48 - The Family Feud

[00:00:04] At the intersection of true crime and real estate, you'll find crime estate. I'm Heather. And my name is Elena. As real estate agents and true crime junkies, we view crimes through a different lens. So walk through the door of some of the most notorious true crimes with us.

[00:00:19] And discover how sometimes the scene of the crime has its own story to tell. Hey y'all! Well, our story today hits really close to home, both literally and figuratively, We are covering a fascinating crime in one of Dallas's oldest neighborhoods.

[00:00:38] I'm joined as always by my co-host and fellow real estate agent, Elena and our friend, producer and commentator, Melanie. Hey ladies! Hey! Hello! It's been a long time. Yeah, and if you hear a couple little paw primes in the background, we have a new puppy.

[00:00:52] So she's joining us a little bit today too. Excited. Ice guy! Yeah. It's so great to see you guys. And then we've sort of had a summer pause in our recording. It's called a hiatus. Oh yeah, that's right. I like that. Hiatus. Hiatus.

[00:01:07] Well, Mel went and had shoulder surgery. Yeah, and that's not good. We're gonna start calling you old lady, Mel. Thank you! Thank you very much. Yeah, she is knowing, she can only say that when we're recording.

[00:01:21] Well, and then I don't know if y'all have been following the news because again, this will come out like a couple weeks later. We had some really bad storms here and we all lost power. Well, Alana, you lost power too for like a week? Six days. Yeah.

[00:01:34] It was nuts. Yeah, not a thing you want to do, like lose power in Dallas in the summer. No. Right. Yes. And I think the worst part though was throwing out all of the food from the freezer. Yes. Well, we were just talking about that.

[00:01:46] And had y'all just stocked up for a summer with boys at home? I was lucky I had not because we were going to the beach that weekend so I hadn't yet. But I mean still, I had a pretty full freezer.

[00:01:57] Yeah, I had asked my son, I was like, so what do I need to get in to feed you this summer? Because we're fortunate like he just eats lunch at school during the school year. And he was like, I want meat and ice cream.

[00:02:10] Okay, so my freezer was stocked. I bet I threw away $500 worth of food. Yeah. I mean it is, it's sick. Now, do either of you have a home generator? We do not although the number of people that messaged me and they were like,

[00:02:24] you guys don't have a generator. It was about to say the same thing. You totally have to have, if anyone wants to have a generator, it would be the gilg. We, we almost bought one after the first ice storm like five or six years ago and

[00:02:36] we're like, oh, that's never, that's a one time thing. Yeah, we're not going to, so yeah, we should totally bought it then. Well, the sad part is that my parents had literally last month given us a generator

[00:02:47] because my parents live in Northeast Houston and they get hurricanes, they get flooding. I don't understand it about this area, but that area, they are always out of power. Every time there's a big storm, they're out of power and they live in a forest.

[00:03:03] And so they had, they had upgraded to the new and improved generator. And so my dad gave us his generator and we always kind of like, are we ever going to use it? Well, first it was in the garage and we have a detached garage.

[00:03:16] And so then we had to figure out how to get it out because the door up. Yes, I'm sorry, it's not funny. No, no, no, it's funny. Yeah, but that's one of those things you don't think about. Yeah.

[00:03:25] And then when it was really raining though, because it kept still raining for days, we were like, do we, we don't have like an, like a overhang other than our front kind of wooden porch to put it on. And we're like, I don't know.

[00:03:36] I mean, it feels weird to put it when it's raining outside to do it. So we waited until it stopped kind of storming and it turned on. And then promptly died and we never got it back on the whole time.

[00:03:50] And it may, yeah, it may be used for air. I shouldn't say that my husband would be like, it's definitely not user air, but we never got it on. And so it was teasing us for like five days, just sitting on our backyard.

[00:04:05] Well, and, you know, when we, when we were debating a generator, I mean, at the end of the day, it just came down to money. Right? It's like, that's an easy cut on the list when you're building a house.

[00:04:14] But we were looking at it and it's like, well, what do you have it cover? I mean, obviously the fridge and you want some lights. We do have a backup Wi-Fi. So like our Wi-Fi lasts for like an hour or two once the first one goes down.

[00:04:27] So that was really nice because we could, we were in the middle of really bad storms and so we were still getting news coverage. We could follow like, are we about to have a tornado hit? But it's like, once you start getting in, it's like, well,

[00:04:40] I sort of want it to cover everything. And then that's a whole other way. Yeah. So, so I think if you're building a house, like generators are great. I think you have to do kind of the cost-benefit analysis of where you live and how often though your service.

[00:04:55] For sure. Yeah. Because, you know, my house, we really had been years and years like even in the big storms in Dallas, we never lost power. And we always kind of were a little bit like, well, we never lose power. But because we're near a hospital.

[00:05:11] And so everyone had always said that because we were on the hospital grid, that that was the why. And I do think there's something, a truth to it, but I think in this most recent one, it there actually was something blew up.

[00:05:22] It transformer in the alleyway behind my house. It wasn't my whole neighborhood that was out. Like the other side of the street was on. It was just our side of the street horrible. Yeah. So my friend across the street was allowing us to plug things in.

[00:05:35] So we were constantly on this rotation. But, you know, old house, our windows are paid in shed. We can't open the window. So that's why we ended up at a hotel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about Ira. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. We got distracted by our.

