`Passion' prompts man to admit
murder
Friday, March 26, 2004 Posted: 10:25 AM EST (1525 GMT)
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Leach faces up to life in
prison if convicted.
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HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A man saw
"The Passion of the Christ," talked to a spiritual adviser, then
told police he had killed his girlfriend, authorities said Thursday.
Dan R.
Leach's viewing of Mel Gibson's cinematic depiction of the last hours of
Jesus, along with the discussion with a family friend, led him to walk into
the Fort Bend County sheriff's department
earlier this month and confess to killing Ashley Nicole Wilson, Detective
Mike Kubricht said.
A coroner
had ruled her death by hanging a suicide.
Wilson's body was discovered January 19 in
her apartment near Richmond, southwest of Houston. All physical
evidence pointed to suicide, Kubricht said, and
the 19-year-old had gone off anti-depressant medications because she was
pregnant.
The
pregnancy apparently was the motive, Kubricht
said, because Leach believed he was responsible and did not want to raise a
child.
Leach, 21,
wore gloves and left none of his own DNA behind, Kubricht said.
"He was
very, very meticulous," Kubricht said.
"It was very well-planned and well executed."
There was no
answer at Leach's residence in Rosenberg on Thursday. He was
arrested Tuesday, a day after his indictment for murder, and remained in
county jail on $100,000 bond.
He was
expected to get a court-appointed attorney, Kubricht
said.
"Something
[the adviser] said, between that and the movie, he felt in order for him to
have redemption he would have to confess his sin and do his time," Kubricht said.
Leach faces
up to life in prison if convicted.
