Dark Stories Behind Driveways That Lead to Nowhere

In the middle of the night on June 19th in the year 2000, two women, Ruth Melver and Deanna Tuff, as well as an unnamed 16-year-old girl, were sleeping in their rural farmhouse located near Union, Iowa. It was a typical Iowa summer night, hot and humid. For this reason, the women had all of their windows open in an attempt to keep their house cool. Around 1 a.m., a 33-year-old man named David Lennox pulled up to the house. Lennox entered the home through one of the open windows, where he then proceeded to shoot both the women and kidnap the 16-year-old girl. He threw her in the back of his car and drove off. Back at the house, both of the women were in critical condition, but Deanna was still able to phone 911 as Lennox and the 16-year-old girl fled down the road. A few moments later, EMTs and an ambulance showed up. Deanna would eventually go on to make a full recovery. However, unfortunately, Ruth Melver wouldn't make it and was declared dead at the scene. There was now a wanted murderer slash kidnapper roaming the streets of Iowa. Throughout the night, authorities would search for Lennox with little luck. But then, they had a break in the case. A vehicle matching his vehicle's description was seen on Interstate 35. As a police officer approached the vehicle, it suddenly sped up and a chase ensued. Inside the vehicle was indeed both Lennox and the girl. The police had found him. Now, all they needed to do was stop him before he could hurt the girl. Finally, near Ellsworth, Iowa, police ran David Lennox off the road and rescued the girl. Now, this is not a very well-known story nationally. But it is very well known in the local community. And the house where it all happened, where Ruth Melver died, began to gain a reputation. For years after the event, people would drive by the house and tell stories about the tragedy that happened there. And over time, it became kind of run down and it just had a bad reputation. In fact, the house became so notorious that several years later, around 2010, a decision was made to demolish it. So, that's exactly what they did. And soon, people forgot about the tragedy that occurred there. That house was located right here in this field. As you can see, nothing remains. Well, almost nothing. If you look down at the road, you can see the driveway. A driveway to nowhere. That is all that remains. And every day, hundreds of people drive by this small patch of concrete, having no idea about the dark secrets it holds. That this little piece of concrete is the last evidence of a tragic event. This idea of forgotten remnants or scars of tragic events is something that I find very fascinating. And it's what we're going to discuss today. We're going to discuss several examples of subtle remnants behind tragedies that if most people were to walk past, would never think twice about. Now, here we are on a lovely street in a peaceful suburb in Indianapolis. Seems like a normal American neighborhood. But we soon come across this rather strange driveway to nowhere. Clearly, a house once stood here. So, what happened? Well, on the night of November 10, 2012, most people in Richmond Hill, Indiana were fast asleep. But around 11, 10 p.m., practically everyone woke up. There was a loud thunderous explosion. The epicenter of said explosion was at a house located at 8349 Field Fair Way. This house was completely destroyed and it severely damaged several other nearby homes. Soon after the explosion, a massive fire broke out and over 60 firefighters quickly arrived at the scene. The owners of the home that exploded were Monsey Shirley and Mark Leonard. Now, you would think, oh, they must be dead. Surely, they would not have survived this explosion. Except they weren't at home. They survived the explosion because they were at a casino in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for their next-door neighbors, Don and Jennifer Longworth. They unfortunately died in the explosion. There were also seven other neighbors who were severely injured. After the incident, authorities began to investigate the cause of the explosion and they noticed a red flag almost immediately. One of the occupants of the home that exploded, Mark Leonard, had a history of insurance fraud. They also discovered, rather conveniently, that the daughter of the other resident, Monsey Shirley, was staying at a babysitter's house and their cat had also been taken away to another location. After interviewing various neighbors, the investigators found out that a white van had arrived at the house on the same day of the explosion, around 2 in the afternoon, and that two men came out of this white van, went inside the house for a very short period, and then quickly ran out and drove away. Due to the mounting evidence and history of insurance fraud, police arrested Monsey Shirley, Mark Leonard, and his brother Bob and charged them all with two counts of murder and arson. Police argued that the three were committing insurance fraud and that they had filled the house with natural gas and then set the microwave to go off at a certain time. This was all to collect $300,000 in insurance money. After the trial, the trio were found guilty and they are now serving time in prison. However, Mark Leonard, the mastermind behind all of it, died of natural causes in 2017. A pretty insane and tragic story. Practically all of the homes that were damaged from the explosion have been rebuilt. However, one empty lot does remain. The location of the former house that exploded. You can see that house if you go back to 2007 on Google Maps. This house right here is the house where the two fatalities occurred. Now today, that house has been rebuilt. 