Family searching for man missing from Yellow Springs

A Yellow Springs man has been missing for more than a month and his family is worried he is missing in part because he was traumatized by helping clean up an apartment that was the scene of an accidental shooting.

Since mid-January family and friends of 26-year-old Leonid “Lonya” Clark, say he has not been heard from. Clark disappeared a month after he helped clean up a Corry Street apartment after police were finished there investigating an accidental shooting in which one man died, according to Lonya’s adoptive father, Eric Clark.

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Clark said his son is the kind of person who always volunteered to help when needed, but he was deeply troubled after Dec. 13. Clark said his son volunteered to help clean up the scene and that “was not the best choice for him to make.”

Clark said his gut tells him his son’s connection to the incident that day is a factor in his disappearance.

“It affected him more than he was able to verbalize,” Clark said. “He came over to our house several times and he would just pace back and forth in our living room … He’d talk about it in a sentence or two … He needed to talk about it but didn’t know how.”

Clark said Lonya Clark had a history of mental health problems and said they’ve been able to narrow down the timeline of when Lonya went missing.

On the morning of Sunday Jan. 13, Lonya received an Uber ride from a friend’s home in Kettering back to Yellow Springs. The friend paid for the ride because Lonya didn’t have the cash to pay for it, Clark said. That afternoon, Lonya argued via text message with the same friend and that conversation didn’t end well, Clark said.

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“How would he be able to afford to get anywhere if he couldn’t afford the Uber ride?” Clark said. “We’re still back to this idea that something happened to him that Sunday or Sunday night.”

Residents have been asked to check their garages and outbuildings for signs of Lonya. About a fifth of the residences in Yellow Springs have been checked, Clark said, adding that flyers were posted Friday in the Kettering area.

If you can help in the search for Lonya Clark, call Yellow Springs police at (937) 767-7206.

The clean-up work came in the wake of the Dec. 13 shooting death of Yellow Springs resident Kenneth Livingston. Livingston died of an accidental gunshot to the head, according to the Greene County coroner’s report released last week. The toxicology results show the 40-year-old Livingston had alcohol and marijuana in his system, but he was otherwise in good health.

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The police investigation into Livingston’s death remains open, as test results on the firearm are not in yet from the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab, according to Sgt. Joshua Knapp.

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