Texas Wine and True Crime
We review Texas wines and discuss Texas true crime.
Texas Wine and True Crime
Lakeside Murder: Solving the 1986 Lake Worth Mystery
The summer of 1986 in Lake Worth, Texas should have been like any other – locals cooling off at the lake, hanging out at what they called "the beach," enjoying cold beers in the hot Texas sun. Instead, it became the setting for a murder that would remain unsolved for over two decades.
Lloyd Tobin was the kind of person everyone wanted in their corner – a 30-year-old bouncer described by friends and family as loyal, friendly, and protective. As a father, brother, and son, he worked hard at the local bar and was known for making people feel safe. In a cruel twist of fate, it was this protective instinct that would ultimately cost him his life on that fateful day in 1986.
While hanging out at Lake Worth's makeshift beach area, Lloyd noticed a suspicious man approaching young people. Being the protector he naturally was, Lloyd confronted the stranger, telling him to leave the kids alone. What happened next would shock the community – the man returned with a shotgun and fired a single shot at Lloyd before fleeing through the brush in a bright orange hatchback. Despite witnesses hearing the shot and glimpsing the suspect, the case eventually went cold, leaving Lloyd's desperate family to conduct their own investigation as official leads dried up.
The breakthrough came from the most unexpected source in 2009 – a letter sent to the Fort Worth Cold Case Unit from prison inmate Billy Wallace, who was already serving life for other violent crimes. In a surprising twist, Wallace confessed not only to Lloyd's murder but to multiple other unsolved crimes throughout the region. His detailed account of confronting Lloyd at the lake, returning with a shotgun when told to leave, and fleeing in the orange car that witnesses had described decades earlier finally brought closure to a case that might otherwise never have been solved.
This episode reminds us of the random nature of violence, the dedication of cold case detectives, and the lingering question: how many killers take their secrets to the grave?
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Welcome all of you on in true crime lovers.
Speaker 1:I'm Brandi and I'm and this is Texas Wine and True Crime. Thank you for being here, friends, for this week's episode Murder in Lake Worth. We have got a live show coming up April 5th at Robert Clay Vineyards, and not only that, but they are our winery of the month for March, and tonight we are sipping on a beautiful Chardonnay 2021, vintage Barrel 3 of 3. I'm excited to share that other barrel with you on next episode. But, robert Clay Vineyards this is grown and bottled by Robert Clay.
Speaker 1:We're enjoying this 2021 Chardonnay, like I said, out of barrel number three. This 2021 illustrates the elegance of filtration, softening prominent characteristics while delivering a polished crisp finish. Now this is aged for 12 months in neutral oak barrels. This Chardonnay highlights the refined balance achieved through the filtering process. Like barrel number two, it earned a silver medal at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. But, chris, this is an excellent wine. We were fortunate enough to have already been to Robert Clay Vineyards and tasted some of that delicious wine, and then we're going to be back for our live show. So, so happy to have them this month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really looking forward to traveling back down there. We had a really good time when we were out there. I guess that was around our anniversary.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was Lots of fun. Yeah, it's a beautiful area.
Speaker 2:They have delicious wines there too, goodness gracious.
Speaker 1:So good, but we will be there april 5th, robert clay, thank you. Thank you so much for being our winery of the month this month. You can check them out in mason, texas, and tell them your friends at texas wine and true crime sent you. Okay, chris, are you ready to jump into this week's case?
Speaker 1:absolutely all friends, it's time to sip some wine and talk some crime. So tonight we are discussing a case out of Lake Worth, texas, back in 1986. So for more than 20 years this case remained unsolved, until there was a break back in 2011. So, thankfully, this case is now considered solved and closed. We're always trying to shed light on past and present cases, but it's these kinds of cases that most people have probably never heard of. But it's more important to share these stories since this can happen to anyone and for so long this family had no answers but now they do, and I think it's a 30-year-old bouncer living in Lake Worth at the time.
