On March 18, 2008, Robert Louis Leeds, a 66-year-old male from Santa Maria, California, was shot to death at Black Road Auto, the scrap/junkyard business associated with his family. Three other men—Terry Edward Majan Ricardo/Robert Cardenas Leal and Golden Eli Duboise/Dubois —were also killed at the scene in what police described as a multiple-victim shooting at the yard that afternoon.
Contemporary reporting identified the victim as Robert Louis Leeds; he was widely known locally for decades in auto mechanics and instruction. All four victims were pronounced dead at the location, and no additional injuries were reported.
The primary suspect, and ultimately the convicted perpetrator, was the victim’s son, Lee Isaac Bedwell Leeds. He was arrested in the immediate aftermath of the shootings and booked on multiple counts of murder connected to the attack at Black Road Auto. Early coverage also noted family connections to an unrelated 2005 San Luis Obispo homicide, which authorities later said they doubted was linked to the Santa Maria case.
Court proceedings unfolded over several years, with recurring questions about the defendant’s mental competency. Judges ordered psychiatric evaluations, and by April 2011 a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge ruled Lee Leeds competent to stand trial. Reporting noted a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia during custody and treatment at Patton State Hospital; however, a jury ultimately found him legally sane at the time of the shootings.
In July 2012, Lee Leeds was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the four killings at the Santa Maria scrap yard. In statements reported at sentencing, he claimed he had not taken prescribed medications before the incident and asserted unsubstantiated fears about the victims; the court, however, imposed a life-without-parole term, underscoring the gravity of the murders, including that of his father, Robert Louis Leeds, the 66-year-old male business owner.
