Lennie Paul Tracey

They were next door neighbors with many things in common. They were both similar in age and they both went through terrible tragedies in their lives. They could have been best friends. But instead of sharing backyard barbecues, they declared war. There are two huge volumes at the station of petty complaints. Get the fuck off of our property. I'd just call them the neighbors from hell forever. Their eight year feud would ultimately erupt into violence. They said we have a neighbor who shot another neighbor and this was an ongoing dispute. He had two gunshot wounds close up, one in the back and one in the chest. I saw the whole image chest and it was struggling to breathe. The question was, which neighbor was to blame? The night he actually decided to walk over there, he was just like, I give up. I just want this then. My husband kept warning everybody, you know, something's going to happen. It's getting worse. It was a powder keg ready to explode and when it did explode, someone was murdered. September 24, 2011. It's just before 3 a.m. in the suburbs of Santa Clarita, California. And most residents are sound asleep. But their rest is suddenly disturbed by the sound of gunshots. Name one. Power. Power on. It's an age. It's a big shot. So we need to get somebody here now. Within minutes, deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department arrive outside a residence in the area known as Canyon Country. They quickly learned that the gunshot victim isn't a stranger to the 911 caller. When I arrived, there was like a barrier, a fence that it didn't, it just covered the front of the house. Which I thought was kind of unusual. There were a few neighbors that were still out and about. They said we have a neighbor who shot another neighbor and that this was an ongoing dispute. It was a chaotic situation. You had a victim who had obviously been shot, but you also had an unaccounted gunman. So they were trying to get a hold of the situation while they had an active shooter on their hands. Onlookers say the feuding neighbors are 51-year-old Lenny Paul Tracy and 51-year-old Anthony Davis. There was a standoff between the shooter inside the house and the sheriff's outside that we're trying to get him in custody and protect everyone on scene. As long as the standoff continues, paramedics are unable to reach the injured man. The deputy sheriff's warrant allowing the MTs inside because of the scene had been actively secured. We knew who the two parties were. I'm trying to identify the victim and to identify the suspect. I needed to investigate further. Of the two feuding neighbors, Tony Davis was the newest resident. After high school, Tony and Cindy moved in together. She took an office job while he started his own roofing company. My uncle Tony was an extremely hard worker and his roofing business was successful. In 1981, when Tony and Cindy were just 20 years old, they had their first child together, a son named Jesse. They decided to get married and four years later, their daughter Jamie was born. Cindy and Tony had an amazing home life. They were very family-oriented. It was dinner every night on the table, sit down and talk about each other's day. Tony took pride in providing for his family, but by the time he turned 30, construction work had taken its toll. Roofing was strenuous, it's hard labor, so he decided to change careers and went into trucking. I remember aiming first class A license and how hard he was working on that. While he finished his license, Tony supplemented his income with a job at a home improvement store. But in 1991, a freak accident turned his life upside down. He was in the warehouse and a forklift malfunctioned and backed over his leg and crushed his leg. That was obviously a very difficult injury to deal with. He was on disability at the time and he didn't want to sit at home and be stagnant. So he actually decided to start going to classes and start aiming for a bachelor's degree in education to be fell in love with teaching a lot more than his prior careers. By 2003, Tony was back on track and after more than 20 years of marriage, he and Cindy decided it was time to invest in a dream house. They found it on a cul-de-sac in Canyon Country. That was the first home that they ever purchased. This house had like a beautiful pole, gorgeous yard. It required a lot of work and you know, that was the time and effort that they were willing to put in together. They worked really well together as a team. When their nephew moved to California for college, the couple invited him to stay with them. They wanted to provide me with support and it was amazing. Every night when I came home, my Uncle Tony was waiting there on the couch for me. Tony and Cindy quickly connected with their neighbors, including the couple living next door, Lenny Paul Tracy and his wife Sandra. I lived directly next door to the Tracy's and then the Davises were next door to him. So we were all three right in the row. The Davises were very friendly. They were very talkative and welcoming to us into the neighborhood. Lenny and Tony were a lot alike. Lenny and Sandra didn't get married as early as Tony and Cindy did, but that was because Lenny actually served in the army beforehand. Lenny Paul Tracy was born in 1960 and grew up in Seamy Valley, California. After the army, Lenny, he started his career. He was a commercial artist. He focused a lot on print advertising and graphic design. Along the way, he met Sandra and they built a life together and they found their dream home on Calypso Lane. Like Tony, Lenny was sidelined by an accident and he was put on disability. He crashed into a sign and he tore his meniscus. That meant that Lenny and Sandra had to make do with the money that he was getting from workers