Coroner's office confirms dog bites as cause of boy's death

By Roger Sims

linncountyjournal@icloud.com

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – The Kansas City, Kan. Police Department (KCKPD), which is leading the investigation into the death of 13-year-old Airen Andula of Pleasanton, confirmed on Monday, Jan. 5, the cause of the teen's death.

Airen Andula

According to the autopsy conducted by the Wyandotte County, Kansas, Coroner's Office, the cause of death has been identified as multiple dog bite injuries.

The autopsy results confirmed statements made by Airen’s family members and rumors that were widely circulated around the area about the cause of his death.

Forty-seven-year-old Damon Leonard of Pleasanton remains in custody on a $100,000, cash-only bond, in Bates County, Mo., on charges of abandonment of a corpse in relation to the teen's death.

Charges against Leonard have also been filed in Linn County for interference of law enforcement, criminal desecration and having a vicious dog at large. Law enforcement officials said that multiple dogs were removed from Leonard’s property during the investigation.

Airen, a Pleasanton Junior HIgh School student who lived with his family in the Holiday Lakes development east of Pleasanton, was last seen alive on Sunday morning, Dec. 21, when he went to feed a neighbor’s dog. When he hadn’t returned home by that evening, an intensive search was initiated by the Linn County Sheriff's Office that included county firefighters and members of other law enforcement agencies.

According to authorities, Leonard contacted the Bates County, Mo., Sheriff's Office on Monday, Dec. 22, to notify them that Airen was dead. He lead them to the boy’s body, which was in a creek ravine in rural Bates County.

The investigation into Airen’s death was handed off to the KCKPD after the Linn County Sheriff's Office decided that the investigation posed a potential conflict of interest for the office. Leonard’s stepbrother is former Linn County Sheriff Kevin Friend, who left the sheriff’s office in September 2024 to become an investigator for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

In a phone conversation with Friend on Dec. 26, he confirmed he was not involved in the investigation and that his only information on the case came in reports in the media.

On Monday, Dec. 5, Pleasanton school district students returned to classes following the Christmas break. It is the first time school has been in session since Airen’s death, and school officials are working with the Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center to provide counseling if needed.

A memorial service was held for Airen on Dec. 30 in Pleasanton, and a motorcade with race cars, muscle cars, pickups and even semi-tractors rolled down the city’s Main Street in tribute to the boy following the service.

In a release the KCKPD Major Case Unit said the investigation was continuing.