr could act and Hilliard was unharmed.
Two years earlier, Koury had sold one of his bars, The Dialtone, to Hilliard who converted it into a restaurant/bar renamed the J. Danhill Restaurant. The business flourished and Koury was angered that Hillard would not sell his old and improved establishment back to him.
Faced with a likely long prison sentence for attempted murder, Loehr came clean, telling authorities he had been paid by Koury to kill Hilliard. In exchange for a lesser sentence, Loehr agreed to wear a wire enabling police and the FBI to gather information and build a case against Koury. Gradually, other members of Koury’s inner circle also began talking.
After several months, Leo Koury’s nearly decade long laundry list of crimes was exposed.
Koury’s Canaries Begin Singing
Koury was found to be involved in multiple crimes ranging from insurance fraud to murder. Members of his illicit enterprise also told the FBI he had orchestrated a plan in 1975 to kidnap billionaire pharmaceutical heir E. Claiborne Robins, Jr. for a $500,000 ransom. Koury aborted the plot after he deemed it too risky.
The informants also confirmed what police had suspected: Koury had ordered the attacks at the Cha Cha and Male Box clubs and was responsible for the disappearance of Chuck Kernighan, saying the Cha Cha Club bouncer was bounced after being lured to Koury’s home on the premise of discussing a truce. Koury himself was said to have shot Kernighan: his body was placed in a trunk, weighed down with the bumper from a 1957 Chevy and dumped into the Rappahannock River. Kernighan’s remains were never found.
Lethal Leo
Halloween brought the ghosts out of Leo Koury’s closet. On October 31, 1978, he was indicted on federal racketeering charges of insurance fraud, mail fraud, loan-sharking, obstruction of justice, arson, extortion, assault, attempted kidnapping, attempted murder, and murder.
The state of Virginia also charged Koury with two murders and three attempted contract slayings between 1975 and 1977, all involving killings at rival homosexual clubs.
Koury Is Charged
Koury had friends in law enforcement and is believed to have paid them to tell him if the net was closing in. With his Hyde side exposed, Richmond’s racketeer restaurateur went into hiding. The week before the indictments, Koury fled, allegedly with over $1 million in cash stuffed into the trunk of his car in suitcases and grocery bags.
On April 20, 1979, Leo Koury was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.
Leo On The Lam
Nearly two-hundred sightings of Koury were reported over the next dozen years. The most promising clues suggested he was living the circus life, traveling with the carnivals along the east coast. Other tips suggested he had gone abroad and was living the good life in South America. Still others suggested he had fled to Lebanon, from where his father had emigrated and where he had many relatives.
None of the leads checked out, and as it turned out, the truth of Leo Koury’s fugitive life was far less glamorous.
Elusive Leo
On June 15, 1991, over twelve years after Leo Koury went into hiding, a convenience store clerk known as Bill Biddle was admitted to San Diego’s Villa View Community Hospital in failing health. The following day, he died of complications following a stroke.
The hospital received an anonymous phone call, saying the name Bill Biddle was an alias; the deceased man was Leo Koury. The FBI made a positive identification and, after nearly thirteen years, was able to close its voluminous files on the senior member of its Ten Most Wanted List.
Richmond’s reputed restaurant racketeer had become a recluse living in a small rent-controlled apartment in east San Diego. The Gay Godfather who was believed to have had millions of dollars had been working part-time for minimum-wage at a convenience store; he had said he was retired from the Red Cross having received a small disability pension. He did not own a car and lived a secluded life, rarely socializing with anyone.
As far as could be determined, “Bill Biddle” lived as Jekyll; the FBI found no evidence of criminal activity by Leo Koury during his dozen years on the lam.
Jeanette Koury says her husband never contacted her since fleeing; their children also say they never heard from their fugitive father.
Found Deceased
In the pre-Internet days, the FBI often used billboards to track down their most wanted.
In 1991, at the time of Leo Koury’s death, the FBI offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of a Ten Most Wanted Fugitive. San Diego County officials believed the county was entitled to the reward, because a county investigator had called the FBI, enabling them to confirm Koury’s identity. The FBI said the reward money applied only to the tips that led to the capture of fugitives, not to those leading to their remains.
A minor controversy ensued. After some negative publicity, the FBI relented and paid San Diego County the $25,000.
Today, the minimum monetary reward offered for the capture of a Top Tenner is $100,000.
The FBI’s Billboards Failed To Locate Leo Koury
Before his underworld activities became known, Leo Koury worked as a volunteer umpire in several charity softball games in which FBI employees played. Jack Colwell, one of the FBI agents who would later be in charge of tracking the fugitive, played in many of those games and recalled talking to Koury on several occasions.
Colwell described his later prey as an overall good umpire, though he thought his strike zone was a little too liberal.
Jack Colwell
FBI Special Agent
SOURCES:
- America’s Most Wanted
- Los Angeles Times
- New York Times
- Richmond Post-Dispatch
- San Diego Tribune
- Unsolved Mysteries
- Washington Post
- WTVR CBS Affiliate Channel 6 Richmond, VA
I’m glad the county got their money! What a sad, small life he lived after being such a big wig!