Speaker 1:So this is 1986. He's described as a loyal guy, a friendly person. He was a dad, a brother, a son. He worked hard, he cared about people he loved, was a protector to those that you know not only worked in the bar where he was a bouncer, but really went out of their, out of his way just to take care of people and make people feel safe. And why this is so ironic and why this piece of Lloyd Tobin, who people remember and and and the kind of guy he was. He comes in. He ends up face to face with the person that took his life in order to protect other people that were at the lake that day.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, they've makes it even worse for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's like the kind of guy he is and then come to find out he was actually trying to protect other other young people hanging out this day and lake worth is just kind of right around it where it's closer to fort worth right by fort worth yeah so. But even though lake worth is a lake, loy tobin was actually hanging out what they called back then the beach, so they called it the beach area, even though there wasn't any white sand, it was just basically brush and trees, and they called it their little beach.
Speaker 1:So it was popular amongst the teenagers and adults from the area. But this is where people hung out. So this is where Louis Tobin is on that day back in 1986. So it's hot outside, Kids are running around. It's a busy area but it is a little desolate. So there's lots of trees, lots of brush. So when we start to talk about this case there, were people there right.
Speaker 2:And they heard something. This must have been kind of like the local hangout in that town. I mean, that was back when probably teenagers and young adults we used to go outside and enjoy some beers in the sun and water and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So, and you know, and and it's hot and it's a place to cool off and sit in some lawn chairs right or a couple chairs and have a couple beers.
Speaker 1:So it was just so. It was just, you know, it was just kind of the hangout where everybody was. So he's hanging out at the lake this particular day and there, like I said, there were people in the area, but he's actually there with a friend earlier in the day. So he actually goes there twice. So he's there with a friend, but then he leaves to go back to his house. He was living with his sister and his and his mother at the time, um, before then returning back later in the early evening. So his sister is actually supposed to be meeting him there shortly. Um, again, there was another couple in the area and so when he goes back, there's no eyewitnesses to this crime, but there is an eyewitness to seeing a car and we do have a young couple that what they thought they heard was a gunshot, and then they see someone running through the trees in the brush.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Lloyd Tobin was there earlier in the day. He returns home, he's supposed to be meeting his sister there. She's got some things to do at the house. He then returns back to this lake area. He was with a friend earlier in that day. This guy will actually end up becoming pretty much the first suspect in Lloyd's death. So he was with him earlier in the day. But then when he returns he goes back by himself the couple that is there. They claim to hear a gunshot. So he go. You know, I think one of them starts going and looking, going towards the sound right and going to see what it is, and then the actually the female sees someone running through the brush. So she will give a statement to police. She will actually identify in a lineup that first friend I shared with you that Lloyd was with earlier that day. So she IDs him out of a picture lineup. Well, police arrive.
Speaker 2:This is in the afternoon, so I mean it's like it's dark.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say it's not dark, it's in the daytime, that's right, it gets a little later in the summertime as well too.
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to envision. Yeah, but it's not dark.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't even say it's dusk, yet I would say it's daytime.
Speaker 2:That's what I mean, because in that time of year it can get dark Gosh it can be. I mean sorry, staylight until like almost 830 at night, right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, no, it was daylight and when they heard what they thought was a shot and then they see someone running, that was she says, well, I'm supposed to meet my brother here. And they said, well, you know, this is a crime scene right now. So nobody really knows anything except these few people that have seen one person and heard a gunshot. So police come kind of taking off the air, taping off the area, but really they have nothing to go on. And what's so wild about this is the family had this feeling. Once they end up finding out that this indeed is Lloyd, they kind of have this feeling like this isn't going to be solved unless we, the family, start inserting ourselves into this investigation, start talking to people, start talking to friends. Remember, he's a bouncer, so did he come in contact with someone that might have been angry? Maybe he threw someone out, it wasn't unknown.
Speaker 2:Well, it's 1986, too, in a smaller town, and probably just even the investigation is probably not a little less than it would be, I guess, this time yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean you have. You have a guy who's now going to then eventually be identified as Lloyd Tobin. He was shot once with a shotgun. We know he was actually facing the person who shot him. But yeah, the family's thinking, you know we're going to have to figure out who did this. They start going around and asking some questions. Now, chris, you know how much I love Magic Mind, right?
