A disturbing discovery in Cutler Bay closes one chapter of a sordid story involving a couple that was recently charged with sexually abusing the teenaged sister of the wife, while opening up a whole new angle for investigators to pursue.
Police finding the body of Dale Leary dead in his car Tuesday after an apparent suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. A hose was connected from the tail pipe back inside the vehicle. Leary's first wife, Claudia, was in the car with him, raising even more questions in the case.
"This is a sad way of ending this situation," said Miami-Dade Police Detective Argemis Colome. "Hopefully we find out what Claudia's involvement was."
Leary's ex-wife survived and was taken to Jackson Health South. The couple was married until 2014, when Dale divorced Claudia, a school administrator, to marry Marta San Jose, an exchange student the Leary's had hosted who had just turned eighteen.
Last week, both Leary and San Jose were arrested on charges they had recruited San Jose's fourteen year old sister from Spain to live with them as an exchange student, where they photographed her naked and coerced her into performing sex acts.
"All of these things we'll tie together," Detective Colome said at the scene where suicide notes were found. "Between all our efforts and all our detectives and we'll hopefully get some resolution."
San Jose remains in jail while Leary had posted bond and was under house arrest. Investigators are looking to find out more about the couple and whether they may have molested other girls who stayed with them, or with Leary and his first wife, as exchange students.
Leary had a previous conviction related to a 1985 incident where he and an accomplice reportedly bound a Coral Gables woman in her bathroom and sexually attacked her. After pleading guilty, Leary served 60 days in jail and was put on probation for thirteen years.
(Photo credit: Miami-Dade Police Department)