Florida man charged with 2016 murder of prominent Dallas lawyer found dead in burning garage

A week short of six years after Dallas attorney Ira Tobolowsky died from thermal burns, smoke inhalation and blunt force trauma after being found in his burning garage, a suspect has been arrested.

Steven Aubrey, 61, was arrested Wednesday and charged with capital murder in the May 2016 death, the Dallas Police Department announced. He was taken into custody in Oakland Park, Fla., and will be extradited back to Texas.

Aubrey had been a person of interest in Tobolowsky’s murder since the beginning, according to Dallas police, but it’s unclear what changed that finally led to his arrest.

Tobolowsky, 68, had been representing Aubrey’s mother after her son sued her for cutting him out of her will in Aug. 2014, according to D Magazine. As the case went on, Aubrey allegedly became more and more aggressive toward Tobolowsky, accusing him of witness tampering and bribery, then filing a motion that called him an “ISIS butcher” and scheduling a deposition on Rosh Hashanah. In a motion of contempt, Tobolowsky claimed Aubrey was making “anti-Jewish remarks that are insulting, cruel, and evil.”

In the summer of 2015, Tobolowsky filed a defamation lawsuit against Aubrey and his partner, Brian Vodicka, and argued that Aubrey was a vexatious litigant who should no longer be allowed to file lawsuits.

That lawsuit was still ongoing when Tobolowsky was murdered in May 2016.

Police believed that someone had been spying on the lawyer through a manmade hole they found in the backyard fence. But for years, the murder sat unsolved.

Now, investigators say Aubrey stopped Tobolowsky in the garage as he was preparing to leave for work, assaulted him, poured gasoline on him and set him on fire.

“Ultimately the information and evidence gathered during the years-long investigation have resulted in making the arrest,” the Texas Police Department said in a statement Wednesday.

Aubrey is being held on a $2 million bond while he awaits extradition, according to online jail records.

Source: nydailynews