Benbrook High senior dies of crushing blow to head; authorities investigate killing

Emerson Clarridge
·1 min read

A day after he suffered blunt force trauma to his head at his neighbor’s Tarrant County residence, an 18-year-old man died on Tuesday at a hospital, authorities said.

Leo Pantalion was injured about 3:15 a.m. Monday in the 5100 block of Ben Day Murrin Road in an unincorporated area of south Tarrant County, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.

He died of a crushing blow to his head that was a homicide, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.

A suspect has not been arrested. Sheriff’s Office detectives are collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses.

Pantalion was a senior at Benbrook High School and was to have graduated this year, the sheriff’s office said.

Anyone with information on the death should call detectives Garcia or Smith at 817-884-1305, the sheriff’s office said.

Recommended Stories

  • How this cat survived a 32-story fall

    Cats famously land on their feet, but they use a different technique to survive high falls. Here's how they can fall 32 stories with limited injuries.

  • Top US, Russia diplomats spar firmly but politely in Iceland

    Top diplomats from the United States and Russia sparred politely in Iceland during their first face-to-face encounter, which came as ties between the nations have deteriorated sharply in recent months. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia’s longtime Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke frankly but calmly of their differences as they held talks on the sidelines of an Arctic Council meeting Wednesday in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, a city with deep history in U.S.-Russian relations. “We seek a predictable, stable relationship with Russia," Blinken told Lavrov, echoing comments made by President Joe Biden, who has proposed a summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin next month.

  • 'We've booked two summer holidays for the same time'

    UK holidaymakers are reportedly double-booking breaks this summer to make sure they don't miss out.

  • Pelosi, McCarthy feud over mask rules on the House floor

    Pelosi's office said that if McCarthy "wants to be maskless on the Floor of the House of Representatives, he should get to work vaccinating his Members."

  • North Texas wedding planner used COVID funds to buy Teslas and trucks, feds say

    The owner of a Texas wedding planning company could go to prison, officials say.

  • A Kuna man strangled an Idaho woman in a vehicle. He was sentenced on Wednesday

    Gary Hawkins was out on parole for first-degree murder when he was charged, and he was convicted by a jury in March.

  • Gas Boilers: What are heat pumps and how much do they cost?

    No new gas boilers should be sold from 2025 according to the the International Energy Agency.

  • Cyclone Tauktae: Seventy-seven missing at sea in the wake of storm

    India's navy has dispatched warships to rescue people stranded at sea because of a severe cyclone.

  • Texas executes Quintin Jones for 1999 murder, says it forgot to let the media witness execution

    Texas executed Quintin Jones, 41, on Wednesday night, for the 1999 beating death of his great aunt, Berthena Bryant. He was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m. at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The reporters waiting across the street to witness the execution were never called over and only learned of Jones' death 30 minutes after he was pronounced dead, The Associated Press reports. "The previous 570 executions carried out by Texas since capital punishment resumed in 1982 all had at least one media witness," AP reports, and The Huntsville Item noted that state policy guarantees an AP and Item reporter access to witness executions. "The Texas Department of Criminal Justice can only apologize for this error and nothing like this will ever happen again," TDCJ spokesman Jeremy Desel told AP and The Item. "Somewhere in that mix there was never a phone call made to this office for me to accompany the witnesses across the street into the Huntsville Unit," and "my assumption is there will be a thorough investigation." A flurry of appeals were rejected by various courts in the days leading up to Jones' execution, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of a stay Wednesday evening. Supporters of clemency for Jones noted that family members, including his great aunt's only sibling, had pleaded for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison. Jones personally pleaded with Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in an interview with The New York Times. The Texas parole board denied Jones' petition on Tuesday and Abbott declined to step in. Abbott, who said "our creator endowed us with the right to life" earlier Wednesday when he signed one of the nation's most stringent laws limiting legal access to abortion, has granted clemency to only one death row inmate, Thomas Whitaker, since taking office in 2015, out of more than 50 people executed on his watch. The Jones and Whitaker cases are similar, and Jones' lawyers filed a late petition arguing that the parole board had supported clemency for Whitaker, who is white, but denied it for Jones due to race. A judge denied the petition. Prosecutors argued against clemency because Jones had exhibited violent behavior as a youth and admitted involvement in two other murders. The white man convicted of those two murders, Riky Roosa, is serving life in prison and will become eligible for parole in 2039, The Texas Tribune notes. More stories from theweek.comStephen Breyer is delusional about the Supreme CourtStudy: Rates of new COVID-19 infections plummet at nursing homes after vaccinationsMarjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz are more popular among GOP voters than Liz Cheney

  • Drenching rains flood homes, swamp cars in south Louisiana

    Residents in southern Louisiana were bracing for more rain Tuesday after heavy downpours flooded homes, swamped cars, and closed a major interstate. Lake Charles was hammered once again by nature’s fury in a coastal zone still recovering from back-to-back hurricanes last fall and a deep freeze in February. The National Weather Service said south Lake Charles in western Louisiana saw 12 to 15 inches (30 to 38 centimeters) of rain in a 12-hour period Monday, while elsewhere in the parish as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) fell.