come. These were two guys. They went through horrible situations, tragedies. You think that this will be something that people would bond over. But instead of becoming best friends, the two men turned into enemies. The issue that started this entire problem was that Lenny had a large tire that was leaning against the wooden fence in the backyard. My uncle had two large German shepherds and the fence was starting to bow in such a way that it was starting to create an opening. In the fence, my uncle was worried that the dogs were going to get through the fence. My uncle Tony decided to take a note and put it on the door and said, "Hey, there's a tire in the backyard. Is there any way that we can move that?" The note seemed to offend the traces. Instead of coming to some kind of arrangement, they quickly became hostile. From that note on, it was a cop calling and it was harassment. The traces would file complaints if they were watering the lawn because there was water getting on their sidewalk. "Looky, David's decided to squirt the house down this block." They called the cops one time because the trash service picked up. trash cans but nobody immediately removed them. They complained about the way the vehicles were parked. They're not allowed to do this. The Davises tried to be friendly and talk through it but the traces weren't having it. After years of volatile relations any attempts at mediation have failed. The Davises were willing and they really wanted to sit down and discuss the problems and how could they resolve them and each time the traces refused. Amidst the chaos of the crime scene, Sheriff's determine which neighbour was the gunman and who has been gunned down. Neighbors on scene were upset with Mr. Tracey who they suspected had just shot and killed their neighbor Mr. Davis. When I woke up I heard my aunt Cindy screaming outside and so I walked outside. Tracey was still standing in the doorway with the shotgun. They were ordering him to put down the weapon and come outside of the house. He was refusing. Been on cooperative, standoffish, using colorful language. Since EMTs can't act a neighbor standing by takes matters into her own hands. I run outside and we started CPR. Tony was laying on his back. I didn't know whether or not he was alive and so you know at that point I needed to do whatever I could to try and resuscitate him. The only thought that I had was that we had to get Tony away from the house. Unfortunately Lenny is still showing no signs of surrender. At some point Mr. Tracey opened the door, peaked his head out and told the sheriff that if they wanted him they would have to come in and get him. Coming up, officers defused a dangerous situation. Sandra was screaming at the police to shut the door and investigators uncovered details of a bizarre neighborhood fuse. The police are on their way. Good. There was no question as to what happened. Why it happened is a totally different issue. As Los Angeles County Sheriff's tried to negotiate a surrender with active shooter 51-year-old Lenny Paul Tracey. Time is running out for his apparent victim and next door neighbor, Tony Davis. We had to get Tony out of the line of fire and get us out of the line of fire as well. So we grabbed Tony's arms and his legs and we drug him out to the front. Mr. Davis was originally found on the walkway about 15 feet off the doorstep. Of the Tracey residents. They were able to drag him from that walkway out into the driveway area and he was able to get some medical care from the aunties. He had two gunshot wounds close up one in the back and one in the chest. He was shortly thereafter prounced at. Sheriff's officially declared the case a homicide and prepared to storm the Tracey residents to take Lenny into custody. The sheriff selected to remove both Mr. and Mrs. Tracey to minimize any further violence that he was. It was tense for a matter of a few minutes and at first they thought that he was taunting them about making entry into his house. Later on he appeared to them to be more amenable to a non-violent resolution of the conflict and the deputies were able to safely enter the front foyer of the house. They found the shotgun on the couch in the living room. And Mr. Tracey may have immediately handcuffed him. Lenny and Sandra Tracey both seem agitated and under the circumstances their behavior strikes officers as odd. Sandra was screaming at the police to shut the door so that her cats don't get out. That was just crazy to me. The Tracey seemed more concerned with the well-being of the cats than Mr. Davis's death or even Mr. Tracey's legal troubles. Once the sheriff had secured the location they were going about the house making sure everything was secure and the deputy sheriff that it was assigned to watch Mr. Tracey actually heard Mr. Tracey sort of muttering to himself. He said I've never shot anybody in anger and I was in the army. I thought what a strange thing to say or to even come up I mean it was almost like he thought it was maybe he missed or something but that's not the case. The Tracey's are taken into custody in order for detectives to question them further but first authorities process the crime scene. By the front door I found two expended shotgun shells and one live shell based on the information that there was a forced entry into the home. I looked at the front door and found that there was no evidence that the door was damaged. There were no kick marks, strike marks. There were no smudges etc on the door that would be in keeping with that scenario and as I made my way around the exterior of the Tracey residents I saw very unusual fence. The way it was designed looked to be an attempt at some sort of tactical impediment. This fence I was maybe about 8 feet long 6 feet high and it was made out