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Delete.me has been at it for over 15 years, and they continue to be trusted by many, from judges, election workers, and medical providers, to podcast hosts, creators, and journalists. If you want to check out Delete.me yourself, you can get 20% off Delete.me right now by going to joindelete.me.com slash SWUGLE, and by using my code SWUGLE. Again, that's joindelete.me.com slash SWUGLE, using my code SWUGLE at checkout. Be sure to use my link and my code. Thank you so much to Delete.me for sponsoring the video. Natural disasters are a major factor in the creation of abandoned driveways. Look up any town or city that was struck by a natural disaster, and you are bound to find remnants from that event. One of the most destructive natural disasters is the tornado. The Oklahoma City suburb of Moore is known to be a bit of a tornado magnet. Several times in the past three decades, large and destructive tornadoes tore paths through the city, the most recent being on May 20, 2013. This particular tornado was so devastating and powerful that the National Weather Service gave it an EF5 rating, the highest possible tornado rating, with wind speeds over 200 miles per hour. Now here's the path of the 2013 Moore tornado. As you can see, it entered the city from the southwest, tore through several neighborhoods, and then exited the city on the northeast side. And as you can see, one of the heaviest hit areas was the West Moore neighborhood. In this neighborhood, entire rows of homes were wiped off the map. And using some historic Google Earth imagery, what do we see if we move forward a few months? Several abandoned driveways and even a few foundations. Now thankfully, if we fast forward to today, practically every home was rebuilt. It looks just like a normal neighborhood again. However, if we look closely, we can still find a few abandoned driveways, driveways to nowhere. Here is one example. As you can see, pre-tornado, it was a home, a nice home. But after the tragic tornado of May 20th, 2013, all that remains is this driveway. And there are several other of these if you look hard enough. Now, like I said, Moore is a bit of a tornado magnet. This city has been hit several times before, the most prominent example being that of May 3rd, 1999. This tornado was also an EF5, and it was estimated to feature winds over 300 miles per hour, making it one of the most powerful tornadoes of all time. Now looking at Moore around that time in 1999, we can see a path that goes right through Moore and then up into Dell City. And if we zoom into the path and look hard enough, we can again find some abandoned driveways. Now it's not quite as easy because this happened nearly 30 years ago, but they are still there. For example, if you look up near Dell City, there is this driveway. And if you go back to 1990s aerial imagery, yep, there was once a house there that got destroyed in 1999 by the tornado. Like I said, it's much more difficult to find these driveways the further back in time we go. But that begs the question, what is the oldest abandoned driveway we can find from a tornado? I'm not entirely sure, but the oldest I could find, well, I didn't find it. It was actually sent to me from a viewer named Deb, and it comes from the 1966 Topeka, Kansas F5. Take a look at this aerial damage from the tornado. See this row of homes? This is the same area today. Now if we go back, you can kind of see some driveways. I know it's a little blurry, but we can kind of see some driveways. Do any of these driveways remain? Kind of. Let's go down on the street view. When we go down this street, what do we find? We find this. A gap in the curb where a driveway once was. A very subtle remnant. Here's that same driveway, by the way, right after the tornado. Yeah, like I said, it's a bit hard to see, but it's right there. And here it is today. Amazing. Thank you so much for saying that, Deb. That's very fascinating to me. Now we can find even older remnants than that. Tornado remnants don't always have to be driveways. The Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas, for example, features scars left from a tornado way back in 1953. And there's also this high rise in Lubbock, Texas that also features a scar from a tornado that struck it in 1970. Let me know if you can find some older tornado remnants. Of course, hurricanes also cause a ton of destruction. And unfortunately, it's pretty easy to find remnants from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. First of all, check out how catastrophic this flooding is. It is insane. Hurricane Katrina was seriously a storm of the century. But yeah, if you move forward to today, it is very easy to find driveways to nowhere and empty green lots. There's a whole row of them right here. Natural disasters seem to be the number one cause of abandoned driveways and bare foundations. But another common culprit is fire. This happens in like literally every town. In your own town, there was probably a house that caught on fire once, where all that remains is an abandoned driveway. Now, while thankfully not as common today due to advances