DALLAS – A man who is accused of brutally burning a prominent Texas attorney to death in 2016 was taken into custody in Florida on Wednesday.
Steven Benton Aubrey, 61, beat attorney Ira Tobolowsky, 68, then doused him with gasoline and lit him on fire, police say, according to the New York Post.
Tobolowsky represented Aubrey’s mother in a contentious court case against him, which authorities say is the motivating factor behind the homicide. It is a case that became one of Texas’ highest profile unsolved murders.
The legal dispute between Aubrey and his mother was over her late husband’s estate, Law&Crime reported.
The longtime suspect is being held in the Broward County Jail and will be extradited to Texas to face a captial murder charge in a crime that stunned the Dallas area.
Aubrey had been cut out of a will and was protesting the case in court. The accused killer became enraged after being severed from his father’s wealth and warned his mother that he would seek revenge if she didn’t change the document.
In a 2012 email to his mother, Aubrey wrote, “You have 3 days to change your mind and apologize to me or else. Or else I will make it my mission to make the rest of your life miserable, as you deserve.”
Ira Tobolowsky was representing Steven Aubrey’s mother in a contentious dispute with her son. (Family Handout)
The woman feared her son’s wrath and suspected him of infesting her home with rats at one point, according to D Magazine.
However, his rage was soon directed at Tobolowsky after the lawyer began representing his mother in the estate battle.
During the bitter, ongoing legal discourse, Tobolowsky filed a defamation suit against Aubrey and feared for his safety prior to the horrifying homicide.
