Knifing victim home,facing more obstacles

Tony Leno uses a walker and the help of physical therapist Neelam Patel on one of his last days as a patient in St. Charles. THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER Enlarge | Photo Reprints

Four weeks ago, Tony Leno was stabbed and nearly killed by a man who approached him by asking for directions outside a church in the Old West End.

The man he identified from a photo array — Elias Abuelazam, 33, an Israeli citizen living in Flint — is suspected in five murders and 12 attacks in two other states. He has been charged in one of those in Flint and could soon face additional charges.

Mr. Leno, 59, was discharged Saturday and spent the Labor Day weekend recovering at home, after a hospital stay that began with 15 days in an induced coma.

Though the worst appears to be over, Mr. Leno has months of therapy ahead before he may return to work cleaning the Collingwood Presbyterian Church. His legs still feel “like jelly,” he said. Getting around requires the aid of a walker, and it took days of practice beside a physical therapist before he tried tackling the stairs without assistance.

No matter. Mr. Leno is a survivor.

“I've given it lots of thought, naturally, and I can say this was not the worst day of my life. The stabbing was one of the most serious days of my life, but the stabbing was not the worst day of my life,” he said.

• Mr. Leno didn't become an addict overnight. For years, he tried to hide his cocaine use and alcoholism from his children. He tried to make a change, relocating to Toledo from Cleveland almost a decade ago for a fresh start.

“I forgot I came to Toledo with me,” he said. “I don't know how much you know about addiction, but it can take you where you don't want to go and make you meet people who you didn't intend to know. That's what it did to me.”

At his worst, he was living in garages, hallways, or abandoned vehicles. He spent a year homeless before he decided to turn his life around.

After working with a faith-based program called FOCUS, which is affiliated with the Collingwood Presbyterian Church, Mr. Leno landed a job as its custodian.

The same man who attacked Mr. Leno is believed to be responsible for fatally stabbing five men and attacking a dozen others in the same manner in Flint, Mich., between May 24 and Aug. 2.

After that time, he headed south. Similar attacks against three men occurred in Leesburg, Va., on Aug. 3, 5, and 6.

In Virginia, the first stabbing was of a dark-skinned Latino teenager jogging down a busy street. Then a 67-year-old man black man sitting on the front steps of his apartment was attacked. Before the suspect is believed to have returned north, a 19-year-old man was struck in the head by a blunt object outside a busy shopping center.

Asked directions

It was before sundown Aug. 7 that Mr. Leno was taking a smoke break in an alley after cleaning the Collingwood Presbyterian Church at 2108 Collingwood Blvd. The suspect got out of his vehicle to ask for directions and stabbed Mr. Leno as he pointed to describe the way.

“He asked directions to the casino, it seemed just practical enough that somebody could have gotten off the freeway just a little early, it was not unimaginable,” Mr. Leno said. “Running into serial killers, that's something you see on TV. It's always supposed to happen to other people. It's never supposed to happen to us.”

He still questions why there was no warning from law enforcement that a killer was on the loose, targeting minorities.

“What I wonder is how many people actually knew this guy was in the area, was a danger, was stalking black men in particular and why the black community wasn't aware,” Mr. Leno said. “Because if I had been aware, I would have handled the whole situation differently. It wasn't how big he was, how strong he was, it was the element of surprise.”

Still, he spends more time counting his blessings these days than wondering why this happened to him.

“I tell some of the people around, I got to write this book. Nobody's going to believe this is for real in a minute,” Mr. Leno said. “I try to keep all of that in the proper perspective, that I'm not running anything and [it] lets me know I'm not in charge of anything.”

Relearning process

Days before his release from Mercy St. Charles Hospital, Mr. Leno was guided through the hallways by his physical therapist, Neelam Patel.

His daily therapy regimen included strength building exercises with Ms. Patel, such as stretching with weights or range of motion stretching with a balloon, and practicing routine daily activities with his occupational therapist, Don Mitchell. With three major puncture wounds from his stabbing attack, it was important for Mr. Leno to slowly relearn the proper way to get out of bed or bend over to tie his shoes without injury through his occupational therapy sessions.

“They worked me out pretty good this morning,” Mr. Leno said beside his therapists. “And you can't hide in the bathroom.”

Though his therapy routines were different with each provider, both Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Patel were especially concerned about one aspect of his pending homecoming — his balance. Both routines included walking, marching in place, and exercising from his seat.

“It's like I have to learn how to do everything over again, the simplest of motor skills,” Mr. Leno said. “Tying my shoes, and putting on socks is almost an impossibility. But they've got some kind of reachers. They got all kinds of apparatus around here.”

Mr. Leno's focus is returning to the job he loves as soon as possible. When he was hired to clean the church after volunteering there through the FOCUS program, he became accustomed to carrying and setting up tables and chairs, lifting heavy platters, mowing the lawn, vacuuming, and washing windows. Returning to such activities will require arm strength, and building the necessary stamina can be painful after a stabbing.

“With any puncture wound, sometimes the skin sticks to muscle,” his occupational therapist, Mr. Mitchell said of the pain connected to some of Mr. Leno's exercises. “If it sticks too much, sometimes you feel that pull under your arms.”

Until his return to the church community he's come to embrace as an extended family, Mr. Leno expects to stay busy with visitors at his home. Friends from the church have a schedule to keep him busy and fed, with visitors planning to stagger their visits. His fiance, Lanita Braswell, traveled from Cleveland to be with him during his first weekend home.

‘Doing much better'

It seems life may return to normal for Mr. Leno before long. His therapists are confident that he is quickly making strides to recovery.

“I saw him the [day] after he came off the ventilator. It took two people to get him from bed,” Ms. Patel said, as she strolled beside him as he steadied himself behind a walker at Mercy St. Charles. “He is progressing very well.”

So far, so good.

During his first days back home, a nurse has visited him there, and he's practiced the physical therapy exercises he learned at the hospital. Soon, he plans to stroll on the bicycle path at Ottawa Park — an activity he enjoyed often before the attack.

“I'm doing much better. It's just good to be home. I'm laying here watching my TV in my bed. That makes all the difference,” Mr. Leno said.

Contact Bridget Tharp at:btharp@theblade.comor 419-724-6086.