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Speaker 1:So Lloyd's sister, chris, attempts to go find her brother at that lake, like I mentioned, and he's not anywhere to be found. His body then is identified. In fact the couple that saw Lloyd or eventually identified the sound of what the gunshot. They identify him. Like I mentioned, he had been shot once with a shotgun. So the family takes the investigation into their own hands. Police are investigating Lloyd's friend who was at the lake with him that day. He's their number one suspect. He actually comes up, chris, while they're doing the investigation, still at the lakeside, and he seems kind of intoxicated. He's saying things that kind of point to his guilt.
Speaker 1:Like pressing them for information and stuff like that, just kind of inserting himself into the investigation a little bit, but they can clearly see he's been drinking all day. But they want to ask him some more questions. So they end up taking him down to the station and he's actually ID'd by one of the people that heard the gunshot. Um, but he took a poly, passed the poly and he also had a tight, a tight alibi. So by the time they kind of figured all of that out, he was dismissed as a suspect. Now there was a woman who came forward and she found a letter that was written by her ex-boyfriend and in that letter it's describing the murder her ex-boyfriend and in that letter it's describing the murder, um, she. It's saying specific things that this person did to Lloyd. But here's the thing None of it matches the crime scene.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and who writes them? Yeah, and you know they try, people try they.
Speaker 1:They try to confess and and and write things, but really they don't have the actual details, like a murderer would, and that letter did not match anything at the scene. Several other tips came in, several other persons of interest were actually interviewed, but ultimately they did not find any viable evidence with any of those leads and eventually this case does go cold. Police in Fort Worth Cold Case Unit receive a letter. So this is. You know we're gonna I'll talk about this at the end of this story but you have a Texas inmate in 2009 by the name of Billy Wallace. He writes a letter to the Fort Worth Cold Case Unit, okay, and he states in this letter that he would like to confess to some crimes he committed in the 1980s.
Speaker 2:And you wonder what would make him do that too?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, clearing your conscious, which I thought to myself.
Speaker 2:I kind of thought potentially get interviewed out of it or something like that too. Who knows? I mean, a lot of people will make those confessions just because they can, if they're.
Speaker 1:Um, I don't want to say salacious enough, but you know, a juicy enough crime or something like that, they might draw some media attention no, I well maybe, but but yeah, but typically, depending on who you are like, what kind of criminal you are if people would even be interested in that right Because not all crimes are interesting, if that makes sense. When it comes to and plus police officers, people who are spending time and resources into things like this, they're probably going to sniff that out pretty quick, and I think that's exactly what they probably thought when they got this letter was what is this person going to tell us? Is this a waste of our time?
Speaker 2:But yeah, because he doesn't indicate what the crime is, just that he wants to confess to a crime.
Speaker 1:That's right. But he sent it to the Fort Worth Cold Case Unit and he wanted to talk about crimes, you know, in the Fort Worth area. Now, at this time, Billy Wallace was serving life in prison. He had received 20 years on a conviction of indecency with a child. Well, after that conviction, he actually attacked and stabbed his basically jail psychiatrist in the neck in 2001 and then was given life for the attempted murder on the doctor. So this guy's not going anywhere, okay yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2:And also, too, I think sometimes you, you see these, um, I'm sure a lot of these will come true, you know, with these confessions, but I think some of the times they they will do this to, um, you know, you never know like it's. It could probably be a life right. Well, life's pretty boring, I imagine, as a death row inmate, so add a little excitement to your life by getting some media attention yeah, you're not going anywhere. You're already serving, serving life. So what's the worst thing that happened to you? I, I guess.
Speaker 1:That's right, but I don't know. So one of the cold case detectives goes and visits him, not just once but a few times, and what's interesting is Wallace is confessing to multiple crimes. The first one he confesses to is to strangling and stabbing Alicia Richardson in an alley behind I think it's Meadowbrook Drive in Fort Worth. So he tells police he meets her at a nearby club in 1994, and then he ends up killing her. And so police are thinking, okay, like now we can't like. This is a real person who was killed and he's admitting to, he's confessing to killing her.
Speaker 2:And those weren't the only confessions I was going to say too, and I mean I'm sure, obviously, if he is the killer, he has very specific details about the crime and the crime scene that the average person may not know. So that's what makes it more believable.
Speaker 1:He told police that he actually burned down his neighbor's homes. He was actually never charged with this crime, but police actually confirmed this story and that there were a couple of arsons go in his neighborhood. You were saying something.
Speaker 2:I said he was a fire bug too.