in fire prevention, deaths caused by house and venue fires used to be somewhat common. While doing research for this video, it seemed to me that every city in America at least features a few abandoned driveways that may have resulted from house fires. Many drive right past these driveways every day, not realizing that not long ago, a house on that lot burned down. But for this entry, we're actually going to look at an abandoned driveway that led to a venue rather than a specific home. On May 28, 1977, over 3000 people were attending various events at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky. The Beverly Hills Supper Club was a very popular event venue due to its large size and close proximity to Cincinnati, Ohio. The Beverly Hills Supper Club is the showplace of the nation. Outstanding entertainment nightly in the beautiful cabaret room. Let us plan your wedding or next party. We have 18 party rooms. Musical artists from all over the world would often host shows at the Beverly Hills Supper Club during their tours. They would also often host business outings, trade shows, weddings. It was practically busy every single weekend. However, the first weekend of May in 1977 proved to be busier than usual as it was featuring the popular entertainer John Davidson. For this reason, the venue was way over capacity. In the cabaret room where Davidson was to perform, there were over 1000 people in attendance. The room was only supposed to have 600 people in it max, so it was nearly double its rated capacity. The venue also featured old sketchy wiring and Saturday, May 28, 1977, faulty wiring beneath the Zebra Room initiated a small fire. When workers around 9pm noticed smoke seeping through the vacant Zebra Room's door, they quickly called the fire department and then entered the room to try to extinguish the flames. Unfortunately, opening the door allowed a lot of oxygen into the room, which led to a flashover. Suddenly, the small fire became a large fire, and that large fire began to engulf the rest of the Due to overcrowding and the Beverly Hills Summer Club's labyrinth-like layout, patrons had a difficult time exiting and many would be unable to make it to safety. In the end, of the 3,000 individuals in the venue, 165 would be killed, and over 200 would be injured. Most of the fatalities occurred near the northeast exit door of the cabaret room. After the fire, any remains that survived were quickly torn down. Another house that was also part of the event venue, the Mafia house, was also torn down, even though it was unaffected. Due to the tragedy, nothing has been built in the location of the former Beverly Hills Summer Club and it remains an empty lot to this day. However, remnants still remain. You might not notice much if you're driving down Highway 27 in Southgate, Kentucky, but as you're passing Go-Go Meds, you may notice a little overgrown driveway next to the parking lot, a driveway that is often gated off. This is the beginning of the driveway that led all the way up to the Beverly Hills Supper Club. Now, it just looks like a weird random road entrance in a parking lot, something that would easily go unnoticed by the general public. Now, if I get on Google Earth, I can show you the exact location of the former Supper Club. So, this aerial photo was taken right after the fire. Here is the same angle lined up on Google Earth. It's not perfect, but it's close. This is the area where the club was located, and over here is where the majority of the fatalities occurred from the fire. Going back to historic Google Earth imagery, we can easily see this abandoned driveway go all the way up to where the club once stood. You can also see some foundation and other remnants. In fact, the site has become popular with urban explorers who have managed to find artifacts, including dishes, around the site. And it also looks like you can still see some former pillars near the entrance close to the road. For decades, drivers on Highway 27 passed the entrance, having no clue about the dark event. There have actually been some recent updates in the past year. In fact, this road has now been completely repaved, and now you can even drive up it on Google Earth. Why has it been repaved? What is going on? Well, if we go up to the top of the hill where this road leads, you'll notice something new. Luxury apartments. Yep, they built apartment buildings up on the site. Now, to be fair, they're not in the exact same location as the former Beverly Hills Supper Club, which was right here, but they are next door. In fact, it kind of looks like they're putting in a whole neighborhood up here. They also recently put in a memorial site near the entrance down by the highway, which is a very nice memorial to the victims of the tragedy. In the end, every town, every city has examples of this. Abandoned driveways or remnants from a tragedy. Perhaps it was a fire, a murder, a disaster of sorts. Literally every town has this. I found three in my own city. So next time you're out driving around or walking in your community, keep your eyes open. You may notice an abandoned driveway. Now, most of the time, they're usually nothing. Like maybe something just, you know, got condemned because they didn't take care of it, but you never know until you look into it. Does your town or city have any examples of these? Let me know in the comments below. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time.