White Businessman Shot Dead by Masked Black Gun-Man During Poker Game

Chron
August 4, 2014

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Donald Leonetti, photographed with his wife Jennifer and children Matthew and Lauren, was a philanthropist and business owner who had clothed thousands of Fort Bend County residents. He was killed July 17 during a poker game robbery.

Stafford police arrested one person in the fatal shooting of a Fort Bend County businessman at a poker game and are continuing to search for others.

On Thursday, they announced the capture of Eric Norris, 25, as the prime suspect in the July 17 slaying of Donald Leonetti during a robbery at the high-stakes game.

Leonetti, 45, owned a Missouri City graphics company and was known as the “King of Shirts” because of the T-shirts he designed to honor local sports teams.

On the night of his death, Leonetti joined about a dozen friends for a invitation-only poker game in a strip shopping center in the 4000 block of Greenbriar in Stafford.

Leonetti previously had hosted the games at his business where weekly Bible study groups also met.

About 8 p.m., two masked men armed with rifles forced their way into the room through a back door. Stafford police said Leonetti was shot to death after he walked in while the robbery was in progress.

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During the robbery Donald was shot dead and another man was injured.

The masked men told the players to empty their pockets, taking about $20,000, Stafford police said.

They fired at least two shots inside the room then left in a tan or gold-colored Buick LeSabre, police said.

One of the rounds struck Leonetti, whose body was found near a bathroom. A second grazed the neck of poker player Charles Olson, 56, who survived the shooting.

At the time of his death, Leonetti’s wife urged her family and friends to pray for her husband’s killers.

“She’s said, ‘We have to forgive whoever did this. They are broken people in need of a savior, too,'” family friend Jennifer Webster said.

On Thursday, Stafford police said they captured Norris with the assistance of the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force.

Details about the arrest were not available.

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Eric Norris has been arrested as the prime suspect for the killing.