of wood. It almost looked like a barrier. As LA sheriffs continue to survey the property they find more evidence of the feud between the Davis and Tracey families. Along the common wall that faced towards the Davis residents were a number of professional quality signs that were highly inflammatory made reference to the Davis's an extremely demeaning and hateful life. They weren't visible from the street but if the Davis's looked over their yard towards the Tracey's house they would become immediately visible. Mr. Tracey had been a long-term graphic designer and used his talents as a signmaker to make these bolder signs and then took the time to post on his outside wall facing the Davis residents. One of the signs had an image of a whale and it was indicating that Mrs. Davis was overweight. All I could think was how much time and effort went into the sign and what level of commitment to this feud if you will had transpired over those years. Once Tony's widow Cindy Davis recovers enough to talk she offers her side of the feud. According to her what started as a neighborly disagreement in 2003 slowly escalated into increasingly paranoid and hostile behavior. There were lots of issues where Tracey had targeted his daughter and some of his harassment tactics. things like standing out in the yard with the garden hose and spraying her car and at her as she walked by to try and go inside her home. There's the water hose. My uncle Tony was telling me to try to try my best to ignore. That's my property line and you don't want them anywhere near this property. Tracey was very burst in the city ordinances and knew just what to say and just what to do and just what the limits were. For instance, Christmas time, they had their air conditioner decorated like a Christmas gift on top of the house. And he called the city so that they had to remove it because it was, you know, a hazard. And so, they made him take it down. These are the vehicles that are constantly being attacked. The Tracey's had complained that the Davis didn't move their mailbox, had not cleaned up their dog feces in the backyard and because it was a slightly elevation, it was affecting their backyard. So the city inspectors were out there to investigate that time and again. Over the course of the eight year neighbor feud, it led to an escalation of each side mounting exterior cameras with the recording devices to monitor the activities of the other. Cindy tells detectives that she and Tony finally reached their limit in 2006 and filed a restraining order. Tony and Cindy took out a restraining order on the Tracey's to try to stop them from running up to the car and taking pictures and screaming in the window. The Tracey's then pretty much immediately turned around and filed the exact same restraining order against Tony and Cindy. After the restraining order, things got pretty intense. They took a directional speaker and they pointed it at my uncle's house and so all night there was extremely loud bird noises playing. The Tracey's would take flood lights and they would strap them to the side of their house and they would shine them directly into the bedroom windows all night. My uncle started sleeping in the living room on a couch to try to escape that. Mr. Tracey had that L-shaped fence and we believe that he powered an infrared light from his garage through an extension cord and then hung that infrared light at the top of that L-shaped and projected that light back toward the Davis residents. It functionally blinded the video surveillance system of the Davis's. We believe that to be the triggering of that. But investigators still have to hear the Tracey's side of the story. It was a powder keg ready to explode and when it did explode, it was someone who was murdered. The night that my uncle Tony actually decided to walk over there, he was just like, "I give up. I just want this to end." I think that just kind of added fuel to the fire. Hours after Tony Davis was killed by his neighbor, Lenny Paul Tracey, Tony's now widow Cindy Davis tells investigators how their decade-long feud finally erupted into violence. Mrs. Davis said that she had been watching TV and fell asleep and she was awoken by her husband in the morning hours. He told her he was going to go next door and ask his neighbor, Mr. Tracey, to turn off an infrared light. She didn't think it was a big deal and she went back to sleep. And very short time later, she heard two loud gunshots and relatively quick succession. And she hurried over next door and found her husband lying on the front of the walkway of the Tracey residents towards the driveway. Mrs. Davis seeing her husband with obvious gunshot wound attempted to render aid and at a certain point while she was doing this, she saw the front door open and Mr. Tracey still armed with the shotgun, pointing the shotgun at her. She said Mr. Tracey told her to leave where the same thing would happen to her. Cindy says that's when she ran for help. Her nephew, Josh, describes what happened next. I had woke up to screaming. I ran across the lawn. My aunt Cindy's running back towards our house and she has the phone in her hand. And she's screaming, call 911, you know, they shot him. Now walk around the corner when I saw the hole in his chest and he was struggling to breathe. I kind of put my back towards Tracey and you know, to kind of shield my uncle. He had the door half open and he was screaming something out of it. I didn't really hear it. And by that time, everybody was kind of showing up. After collecting Cindy and Josh's statements, detectives attempt to question Lenny Paul Tracey at the police station where he's being held. Oh, do you have the right to remain silent? Okay. Anything you say, maybe use against your court? Do you understand? Yes. Based