  • Police asking for help to identify possible witness in Grand Prairie death case

    A man was seen walking near a vehicle where the body of 51-year-old woman was found on May 7.

  • 10 seconds of terror: Alaska man survives brown bear mauling

    Allen Minish was alone and surveying land for a real estate agent in a wooded, remote part of Alaska, putting some numbers into his GPS unit when he looked up and saw a large brown bear walking about 30 feet away. “I saw him and he saw me at the same time, and it’s scary,” he said by phone Wednesday from his hospital bed in Anchorage, a day after being mauled by the bear in a chance encounter. The mauling left Minish with a crushed jaw, a puncture wound in his scalp so deep the doctor told him he could see bone, lacerations and many stitches after a 4½-hour surgery.

  • 'This is a nightmare': 4th extreme weather event within a year wears on residents

    Residents of Lake Charles, Louisiana, are now picking up the pieces from a fourth significant weather event in less than a year. Blue tarps still cover a handful of damaged roofs in the area after hurricanes Laura and Delta, which were followed by a deep freeze in February that froze pipes and caused drinking water concerns. Then on Monday, a slow-moving storm passing over Louisiana dumped over a foot of rain in just a few hours. About 12 to 15 inches of rainfall fell over south Lake Charles within a 12-hour period with other areas of the parish seeing 10 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The Lake Charles Regional Airport recorded 12.49 inches of rainfall on Monday, surpassing the last daily record of 3 inches, set back in 1914. The average amount of rainfall for the airport during the month of May is only 5.2 inches. Buildings in Lake Charles, Louisiana, still bear the marks of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. (AccuWeather / Kim Leoffler) At least four fatalities have been attributed to this storm as of Wednesday, according to the Louisiana Department of Health after the intense storm flooded roadways and knocked out power. Three of these deaths were associated with a flooded vehicle or a crash into a flooded canal, and the fourth was a man who died as a result of oxygen failure due to a power outage caused by the storm. A "nightmare" is how Lake Charles resident Alexis Wilson described the scene from her front door Monday after floodwaters from the overwhelmed Contraband Bayou rose to the front steps of her home and breached her garage. Her two cars were both damaged and marked as "a total loss." Floodwaters reached the front steps of Alexis Wilson's home on Monday as a slow-moving storm drenched Lake Charles, Louisiana. (AccuWeather / Kim Leoffler) "I've never seen anything like this, and I watched (Hurricane) Ike from that bridge over there," Wilson told AccuWeather National Weather Reporter Kim Leoffler. At the Contraband Bayou, rainfall totals measured higher than the airport reports, totaling 15.07 inches in the area. Lake Charles resident Don Dixon told The Associated Press that on Lake Street, the scene was like a raging river. "Water came up about 6 inches from going into my house," he told the AP. "It got pretty close. I was very, very lucky." Highwater rescue crews responded to more than 300 calls in East Baton Rouge overnight, and more than 250 people were brought to higher ground, according to the Baton Rouge Fire Department, The Advocate reported. Fire spokesman Curt Monte told the news outlet that the calls were from a mix of people who had been trapped in cars and people who needed to be rescued from homes and apartments that were taking on water. Giovanna Rocha and her husband spent the day Tuesday ripping up parts of their walls and floors after several inches of floodwaters had seeped in, damaging their home. Several inches of water had flooded Giovanna Rocha's home on Monday after drenching rainfall hit Lake Charles, Louisiana. (AccuWeather / Kim Leoffler) Rocha had been at work when the water began to rise, so her husband braved the floodwaters to rescue their dogs from the flooded home. "They were just like lying in the water, cold and shivering and he had to grab them and walk out," Rocha told Leoffler. "He had to park at Best Buy and walk in water up to his bellybutton to get to the house." Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter estimated that 400 to 500 structures flooded during Monday's downpours during a news conference on Tuesday, also noting that the event was the third-heaviest rainfall in one day in the city's history. The single wettest day on record for Lake Charles was June 19, 1947, which saw 15.79 inches of rainfall, followed by May 16, 1980, which saw 15.67 inches. "Monday's rainfall alone would make the top five list for wettest May ever," AccuWeather Meteorologist Courtney Travis said. "When you include the rest of the month, this May through Tuesday is the third-wettest ever." Looking ahead to the rest of the week, periods of heavy rain and thunderstorms are expected to continue across southwestern Louisiana through Thursday. Travis noted that it's not out of the question for Lake Charles to pick up another couple of inches of rain before the weather pattern changes, and warned that flooding may outlast the rainfall. "Even though the waves of heavy rain and downpours are forecast to come to an end by late Thursday, river flooding in the region is likely to persist even into next week," Travis said. "The Calcasieu River at White Oak Park in the Lake Charles area is currently forecast to be at major flood stage until at least early Monday." Reporting by Kim Leoffler Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier, Spectrum, FuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios.

