BEND — Leonard Peverieri had it all by the time he decided to slow down.

He had spent decades working 60-hour weeks, building up a real estate empire that included properties across Oregon, Las Vegas and Mexico. He had cars, planes, property and more than $37.3 million in assets. He was finally ready to enjoy the rewards of his life’s work, joining his family on a trip to Disneyland for his 70th birthday in December 2021.

Less than a year later, he was shot and killed in the driveway of his home on Los Serranos Drive in Bend.

For more than six months, authorities have refused to discuss a motive for Peverieri’s death and have made no arrests. Deschutes County District Attorney Steve Gunnels said Thursday, April 27, that a family member found his body but declined to say who called 911 at 5:30 a.m. Oct. 9.

The killing of this prolific Central Oregon real estate investor has left family and friends with more questions than answers.

“All we can do is hope and pray that they find the piece of the puzzle that makes it complete,” said Laura Peverieri-Daggett, 45, the second of Peverieri’s three children.

Fearing for their safety, Peverieri’s children have not yet held a memorial for their father. They have not posted on social media about his death. They have declined to say publicly where they live. Tight-lipped detectives have asked them not to speak publicly about their father.

They are choosing to do so now because they want the community to know who he was to them.

“Someone has got to know something,” said the investor’s oldest child, Alicia Anderson, 47.

“We want justice for our father. It’s been over six months. I’m done waiting. I want this to be over,” she added.

A father, grandfather, businessman

Peverieri’s children described him as a dedicated father and a self-made businessman who strived to support his family. He was looking forward to spending more time with his grandkids. About a week and a half before his death, he drove down to Las Vegas just to attend his grandson’s football game and his granddaughter’s volleyball game.

He didn’t make it in time.

“Little did we know that that was the last opportunity we would have had because some horrible human being took it upon themselves to take our father from us,” said Anderson. She added: “Our kids are missing out because somebody was selfish and hateful.”

Authorities insist they are working on the case.

“The detectives have identified persons of interest and potential motives for the murder,” Gunnels said Tuesday. He declined to elaborate, but acknowledged that police have investigated Peverieri’s business dealings for potential motives.

Meanwhile, Peverieri’s death triggered a series of legal claims and disputes over his vast estate. It includes at least 50 vehicles, 16 aircrafts and 11 pieces of property — including a ghost town — worth a total of $7,339,590 in Bend, Prineville and Lebanon, Oregon, according to court records.

Attorneys, bankers and former business partners have claimed they are owed large sums of money. Their reasons include unpaid attorney fees, a previous loan agreement, an incomplete real estate transaction in Mexico, and funds accrued during a lawsuit over a lease agreement in a failed marijuana operation with a previous partner and former Oregon state senator.

“It’s really sad because, when someone dies, everyone comes out of the woodwork,” Anderson said.

Peverieri was married to Angela Peverieri in Maui, Hawaii on Dec. 31, 2012, court records show. They filed for divorce in December 2017, but they reconciled about a month later, records show. At the end of his life, they lived separately, said Anderson, who declined to say more about their relationship. (Multiple attempts to reach Angela Peverieri for comment in recent months failed.)

Hundreds of pages of court filings portray Peverieri as a man with lofty goals who was given to ambitious business deals that succeeded, failed and sometimes led to legal disputes. But if you ask those who knew him well, he seldom made enemies.

“He would never cheat anybody out of anything, I know that,” said Raymond Hayes, 72, who owned a construction company and first met Peverieri when he built him an airplane hangar near Prineville. He said Peverieri was like a brother to him, adding: “Everybody’s got enemies, but I didn’t think anyone would do something like this.”

A go-getterPeverieri’s father served in the U.S. Army, so he spent much of his childhood traveling, living in Key West, Florida, Tokyo, Japan, and Anaheim, California, just a block from Disneyland.

At times, the family didn’t have much. Once, in Tokyo, his sister had holes in the soles of her shoes that his parents repaired with cardboard. Eight-year-old Peverieri sold flowers to buy her new shoes, said his youngest daughter, Sarah Pittman, 38.

As an adult, Peverieri served in the Navy Reserve and married his first wife, Judy Peverieri, in the 1970s. From age 10 through his 40s, he lived in Orange County, working as a TV repairman and then a pool designer. He believed Central Oregon was safer than Southern California, and he moved the family there in 1993.

