Cudahy woman killed same day she filed restraining order against her child's father; charges filed

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — A man charged with stalking and killing a woman in St. Francis made his first appearance in Milwaukee County court Wednesday.

Thirty-two-year-old Kiana Pliska was shot and killed last Thursday, July 16, outside the Lake Park Apartments. Court documents filed Wednesday allege she was shot by the father of her 6-year-old child during a custody exchange.

According to a criminal complaint, Randall Lenyard Sr. had reportedly been stalking Pliska for months. Pliska filed for a temporary restraining order against Lenyard on July 16, where she alleged several incidences of stalking including times he had showed up at her residence, delivered flowers, called her repeatedly, and placed an AirTag tracker on her car. In the petition, Pliska also reported she was "scared of what he is going to do next." 

Records show a domestic abuse restraining order against Lenyard Sr. was filed just hours before Pliska was killed.

"This was an execution," Court Commissioner Barry Phillips said after reading the complaint Wednesday.

The criminal complaint states Pliska and Lenyard had a child custody arrangement involving seven days alternating with each other that typically began on Thursday nights. According to the complaint, when the two met in the parking lot of their old apartment complex, Lenyard shot Pliska seven times in the head and face, torso, chest, back, and neck.

"After the initial shooting, you came around and shot two or three more times, like a mob execution," Phillips described. "You made sure that this shooting was successful." 

"'She saw me pull out my gun. She got out of the car and started to run, so I shot her. She started screaming, so I knew she was still alive, so I just kept shooting her,'" Assistant District Attorney Patrick Anderson read from the text transcript. "He continues to go on to say, 'I'm about to do it to myself and my son.'"

Lenyard's sister told investigators she was able to convince him to meet her in a parking lot without police, so she could take the child safely.

Lenyard was arrested in his car later that night, near 12th and Burleigh.

"Mr. Lenyard has given a full confession," Anderson said.

According to the complaint, Pliska filed a restraining order against Lenyard in April, but it was dismissed when he convinced her not to show up to court. Court records show she reported him stalking her repeatedly: showing up to her home, choking her, and once claiming he shot himself in the hand because of her.

"Prior to the homicide, the behavior is escalating, it's escalating significantly, and it's escalating with violence and with weapons," Anderson emphasized.

One day before Pliska was killed, she told officers that her hairstylist received a voicemail from Lenyard, pretending to be a detective on the lookout for Pliska. That's when she filed a domestic abuse injunction restraining order. Court records show the petition was granted the day after she died.

"If someone truly wants to kill someone - which, the facts in this criminal complaint would support that's what you wanted to do - even a piece of paper or a court order is not going to stop it," Phillips said.

In Wednesday's hearing, prosecutors asked for a $1 million cash bond, but Phillips denied the request, explaining he reserves those bonds for cases with multiple deaths.

Instead, he gave Lenyard a $250,000 cash bond and ordered him not to have contact with his son or Pliska's family.

Lenyard's preliminary hearing is set for July 29.