  • Chicken Again? Yes, When the Recipes Are This Good!

    When it comes to a quick and delicious dinner, you can't go wrong with chicken. Not only is it low-cal and full of protein (one 3.5 oz serving of chicken breast meat is only 165 calories, with 31 g protein), but it cooks quickly and is super versatile. Most people have their go-to chicken dinner recipes that they rely on when they need to get a meal on the table to avoid a meltdown or serve up something quick between busy schedules, but it’s easy to get stuck in the routine of making the same recipe night after night.

  • Cash Gernon: Murder suspect accused of returning two hours after kidnapping Cash Gernon and standing over twin brother

    ‘It chills me to think that he could have been coming back for Carter’, says the guardian of the boys

  • U.S. weighs changes to COVID-19 travel restrictions

    The Biden administration has been weighing changes to sweeping travel restrictions that bar much of the world's population from coming to the United States, but has reached no decisions, government and industry officials told Reuters. European Union countries agreed on Wednesday to ease COVID-19 travel restrictions on non-EU visitors ahead of the summer tourist season, a move that could open the bloc's door to all Britons and to vaccinated Americans. Ambassadors from the 27 EU countries approved a European Commission proposal from May 3 to loosen the criteria to determine "safe" countries and to let in fully vaccinated tourists from elsewhere, EU sources said.

  • We went to Disneyland during COVID-19—here's what you need to know

    Disneyland has reopened with new guidelines and reduced capacity. Here's what to know before you go.

  • Dwyane Wade said he doesn't understand why trans people are treated as 'a problem for the world,' as he gushes about daughter Zaya blossoming

    Dwyane Wade, a former basketball star, told GMA that recent anti-trans sentiments motivated his family to be an example and lead with love.

  • Stephen Colbert Can’t Believe Mike Pence’s Brother Sold Him Out

    CBSStephen Colbert on Wednesday criticized Republicans who opposed legislation establishing a commission to investigate the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January that then-President Donald Trump helped incite.GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise came out against the bill, even though its components were the result of an agreement struck by Republican Rep. John Katko of New York.Katko, as Colbert pointed out, is one of 29 Republican lawmakers who, along with an equal number of Democrats, make up the Problem Solvers Caucus.“Hey, I thought all members of the House were supposed to be members of the Problem Solvers Caucus. That’s why we send them to Washington,” the late-night host quipped. “Though I guess these days a lot of them go down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with ‘the problem.’”In explaining their opposition to the bill, McCarthy and Scalise for some reason claimed the commission it creates should also investigate Black Lives Matter protests, antifa, and the death of a U.S. Capitol police officer in April.Stephen King on Scary Stalkers, Being ‘Canceled’ by J.K. Rowling, and Navigating Trauma“Okay, but it’s the Commission on January 6,” Colbert noted. “That’s like being upset that the movie Halloween doesn’t investigate what happened on Arbor Day.”The bill ultimately passed, with 35 Republicans supporting it and 175 voting against it. One ‘no’ vote came from Indiana Rep. Greg Pence, the brother of former Vice President Mike Pence, whose name was chanted at the Jan. 6 riot by those who wanted him hanged.“That certainly changes the meaning to this text from Greg: ‘Hey bro! Wanna hang this weekend?’” Colbert joked.The bill now heads to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday asserted that the legislation is “slanted and unbalanced,” even though it gives each party the same number of appointments and subpoena power.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Michael Cohen said he believes Trump will 'flip on all of them,' including his children, in the New York investigation into his company

    Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer who is cooperating with prosecutors, said: "I really believe that Donald Trump cares for only himself.