He had a penchant for buying and selling property, even when it seemed like a crazy idea. Among them was an unknown corner at the intersection of U.S. Highway 20 and 27th Street, where he bought a gas station, and reaped profits as Costco moved in and the area became a bustling shopping district .

As Judy Peverieri would often tell their three daughters: “Anything he touched turned to gold.”

Peverieri enjoyed traveling, camping and fishing with his children. He raised them to work hard, get good grades, find jobs, buy cars and repair them. If they suffered heartbreak with a high school boyfriend, he was there, telling them he could fix anything but a broken heart.

Peverieri and his first wife divorced in the late 1990s. She died five years ago .

At 46, Peverieri retired, but continued investing in real estate. His children say he worked even harder in the latter years of his life. When he died, he had partnership interests in an apartment complex in Eugene, a gas station on Highway 20 and the Brewed Awakenings coffee roaster on Northeast 27th street in Bend, court records show. He also owned bungalows in Mexico.

But for all his possessions — including 11 tractors and $11,000 worth of guns, a gun safe and a Japanese sword collection — his family and friends said he was generous. Often, he offered help to those in need of work or a place to stay.

“He just took care of people,” said Anderson, his oldest daughter.

A plan gone awryNot all of Peverieri’s business plans worked out.

Among them was a business focused on cannabis and agriculture called Byzantium Corp., a holding company for High Cascade Farms. He formed the business with Charlie Ringo, a former Oregon senator who represented Beaverton in the Legislature from 2001 until leaving office in 2006. Peverieri had a 15% stake and leased a 20-acre plot of land for the company’s facility, records show.

On March 18, 2018, two people were seriously burned after an explosion in the home garage of Byzantium’s chief grower. Authorities reported the two had used their home to illegally manufacture butane honey oil, a marijuana extract. The explosion lifted the home off its foundation and the roof off the building frame.

Just over a month later, police raided Byzantium’s facility, believing the company had been actively involved in a similar operation. They were wrong, according to court records, but authorities did find that the company was not in compliance with “numerous” Oregon Liquor Control Commission regulations, prompting the state to rescind their license to produce marijuana.

Hayes, his friend, said he built the Byzantium facility and that Peverieri only leased the land and was not aware of the illegal lab in the garage of the chief grower’s home. “He and I talked every day and he’s just not that kind of person,” Hayes said of Peverieri.

His children echoed that sentiment.

“He wouldn’t get involved in anything shady,” Anderson said of her father. “That’s not who he was.”

Ringo also states in court filings that he didn’t know about the illegal marijuana lab.

Police raided Byzantium’s facility again on Feb. 23, 2021, acting on a tip “that an illegal high-THC cannabis grow operation was taking place on the (p)roperty,” according to court records. The next day, Peverieri changed the locks and seized the property, prompting a legal dispute over the terms of the lease, according to court records.

Reached by phone through his work at Windermere Central Oregon Real Estate, Ringo declined to comment on his working relationship with Peverieri, citing his ongoing $500,000 legal claim against Peverieri’s estate.

A ghost townOf all Peverieri’s ideas, one stands out among some of his friends.

In 2010, he bought the town of Millican.

According to his family and friends, Peverieri had noticed that housing prices in Bend were becoming steeper and there were fewer affordable areas to live. His plan was to develop an RV park on the roughly 80-acre plot of land, located about 25 miles east of Bend along Highway 20.

Peverieri had high hopes for the town. In 2017, he told The Bulletin: “Believe me, Millican will be a bedroom community of Bend within the next 20 years. It’s just going to take somebody with more money and time than me.”

On a recent, brisk winter day in Millican, Hayes reflected on the memories of his friend and the history of the town. In 1988, the town’s former owner was murdered by his own employee, bringing its population to zero. The Oregon Secretary of State website calls Millican “a truly unlucky place.”

“I’m not too scared of it though,” he said, standing near one of Peverieri’s tractors behind the run-down Millican store.

Peverieri wrote in his will that Hayes would receive the property upon his death, he said. Now, Hayes plans to file the paperwork with the county to develop the RV park. He wants to finish what his friend started.

Looking out toward the wide expanses of snow-capped hills nearby, he said: “There’s a lot of work to do.”