on that, did you want to talk to us at this time? I would rather have an attorney present because of the way I was treated at my home and the circumstances around this. Lenny remains in custody while investigators determine exact charges. His wife Sandra is more forthcoming. According to her, the real villains in this situation are the Davises. Mrs. Tracey's indicated that the entirety of the problems stemmed from the Davises and they hadn't done anything offensive or vandalized or done any of the things that they were accused of by the Davises. He just became really horrible-stranged and I just called them the neighbors from hell for whatever like husband would be mowing along and then all of a sudden he'd feel something hidden on the head and shoulders and he was throwing things at him. Davis seemed to do it more when I wasn't around so there was no witness but he became so much more involved in this man. This Davis has stalked me. We have proof that he has stalked me and I wasn't allowed to take walks in the neighborhood any longer. Mrs. Tracey described fear of Mr. Davis but yet there was nothing to indicate that there was overt acts or any acts of violence. Mr. Davis at one point was filming Mr. and Mrs. Tracey trolling for lack of a better word but Mr. Davis was on the sidewalk. You would probably categorize most of these incidents as extremely petty complaints about A-games and acid on the grass. It also became clear in the interview that for much of this eight-year feud she was relying on information provided by her husband and most of the things she cited would have the potential for innocent explanations and felt far short of a crime or a violation of the restraining order. She claims the early morning shooting was Tony's fault. I didn't sleep well the Friday night and so I was up and down and up and down and up and down. All of a sudden I had gone into both the bathroom and my husband started yelling at me standing all the police. What's happening? He said somebody's out here, I'm hearing sounds, there's lights, something made an incredibly loud noise into our, I don't know what it was, either a pounding or something hit the door with a lot of force. She did not personally see the confrontation but was relayed to her by her husband that Mr. Davis had forced entry into the location and then he had no choice but to shoot. Thank you very much. - I don't want anybody to be harmed, but oh my God. I just, my husband kept warning everybody, you know, something's gonna happen. It's getting worse. - Upon finishing the interview with Mrs. Tracy, Detective O'Cotta and I formed the opinion that she was not a principal in the crime that had occurred that evening and we didn't detain her any further. - Now it's up to detectives to figure out who's telling the truth. - Is this a legitimate justified shooting? Or is this an emergency? - Coming up, detectives find evidence of a coverout. - Someone took out the tape out of the recorder and tried to hide it. - And the Tracy's own words come back to Haunt Thun. - Oh, what the hell are you? (dramatic music) - Investigators have heard two different stories about the events that led to Lenny Paul Tracy shooting Tony Davis. The question is, which one the evidence will support? - What it came down to quickly was, was this a valid self-defense? Or was this a murder? And so many of the things that we were doing, we're trying to prove one way or another. - Less than 12 hours after the shooting, detectives are back at the Tracy's home looking for specific evidence. - We're looking for any other ammunition for the shotgun. We're looking for video recordings because they had cameras and recording devices. - There was a VHS tape deck that was affixed to the camera system to record. And notably a VHS tape was not in there, it was empty. But in the living room, there was a VHS tape sitting in a reclining chair. - So prior to the deputies arriving there, someone took the tape out of the recorder and tried to hide it. And there's only two people that were inside the house that was Mr. and Mrs. Tracy. - If it was a legitimate self-defense and you had the tape to prove it, you would say, please, come see the tape. It'll show, it'll justify everything that I've described to you. The fact that that was removed gave us pause. We recovered video from both locations. The Davis's system was a little more sophisticated than the Tracy's. Between the residence's multiple camera angles, investigators watch as Tony crosses from one property to the other around 3am. - You can see Mr. Davis walking. I believe he was in like shorts and a big t-shirt. The Tracy's surveillance video that covers the front door area, front porch. And the walkway that proceeds to the front door, he was walking to the front. You don't actually see the front door. - Mr. Tracy is off camera, but you can see a blast. And then it becomes quite clear that Mr. Davis is shot forward of the front door and that he turned around to flee and was shot the second time. Which he dropped. - When you're confronting someone and you shoot them in the chest, I could understand the, you could say that it was self-defense or afraid or what have you. But after you shoot someone in the chest and the person turns around and runs away from you, and you shoot them again, it no longer becomes self-defense. - Forensic analysis of the physical evidence highlights more inconsistencies in Lenny's story. - As if there was a struggle, we would imagine most likely Mr. Davis would have had either scratches or sentencing. - The coroner's investigation revealed there was nothing to indicate that there was a struggle over the weapon or with Mr. Tracy. - A review of the 911 call Sandra Tracy made right after the shooting is equally incriminating. - Instead of