Woman blew up her own house in horror explosion that destroyed 30 houses and killed two
Netflix’s Worst Neighbor Ever continues Netflix’s ongoing streak of finding some of the most harrowing true crime stories around.
Whether it’s documentary films such as their recent film about Mackenzie Shirilla killing her boyfriend by driving 100mph into a wall, or the Amy Bradley TV series, if you want to hear about some horrifying true crime: Netflix is the place to go.
Worst Neighbor Ever is a spin-off of Netflix's successful show Worst Ex Ever and tells four stories of neighbourly relationships gone wrong.
One of these involves a woman who stole a man’s identity after finding him dead in his home, but she didn’t actually kill him – arguably the most shocking case from the four episode documentary series features a house which exploded, killing the woman’s two neighbours in what at first appeared to be a tragic accident.
Advert
30 houses in the neighbourhood, Richmond Hill, were destroyed and as many as 80 were damaged in the blast, causing seven people to be injured in addition to the two deaths. When investigators looked closer however, they found a disturbing reality, not an accident.
Monserrate "Moncy" Shirley intentionally blew up her house
A woman known as Moncy by her neighbours owned the house that blew up, a house she lived in with her boyfriend Mark Leonard.
In the Netflix doc a neighbour describes how Moncy began dating Mark after her divorce, a move that concerned them due to his electronic ankle tag and the ‘negative influence’ he had on her.
They soon moved in together and were thankfully 90 miles away when the explosion happened.
Dion and Jennifer Longworth, their next-door neighbours, were killed in the explosion however, and when investigators looked into Moncy’s house they found something odd.
Moncy and Mark had arranged for her 12-year-old daughter to be staying with a friend, and their Snowball had been boarded for the weekend.
The plot became obvious however when they began looking into Moncy’s legal documents following the explosion.
Moncy had recently increased her home insurance to $300,000 and had blown the house up in a sick plot to cash in
Investigators were already concerned upon finding out Moncy and Mark weren’t at home, that her cat and daughter were moved out, but the recently increased home insurance was a damning sign.
What truly tipped cops off however was that Moncy’s boyfriend, Mark, had a history of insurance fraud and crime.
It turned out that Mark, Moncy, and Mark’s brother Bob Leonard, had concocted a plan to increase her home insurance, fill the house with natural gas, and then spark it using a microwave, something that can be set in advance.
The couple were in bankruptcy proceedings with $63,000 in credit card debt, and an associate of Mark’s said he’d called him a week earlier to say ‘the house blew up’ after a failed previous attempt.
Moncy ended up testifying against Mark and Bob, and was sentenced to 50 years in prison for conspiracy to commit arson, claiming during the trial that she was trapped in an abusive relationship with Mark and was coerced into participating. She was also diagnosed with dependent personality disorder.
Mark was found guilty of 53 counts at trial and Bob was found guilty of 51 counts. Mark was given a life sentence, whilst Bob was given two life sentences.
Worst Neighbor Ever is available to stream on Netflix now.
Topics: Netflix, True Crime, Crime, TV and Film, Documentaries
Michael Slavin