Local Realtor gets 25 years for stalking, killing wife

Stephen Mora suffered extensive injuries after shooting himself in the head hours after he stalked and gunned down his wife of less than four years. (File photo)

In April 2017, Scottsdale Realtor Stephen Mora was on top of the world.

He had married Janell Leach, a then-37-year-old divorced mom of two boys, ages 8 and 9. She had earned master’s degrees in education and business and frequently traveled around the world to recruit students in her capacity as associate director for international student professional development for Arizona State University.

They had met 10 months earlier through the dating app Tinder and it didn’t take long for Janell to become enthralled with the then-50-year-old Mora, who had been a tennis instructor and started a tennis school in his younger days. The stylish, suave Mora changed careers and found success as a Realtor in Scottsdale.

And just before their elegant wedding, Janell gushed on Facebook about how Mora was “the most charming, kind-hearted, loving…man I’ve ever known.”

Today, Janell lay in a cemetery in her Arkansas hometown.

Mora last month began a 25-year prison sentence after beating a life sentence by taking a deal to plead guilty to second degree murder for putting her there.

In early September 2020, Janell had taken her boys and moved to East Mesa, hiding in fear of a husband, who had spiraled into depravity over the course of their three-year marriage. He had become addicted to cocaine but used other drugs with abandon, patronized prostitutes frequently through escort services and secretly stashed a .38 revolved in his home.

The gun was the last straw for Janell, who filed divorce papers and had even scheduled a conference for the last week in September2020 with Mora and his lawyer in the hopes of amicably dividing their property.

Mora had a different ending in mind.

He had somehow tracked her down and had been stalking her for several days.

In the early evening of Sept. 26, 2020, Janell was jogging near Power Road and the Loop 202 Red Mountain Freeway in Mesa.

Janell saw his late-model Mercedes and frantically stopped a passing motorist, pleading, “Help me. He’s got a gun.”

Mora jumped out of his car, stormed after her and fired a single bullet that ripped into her left side, shattered several ribs and pierced her lung.

He then hid in the bushes for a while, watching his wife as she gasped her last breaths.

Then he drove to Mesa Police headquarters, called 911 to say he had just shot his wife, and fired a bullet into his head. He suffered three heart attacks on his way to the hospital, but survived.

In a pre-sentence report last month, defense attorney Charlie Naegle told the court that his client “is not a malicious individual but is an extremely mild-mannered and sensitive person.”

He said Mora was “working to address his mental and emotional deficiencies and to cope with and overcome the debilitation psychological issues he has been faced with over the course of his life.”

Referring to 5,000 pages of Mora’s medical records, the lawyer said his client suffered from a major depressive disorder “recurrent, severe with psychotic episodes.”

The bullet Mora fired into his head only made things worse, he said.

Naegel told the court that his client required reconstructive facial surgery for bullet injuries to his lower face and throat, only recently became capable of eating solid food, “will mumble most likely for the rest of his life” – and can’t remember killing his wife.

More than two dozen friends and relatives pleaded with the judge to “have mercy” on the killer, though his plea involved a charge carrying a minimum 16 years behind bars.

“I refuse to think the funny, calm and loving fried I know could harm anyone,” one Scottsdale man wrote the judge.

“This is not, and never was, the behavior or actions of a man loved by all his friends, peers, family and ex-wife,” the friend wrote. “Although extremely saddened by Janell’s death, my wife and I refuse to accept this deed was inflicted by one of the greatest people we have known.”

An Oklahoma real estate investment company owner wrote, “Steve really cared and wanted the best for others” and that “his gentleness and compassion for life and love of others was so great, I can’t fathom these actions from him.”

Other letters attested to his devotion to family, his cheerful and loving disposition and his skills and honesty as a Realtor.

Not surprisingly, Janell’s family did not share those loving testimonies to the lethal stalker, who had evidence of methamphetamine and marijuana in his bloodstream after his arrest.

“She tried to help him but while he said he had changed, he had not,” wrote Peggy Leach, who is married to Janell’s brother George Leach.

“After finding a gun in their home, she no longer felt safe,” she recounted. “She made the decision to remove herself and the boys to a safe place. She was feeling stronger and planning to end the marriage.”

George Leach told the judge that his sister’s slaying left their mother with PTSD.

“My mom has become frail, experiencing lots of muscle loss. She has lost so much sleep, constantly worries and needs anxiety medication to make it through the day.”

He said his other sister “passed out twice” in the days after the killing.

George, a former military bomb technician who had been deployed to war zones twice, told the court, “I have had many sleepless nights due to nightmares where I am unable to do anything to save my sister.”

“I needed to visit the doctor and be prescribed medication for the first time in 37 years of my life to help me cope with her loss,” he continued. “I am currently having to watch my mom slowly kill herself from the devastation this has caused.”

And that devastation was so extensive from the purportedly “calm, kind individual” described by one friend as someone who “was affected deeply whenever he lost a pet” that the county probation officer who prepared Mora’s pre-sentence report urged a long sentence.

He told the judge that “considering the violent and premeditated nature” of the killing, “and with consideration for the safety of the community, a sentence of imprisonment greater than the presumptive term is recommended.”