County mourns death of deputy

Shock turned to grief and mourning Tuesday morning as word spread that a longtime Lamesa resident who had been a deputy sheriff here up until just a couple of weeks ago was killed in the line of duty at his new job in Eden.

Deputy Samuel Leonard of Lamesa, age 26, and fellow Concho County Sheriff’s Sgt. Stephen Jones were both shot and killed Monday evening in Eden.

Another individual, identified as an Eden city employee, was critically injured in the same incident, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) spokeperson.

Funeral services for Leonard, who leaves behind a wife and young daughter along with numerous other family members, are planned for 2 p.m. Monday at First Baptist Church in Lamesa.

Leonard had worked as a patrol deputy for the Dawson County Sheriff’s department for about a year and a half before leaving last month to return to the Concho County Sheriff’s Department where he had begun his law enforcement career.

“He was a really good deputy,” Dawson County Sheriff Matt Hogg said Tuesday.

“I wish he had stayed here longer but he said he wanted to get back to that area.”

Eden, with a population of about 2,750, is located about 45 miles southeast of San Angelo.

Hogg said April 25, the last day of Lamesa’s recent Chicken Fried Steak Festival, was Leonard’s final day with the local sheriff’s department.

“All of us here at the sheriff’s office have his entire family in our thoughts and prayers,” Hogg said. “I know it is a tough time for all of them.”

Looking to serve the community in other ways, Leonard had joined Lamesa Fire Rescue a few months ago.

“He was a good guy. We’re going to miss him,” Lamesa Fire Chief Larry Duyck said.

“I really hated to see him go. We were really excited to have him with the department.”

The mood was “somber” Tuesday morning at the Klondike school a few miles south of Lamesa, according to Superintendent Steve McLaren.

Leonard graduated from Klondike High School in 2013.

His parents are longtime employees of the school, father Randy as the information technology director and his mother Letha as an art teacher.

“My heart goes out to them,” McLaren said Wednesday morning. “I can’t imagine what they’re going through. I feel for them and the family of the other officer that got killed.”

Also mourning for the family is the staff at North Elementary school in Lamesa, where Samuel’s wife Morgan is a first-year fourth-grade teacher.

“It’s obviously been a tough couple of days on our teachers,” Principal David Ritchey said Wednesday, describing the staff at the school as being like family. “When something like this happens, you feel it through the school.”

But he emphasized the pain at the school can’t even be compared to that being felt by Morgan and the other members of the Leonard family.

“The amount of pain she’s going through, she needs us,’ Richey said. “Right now it’s about what Morgan needs, what the family needs, what the community needs.”

While a student at Klondike, Samuel Leonard was involved in a variety of activities such as FFA, one-act play, and athletics.

“He was a good kid,” McLaren recalled.

Following a family tradition, Leonard also had been actively involved in Boy Scouts as a youth, and achieve the top rank of Eagle Scout.

Leonard attended Angelo State University for a couple of years and later went into law enforcement.

Hogg said Samuel began his law enforcement career as a deputy with the Concho County Sheriff’s Department in June of 2019 and worked there until joining the sheriff’s office here in December of 2019.

Few details have been released about the shooting that claimed the lives of Leonard and Sgt. Jones.

In a brief televised announcement Tuesday afternoon, DPS Media Communications Sgt. Justin Baker said two sheriff’s officers and an Eden city employee responded about 8:40 p.m. Monday to a dog complaint in the 100 block of Bryan Street in Eden.

“While making contact with an individual at the residence, an altercation occurred which quickly escalated to gunfire,” Baker said.

“As a result, two Concho County deputies were fatally wounded and the Eden city employee was critically wounded.”

He added that the Texas Rangers are investigating the shooting and further details would be released in the near future.

Various news reports indicated the injured city employee was taken to a hospital in San Angelo.

Those reports also state that a suspect in the shooting, identified as Jeffery Nicholas, was arrested after a standoff of about 30 minutes.

Nicholas reportedly has been charged with two counts of capital murder of a peace officer. He apparently is being held in a San Angelo jail, with bond set at $4 million.

The officers’ deaths came during National Police Week, established by Congress in 1962 as a time to pay special recognition to law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others.