Mrs. Tracy thanking her husband for protecting her, Mrs. Tracy was upset with her husband. - Hey, is he, how is the injury? - I don't know, just give him the ambulance and a cop up here. - Okay, come on. - You're stupid. - So what the hell are you doing? - I don't know, she's somebody standing on the door and she's (bleep) - What's that hell? - A person has to wait for the chest to lay. Jesus (bleep) Christ, I don't believe you. - How did that happen? - I didn't perceive the 911 call as an imminent danger helped me, please. It was more I'm being bothered. There's no empathy, there's no sorrow, there's more like she was angry. - After a careful evaluation of the evidence and review of witness statements and also looking at video, it became quite clear that this case was anything but self-defense. The only logical explanation was that Mr. Tracy willfully executed Mr. Davis. And when we took this case to the DA's office, they concurred with our assessment. - Under California law, you have a right to self-defense, but you can only defend yourself if it's reasonable under the circumstances. But when you look at the entirety of all the evidence, it was Mr. Tracy that had been the aggressor toward Mr. Davis. He wasn't defending himself or his wife. - On September 27th, 2011, three days after he killed Tony Davis, Lenny Paul Tracy is charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of assault for threatening Cindy Davis. - Even though he didn't shoot her, presenting the weapon as he did would be an assault with a daily weapon. - It never should have gone to the point where someone died behind this. It's ridiculous. - On October 24th, 2012, opening arguments in Lenny Paul Tracy's murder trial began. - The prosecution theory of the case going into trial was pretty simple. It was that Mr. Tracy hated his neighbor and that he set a trap for Mr. Davis. He baited that trap. And when Mr. Davis fell into the trap, Mr. Tracy made him pay for his life. (gentle music) Lenny's attorneys maintained that Lenny acted in self-defense. And they surprised the prosecution by having Lenny take the stand. - It was unclear what the defendant was going to say and that was a problem for the prosecution. What Mr. Tracy did testify was that he didn't know who it was that he was shooting. He said that he had heard that there had been a rash of burglaries in his neighborhood and he feared that the person on the outside was a potential burglar. - But the DA insists Lenny knew exactly who he was shooting at and the state has the evidence to prove it. - Mr. Tracy's surveilling system was a little bit outdated and only worked if somebody pressed record. And here is somebody had pressed record because it actually captured some images before the shooting. - Mr. Davis was outside for some period of time before the shooting happened. And if you could see it on the video, it meant that Mr. Tracy also knew with the victim-wise part of the shooting. - It was a porch light that lit the front porch area and under those lighting conditions, it would have been impossible for Mr. Tracy not to recognize Mr. Davis. - If you were really afraid and you heard somebody in the outside and you thought they were going to intrude into your house, you would be in a secure location guarding the house instead of opening the door and coming outside. - The most damning evidence against Lenny is what he did after the shooting. - The LASD detectives made it an important discovery. When they found that the VCR tape had been taken out of the video. BCR, it had been hidden. Hiding that evidence demonstrates consciousness of guilt. Because Mr. Tracy understood what was on that videotape was going to undercut his eventual argument or his statement at trial. Was clear that Mr. Tracy had absolutely no empathy for Mr. Davis? So I've mentioned to the jury in this case, there's no doubt that Mr. Davis could have taken better action that night, and he didn't exercise the best judgment. He may have committed a trespass. However, nobody deserves to die because of that. Mr. Tracy is not the judge, jury, and executioner on his property. On November 7, 2012, the jury renders its verdict. The jury agreed that he was guilty of first-degree murder. Mr. Tracy had acted premeditated, deliberately, and willfully, to kill Mr. Davis. He was also found guilty of committing an assault with a weapon or firearm against Mrs. Davis, as well. When Mr. Tracy opened the door, pointed the gun at her, and told her to leave the property. On May 10, 2013, Lenny Paul Tracy is sentenced from 50 years to life for the murder of Tony Davis, plus an additional 14 years for assault on Cindy Davis. I think he deserved much more, especially for the predatory behavior that consistent attacks the constant harassment. For the better part of the decade, Lenny Paul Tracy and Tony Davis battled each other. In the end, neither of them won. The most tragic part of this case is that they could have been best friends. Instead, one person lost his life, and the other one will be spending his life in prison. Sandra Tracy left the neighborhood. I moved on. But Mrs. Davis has remained behind in the residence, and has the support of her family and most of the neighbors. Losing Tony is you know, it's tragic. And that's definitely somebody that you can never replace or get back, but having like having that person in your life, even if it was for a short period of time, is what the last thing in fact is. It was really kind to a lot of people. He always wanted to give somebody a chance. You know, to do better. So that's how he's always going to be remembered. In 2014, Lenny Paul Tracy filed an appeal, but his conviction was appelled. He will be eligible for parole in 2031 at the age of 71. Sandra Tracy was never charged with any crime.