California homeowner accused of burying missing man in his yard charged with murder

A 55-year-old Long Beach man again faces a murder charge in the death and disappearance of Zach Kennedy after prosecutors filed a new case.

Scott David Leo is in the midst of a second preliminary hearing, which started Wednesday, Dec. 1, and was scheduled to finish next week: A judge will decide whether enough evidence exists for him to stand trial.

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  Zach Kennedy (Courtesy Jeff Kennedy)

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  A missing persons flyer for Zach Kennedy, 32, who was last seen in October 2017 in Long Beach. (Jeremiah Dobruck/Press-Telegram-SCNG)

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  Candles have been placed at 525 W. 8th Street where Long Beach Police recovered a body buried in the backyard. The body is believed to be that of Zach Kennedy, 32, missing since October 2017. Long Beach May 4, 2018. Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG

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  In this file photo, candles were placed at 525 W. 8th Street, where Long Beach police recovered the body of Zach Kennedy, 32, missing since October 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG)

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The new case, filed Nov. 12, includes the same charges as the previous filing — which include involuntary manslaughter, and maintaining a place for selling or using methamphetamine and GHB, DA spokesman Ricardo Santiago said.

The case was re-filed because a witness was unavailable to testify in a previous preliminary hearing in January, Santiago said.

Prosecutors had previously charged Leo with murder following his arrest in August 2020, more than two years after Kennedy’s body was found inside a bin buried in Leo’s side yard in the 500 block of West Eighth Street.

However, following the earlier preliminary hearing, in January, Judge Gary J. Ferrari dismissed the murder charge and lowered Leo’s bail to $100,000, which he posted to get released from jail. The judge ruled prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence.

The bail remained, because the same drug charges that were in the re-filing stuck.

In in October 2017, Kennedy was reported missing, initiating a months-long search before his body was discovered by Long Beach police in May 2018.

Jeff Kennedy, Zach’s father, has said his son was attending a party at Leo’s home the night he went missing. Zach Kennedy had moved to Long Beach from Pennsylvania a decade before, and he and Leo were acquaintances.

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Zach Kennedy was reported missing days after the party.

Leo’s attorney, Matthew Kaestner, has argued that Kennedy likely died of an accidental overdose and that prosecutors hadn’t shown any evidence that Leo provided or injected Kennedy with GHB, or otherwise caused his death.

Kaestner has said Leo hid the body because he freaked out and “saw his career and his home and everything about his life disappearing if this overdose death was to come to the attention of the authorities.”