The Missing Ronald Raymond Leone and Rudy Baronet

The Missing 
Ronald Raymond Leone
Johnston, Rhode Island

🕯️Vanished Without a Trace: The Mystery of Ronald Leone & Rudy Baronet 🕯️

On the morning of October 3, 1977, 28-year-old Ronald Raymond Leone and 17-year-old Rudy Baronet left Ronald’s family home in Johnston, Rhode Island, reportedly planning to visit a friend. It was an ordinary day that would turn into a lifelong nightmare for their loved ones. Ronald’s mother, Josephine Pezzulli, became concerned when they failed to return and reported Ronald missing to the Johnston Police Department that very evening. Tragically, neither Ronald nor Rudy has ever been seen or heard from again.

Ronald was described as a white male, 5’8″ tall and weighing approximately 140 pounds, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a distinctive lion’s head tattoo on his right arm. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. While Ronald’s case has remained documented over the years, very little information about Rudy Baronet exists publicly today, making his disappearance all the more heartbreaking and mysterious.

For more than four years, the disappearance of Ronald and Rudy remained an agonizing mystery. Their families were left with unanswered questions, forced to endure the pain of not knowing what happened to their sons, brothers, and friends. Then, in 1982, a Rhode Island grand jury secretly indicted a man for the murders of both Ronald Leone and Rudy Baronet. The prosecution’s case relied heavily on the testimony of Janice Manfredi, who claimed she witnessed the aftermath of the killings on the very day the two young men vanished.

According to her testimony, she returned to an apartment in Providence and found Ronald and an unidentified teenage boy lying dead on a blood-covered kitchen floor. She stated that the defendant and another man were placing the bodies into sleeping bags and later removed them from the apartment. Despite the graphic and chilling account, the bodies of Ronald and Rudy were never recovered, leaving their families without the closure that comes from bringing loved ones home.

Although the defendant was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to consecutive life terms, the Rhode Island Supreme Court later overturned those convictions, ruling that the defense had been improperly restricted from fully cross-examining the prosecution’s key witness. The court determined that these constitutional violations warranted a new trial. As a result, the legal outcome remains complicated, and the ultimate truth about what happened to Ronald Leone and Rudy Baronet remains shrouded in uncertainty.

Nearly five decades later, the disappearance of Ronald and Rudy continues to haunt Rhode Island. Two young men walked out the door that October morning and seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. No bodies have ever been found. No definitive answers have ever been given. What remains are grieving families, fading memories, and a mystery that refuses to be forgotten.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Ronald Leone or Rudy Baronet, please contact the Johnston Police Department at 401-231-8100 or email tips@johnstonpd.com. 

Even the smallest piece of information could help bring long-awaited answers to a case that has remained unsolved for nearly half a century. 💙

Sources:

Missing: Ronald Leone | Johnston, RI | Uncovered
Ronald Leone Missing Person Case | Last Seen in Johnston, Rhode Island
Missing Person / NamUs #MP42893 | NamUs
State v. Parillo :: 1984 :: Rhode Island Supreme Court Decisions :: Rhode Island Case Law :: Rhode Island Law :: U.S. Law :: Justia