M Live
January 26, 2015
One of the two women that Leon Means is charged with killing last October in Muskegon Heights was strangled with a ligature, while the other was beaten to death and suffered multiple cuts, according to their death certificates.
The certificates for Judy Kay Bushman and Anna Ruth Lawson shed light on what Means is alleged to have done before the victims were found early Oct. 14 in their homes a few hours and a few blocks apart. Police and prosecutors have not commented on the causes of death.
Means, 62, is an accused four-time killer of women, all of whom he knew. He faces trial starting April 28 on four charges of open murder in the deaths of Bushman, Lawson and two women slain in June 1989: Means’ estranged wife, Cynthia Lou Herrera Means, and her mother, Linda Lou Herrera, both stabbed numerous times.
Lawson, who was 63, was found by a friend around 12:40 a.m. Oct. 14 in her home in the 200 block of East Sherman Boulevard.
Her cause of death was reported as “blunt impacts to the head” suffered when she was “beaten by another,” according to the death certificate signed by Muskegon County Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Elizabeth Douglas after an autopsy.
Under “other significant conditions contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause,” the certificate lists “sharp force injuries of the head, neck, trunk and extremities.”