Updated June 26 2023
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/bondexcerpt_cleanup-1.png?w=599)
The confessed killer, Bobby Leonard, was shown the following four photos of the crime scene:
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/1_bathroom_showercurtain-1.png?w=955)
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2_livingroom_carpet_blinds-1.png?w=682)
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/3_closet_orderly-2.png?w=332)
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/4_bodyincloset.png?w=1024)
Leonard was asked whether this is how he left the scene. Here is his response:
This isn’t how I left the apartment when I left. Beginning at the front door of the apartment, there was, and should have been, an unopened soda can lying on the floor not far from the front door. I walked into the living room area after the initial attack and I pulled the blinds shut. I realized at the time that we were on the second floor, but I didn’t want to risk somehow being seen, so I closed the blinds.
The bathroom should have been the messiest place in the apartment. There should have been water all over the floor. The shower curtain should have been open, it was messy and I didn’t do anything to try to clean it up. I just dragged the wet body from the bathroom into the master bedroom. And then there’s the closet in the master bedroom. NO WAY was it as organized, clean or neat as it appears in this picture. I searched that closet pretty good in search of the money that I was promised would be there. The body was on the floor outside of the closet, and I was down on my knees searching the floor area of the closet. I picked up shoes, moved them around. I was moving everything that was in my way out of my way to find the money. When I didn’t find cash in the shoes and on the floor area, I stood up, frustrated and angrily looking higher, putting my hands inside clothing, finding nothing and moving on with my search until I gave up. When I gave up, I bent over and began putting the body into the closet without rearranging anything. I do believe that I did lay the body facing into the closet, in a cradle position, but not on top of a crate. Not to my recollection. The body was on the floor.
I want to explain that, in court, no one had shown me pictures of the apartment. At the grand jury hearing, and at Johnson’s trial, I was shown pictures of the closet and asked if that was how I left the body. I answered yes because that did appear to be how I left the body. But the closet wasn’t put back together by me the way that it is in these photos. I didn’t make any effort to clean up after the fact. I didn’t clean like these photos show.
– Statement of Bobby Leonard regarding how he left the crime scene
At the scene, police also almost immediately noticed signs of cleaning. Dr. Fields (medical examiner) and Lisa Haring (fingerprint specialist) remarked that crime scene was very clean, or “cleanest I’ve ever seen” (Johnson’s defense attorneys attempted, and failed, to suppress this statement in a pre-trial motion).
- More than 600 fingerprint cards; Andrea’s fingerprints not found anywhere, although she had lived there for seven years (police file; trial); only 6 (<1%) useable; all came back to Johnson
- Testing included multiple areas in Andrea’s bedroom, interior of front door, all door knobs; fingerprint dust found virtually everywhere (police file; trial)
- Defense’s own experts stated that substances used were very good at extracting prints on non-porous surfaces
- The use of superglue on Andrea’s body does not explain the lack of her fingerprints anywhere in her residence
- Highly unusual for someone living in a place to have no fingerprints there after seven years
To add more context to the fingerprint evidence, The Latent Print Report dated 7/10/2019 states that “572 digital photographs [from one source]…27 photographs [from another source]…12 latent lift cards [from a third source] and nine latent lift cards [from a fourth source]” as Exhibits A-D were analyzed, and that they were compared to exemplars from Johnson, Andrea Cincotta, Kevin Cincotta, and Bobby Joe Leonard, with the only conclusive results that “five latent fingerprints and two latent palm prints [from one area, and] one latent fingerprint and one latent palmprint [from another area]” all matched Johnson. In total, this implies 620 samples, with 6 (fingerprints) and 3 (palmprints) coming back to Johnson, as the only matches:
Johnson admits, on the night of the murder:
- Cleaning out his truck
- Throwing away old papers (Andrea’s will was missing; the piece of paper with Leonard’s name and phone number was never found)
- Throwing away soda bottles and drinking “the last root beer” on the floor (the root beer Leonard said he left as part of the crime scene was never found)
- Doing laundry
- Vacuuming (But originally said he merely noticed that the carpet had been freshly vacuumed).
- That his thought process involved the impossible: Andrea playing an answering machine message before Johnson found it unplayed (see below).