Speaker 1:Yes, Not only that, he also confesses to a shooting spree on loop eight 20. And he tells that the victim and this was a road rage that he had shot a woman on Loop 820 near Tarrant Community College and then also had shot a male in the face near the same area in the 1980s.
Speaker 1:So police are really trying to like find these victims which, by the way, I don't know if they ever did find the woman and the man I mean they had. The Alicia Richardson's family was, I'm sure, notified but and I'm sure that the arson, eventually the homeowners eventually found out it was him, but he's literally telling them about these other crimes that you know they're looking for these victims.
Speaker 2:I was going to say the potential to close a lot of other cases.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right, or somebody that could have been wrongfully convicted too.
Speaker 1:Well, and then here's what he tells police about the day that he had an interaction with Lloyd Tobin. He tells them that he had pulled his car up. By the way, there was a bright orange hatchback that he was driving and there was an eyewitness that did see this orange hatchback. So from the beginning police had this car listed as a possible person of interest of who was driving it that day. So he tells police that he was going to the kids that hang out there, that congregate there. He was going to try and sell them drugs and Lloyd Tobin basically said hey, you know who are you. He was kind of going in the direction where there's a bunch of kids.
Speaker 2:He said no to drugs.
Speaker 1:You know, lloyd's just like looking over the lake right, like he's kind of by himself at this point. He's looking around, he knows probably everybody, he probably goes there all the time sees the same group of people, same group of kids, and then he sees this person of kids. And then he sees this person right and doesn't kind of looks nefarious and he kind of he approaches him and he says like you know, what are you doing here? And he's like oh man, you know, mind your business. And this. He's like you know, why don't you get out of here? You know, everybody's just having a good time. You know, just back off, I mean, this guy's a bouncer, right, so maybe he felt comfortable just saying that.
Speaker 2:Well, this Billy Wallace. He's used to confrontations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, he's used to confrontations, you're exactly right. And so he thought he was probably handling it and protecting the others that were at the water. And so he basically just tells this guy to leave. Well, billy Wallace goes and gets his shotgun out of his car. He comes back to Lloyd Tobin and Lloyd again stands up, approaches him and, you know, says what you know, probably like what are you going to do with that? What are you doing? Just get out of here. And, chris, he shoots him right there and then he tells police that he threw the gun in the water. He ran, jumped in his orange hatchback, which he was driving at the time, and left the scene. I mean, that's what's so wild. It is because this type of crime, the stranger on stranger type of crimes, is unheard of. I mean, and not unheard of, but it's very rare.
Speaker 2:So that's why, when they thought, when they were really looking into the people, that we had been with Especially just to shoot somebody like that with a shotgun just out of the blue. I mean that's pretty severe.
Speaker 1:But that's what I'm saying, just for telling you to leave the leave the beach yeah, he wasn't going to locals, I mean only I mean you, we say that, but then he just shoots a guy randomly off of loop 820 and then shoots a woman in a road rage and then kills another woman that he met at a dance club and kills her behind the bowling alley.
Speaker 1:I mean, this guy is a serial killer, I mean this guy I mean, thankfully he was, you know, unfortunately a young child had to suffer, you know, some sort of distress and crime against them because that's how he ended up in prison, against them because that's how he ended up in prison. And then he ends up stabbing his psychiatrist in jail who's probably trying to help him or figure out what's wrong with him. And so I mean this guy is a lunatic, I mean an absolute lunatic. And so that's why, to me, I was so shocked when this type of character, who is involved in the, in these type of erratic behavior things, um decides that he's going to write a letter and send it to the fort worth cold case unit and confess to these crimes, because if he would have never done that, I don't think this case would have been solved I don't know if any of those cases would have been solved yeah, but he wanted to kind of clear his conscience, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would wonder if anything would come about just over the years if anybody has been wrongfully committed for some of these other crimes potentially that he has confessed to.
Speaker 1:Well, not only did I think about that, yeah, and not only did I think about that, not just with him, chris, but with everyone else that is sitting. You know, he writes the letter to police. He confesses to multiple crimes, including the death of Lloyd Tobin, you know. And that makes me think. How many other criminals, how many are sitting behind bars, never getting out and take this kind of information to their graves? Thank you,