Police tape at the corner of Florida Street and Miami Avenue on Wednesday, July 5, 2023, in Hayward, Calif. A person was killed nearby in a shooting the night before. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
OAKLAND — On the day a Hayward man was supposed to have a preliminary hearing in his murder case, prosecutors walked into court and dismissed all charges, stating without elaboration that they no longer felt confident in the case against the defendant, who was alleged to have led witnesses right to the victim’s burning body.
But Samuel Leyva, 32, did not walk out of court following the dismissal. He still faces charges of beating and sexually assaulting a woman four months after the February 2022 homicide, and just weeks before he was charged with murder. Leyva remains jailed while that case is pending, with bail set at $235,000, and the next court hearing set for for Friday, records show.
Leyva was charged in August 2022 with murdering Leonardo Amezcua Rodriguez, a 28-year-old transgender woman whose badly burnt body was discovered near the South Hayward BART station. Court documents say Leyva walked up to two pedestrians, asked them if they wanted to see the body of a person he’d just strangled and burned, then led the witnesses straight to the crime scene.
Leyva was arrested that day, but released pending the completion of an autopsy report. After the report was completed and ruled the death a homicide, Leyva was charged with murder. But that process took six months, and in the meantime, Leyva allegedly attacked a sleeping woman at a Hayward homeless encampment, using a rock and his fists to strike her at least 10 times during the attack, according to police testimony.
The autopsy eventually confirmed that Amezcua Rodriguez had been strangled, but inhalation of smoke from the fire and blunt force trauma were also listed on the coroner’s report as causes of death. Hours before Amezcua Rodriguez was killed, police were in the area over reports of “small fires” near the BART railroad tracks. The officers noted Amezcua Rodriguez and an unidentified man were in the area, according to the autopsy report.
With Leyva’s alleged admission of guilt and his story matching the autopsy’s findings, it appeared to be a straightforward case. But last May, Deputy District Attorney Lauren Hashimoto announced in court that prosecutors were “unfortunately” dismissing the case due to “insufficient evidence.” She did not elaborate, but Judge Scott Patton briefly went off the record with both attorneys, then concluded when the hearing resumed that there were “problems of proof,” a transcript of the hearing shows.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s office has refused to explain the decision. When asked in an email, a spokesperson for the office — who did not identify themselves — suggested answers could be found in the four-page transcript of the May hearing and didn’t respond to further inquiries. Leyva’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Originally published at Nate Gartrell