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/rootbeerimage-4.jpg?w=1024)
FROM JOHNSON’S “ROOT BEER STATEMENT” (1999)
Johnson admits that he is the one who vacuumed the crime scene (2018)
![Crime scene photograph of the condo. A small dining room is shown with an archway behind, leading into the living room. In the living room two windows are visible and the blinds on each are pulled up.](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/crimescene.png)
In this context, “cleanup” does not refer merely to literal cleaning. It can also refer to changing the appearance of a scene. The confessed killer described leaving a crime scene with a root beer or soda can on the living room floor and the living room blinds out of place (pulled shut.) Here is the scene the police found—all living room blinds completely open; no soda can in sight. Johnson admitted to throwing away soda bottles that night and stated that he drank “the last root beer” while sitting on the floor. He never said the window shades were out of place, or that he had pulled them open.
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/johnsonrootbeer.png)
![Leonard's testimony of how he left the crime scene.](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/leonardtestimonycrimescene.png)
![Crime scene photograph. A closet door is opened, revealing a vacuum standing upright in front of coats and jackets on hangers.](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/vaccuum.png)
![Testimony of crime scene examiner. They found no fingerprints on the outside of the vacuum.](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/vaccuumtestimony.png)
Crime scene photograph and testimony of police who examined the crime scene: no fingerprints on outside of vacuum that Johnson admits to using after the murder.
The carpet had clearly been freshly vacuumed. Johnson’s lawyers argued at trial that prosecutors had bungled the crime scene, in part, by failing to test the vacuum bag for trace evidence. Yet their client admitted to vacuuming. The relevance of that fact is that their client vacuumed a crime scene–on the prosecution’s theory, to conceal the drag marks that Leonard stated he left on the carpet. The contents of the vacuum bag are not relevant to the fact that Johnson vacuumed, and any “trace evidence” tying Leonard to the scene would have been unremarkable, since he was in the condo a month earlier to get the computer. Indeed, the vacuum bag was opened at trial and showed nothing remarkable. Johnson’s lawyers have never explained what possible evidence was found (or even could have been found) in the bag that might have been favorable to Johnson. This is also relevant because Johnson had initially claimed that he merely noticed the crime scene had been freshly vacuumed, but later changed his story. Meanwhile, the vacuum cleaner that Johnson admits to using that night had no fingerprints on it (MPO Marks testimony, Trial Transcript of 9/19/2022: Q: You had it [the vacuum] processed for prints? A: “I didn’t get any…you generally get fingerprints and I didn’t get any fingerprints.” The defense objected to this testimony and was immediately overruled.
Leonard testified that he had left his name and phone number on a piece of paper in the condo. The victim’s family was under the impression that the name and number of “the computer guy” was written in Andrea’s address book, which had been in her purse, which was taken as part of the crime. The victim’s family viewed the computer guy as the top suspect right away, and urgently asked Johnson whether he saw the name and number before it was taken. They didn’t know that Johnson had already admitted to police not only seeing the number, but being asked to call it.
In fact, the victim’s son testified that Johnson told him that he “never saw the piece of paper” with the computer guy’s name and number, and that he knew nothing about the individual, except that they were likely male. The son also testified that he thought the number was written in Andrea’s address book, which was taken as part of the crime. It turned out that Leonard’s contact information was, in fact, written on a loose piece of paper, and therefore likely not taken as part of the crime. Yet it was never recovered. Andrea’s will was also never recovered, but had been in a location known to Johnson, in a drawer. That drawer had every other important paper Andrea kept there, but the will was missing.
What the victim’s son didn’t know is that three days earlier, Johnson had acknowledged to police that Andrea asked him to call the man (Leonard), she gave him the number, and he remembered the first three digits, and somehow correctly thought or knew that the man lived in Southeast DC (Johnson had found Andrea’s car in Southeast DC, in walking distance from Leonard’s residence).
Meanwhile, Johnson’s Root Beer Statement, which was written three weeks after the murder with zero police presence or involvement, includes references to throwing out old papers and soda bottles on the night of the murder. The video portion of his police interview also includes a reference to throwing away the bottle of root beer referenced above.
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/leonardpieceofpaper.jpg?w=1024)
Leonard testified that he left name and number on a piece of paper in the condo
![](https://justiceforandrea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/rootbeerexcerpt_paper_sodabottles.jpg?w=1024)
Johnson’s description of the night’s activities includes doing laundry, vacuuming, throwing away soda bottles, throwing away a (separate) root beer bottle, and throwing away old papers. The root beer bottle Leonard left on the floor, piece of paper with Leonard’s name and number, and Andrea’s will were all missing–and never recovered.