[00:05:51] The reason we haven't recorded in a while. It was a little traumatic. But yes, let's talk about Ira and Mel, I have to thank you for coming up with this story idea. You know, if y'all have been listening to us for any amount of time,

[00:06:03] you know that Melanie likes to research pretty much everything and that her and her family also really love movies. And it's sort of the combination of those two things that brought us today's story. You told me that you guys were watching Groundhog Day, which isn't

[00:06:17] oldie but a goodie and that you stumbled upon the story. How in the world did that happen? I like all of my research. It ends up with me going down the proverbial rabbit hole. My family luckily likes a good fact just as much as me.

[00:06:35] And, you know, we were watching Groundhog Day. And while we were watching it, my husband mentioned that one of the memorable character actors in the movie was from Dallas and a frequent caller into one of his favorite sports radio shows, 1310 The Ticket.

[00:06:51] And I was Googling and on Wikipedia. And while I was just reading about his history, I was like, oh, weird. Do you know that he is related to such and such? I'm not going to give it away yet. And to a true crime story.

[00:07:07] So I actually kind of backed into a Dallas true crime story through Wikipedia. I love it. And, you know, one of the questions we get asked, probably the most options, like how do you guys come up with story ideas to cover?

[00:07:19] And this is a great example of somehow we just sort of stumble across these things naturally in our daily lives, which is a little creepy maybe. But our favorite idea and way to get story ideas is really from you guys.

[00:07:32] So if you know of a story we should cover, please email us at crimestatepodcast.com. We actually check that we don't check a lot of the other things. So thanks to everybody that sent those in and keep them coming.

[00:07:44] And with that, let's just jump right into today's story. So Stephen Aubrey was born in October of 1960 to Betsy Aubrey and Richard Buck Aubrey, who went by Rick. And Stephen was the middle son sandwiched in between his older brother Buck and his younger brother Tom.

[00:08:01] Now, Rick was a well respected orthodontist, having received special recognition from the Dallas Mayor and City Council for his professional and civic contributions in 2001. He passed away not long after that recognition in 2004 after a battle with cancer. Rick Aubrey had done really well in his dental practice,

[00:08:19] and he invested heavily in real estate. And look, we think this is an incredibly smart way to plan financially for your retirement, but that's probably a story for another day in a different podcast. What happened next, though, comes as no surprise.

[00:08:33] There was a massive dispute over how the family trust that Rick Aubrey set up was being handled. And in particular, Stephen had issues with how his mother catered to his older brother, Buck, who was married to Carla.

[00:08:45] Now, according to Stephen, Buck had never worked a day in his life and somehow tricked and or convinced his mom to sign over a lot of the buildings in her name to him. He was working to get her to take Buck's name off of all those

[00:09:00] family holdings that had been signed over. And at this time that like all of this family drama started, Stephen was living with his partner, Brian Vodka and Austin, where Stephen was working with as a masseuse. And look, I have questions about if that's the totality

[00:09:17] of the services Stephen was performing because he and his partner were living in a million dollar house in Austin. Oh, dang. OK. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, especially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, look, I'm sure being a masseuse can be very lucrative,

[00:09:30] but I'm a little surprised it was that lucrative and that he could sort of live in the style that he was living. Yes, they definitely were living in a nice style. And I have a feeling you're going to we're going to learn

[00:09:42] a little bit about their interest ring background. Maybe maybe so. Well, so Stephen and Brian began a relationship in the early 1990s. Articles I've read have lifted have lifted. They've listed Brian's occupation as a former accountant, a former attorney and a former conductor of symphonies.

[00:10:02] I mean, because those all go together. Yeah. It's unclear to me exactly which of these and true indeed. They may all be. However, I do know that Brian was on disability for many years, having been diagnosed with HIV in the late 80s.

[00:10:19] Stephen was a big guy, two hundred and twenty pounds and well over six feet tall. He had gone to high school in Dallas and studied finance at Texas A&M. And he had learned a thing or two from his father

[00:10:30] and thought that investing in real estate was an excellent idea. Unfortunately, one of the investments he made ended up being one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in Texas history. Wild Horse Ranch was supposed to be a new city in Texas.

[00:10:44] And investors promised to take a huge piece of land and convert it into the town that everyone wanted to live in. So this is how the scheme worked, according to a 2012 article in The American Genius. Aubrey is accusing his friend, Austin venture capitalist Peter Barlin,

[00:11:02] of organizing hard money investments in 2006, promising high interest returns to develop 1700 acres of land in Texas, which they were going to call Wild Horse Ranch. Now, court documents show that Barlin negotiated through a company

[00:11:17] that he set up on behalf of the developer, also an alleged Russian mob member. Because why not? Why not named Vitaly Zyratesky? I'm going to say I don't do a Russian accent very well. Oh, man. I know. But we're going in there.

[00:11:32] And this developer called Creative Financial Solutions, which Barlin's attorney then disavowed any affiliation with. And Zyratesky was supposed to have used the financial investment to develop Wild Horse Ranch, but the ground is still untouched. And so Aubrey and his partner believed that Zyratesky may have taken off

[00:11:55] with over six million dollars from both them and other Central Texas investors. Now, Peter says this isn't something he was aware of, that this was all going on without his knowledge. But, you know, as a result of litigation, it's something that we know now actually was happening.

[00:12:12] So long story short, this is sort of thought to be like this Russian mob Ponzi scheme in Austin, of course. Another article I read quoted Brian is saying it's just staggering that millions of dollars got spent and there's nothing there.

[00:12:29] This was supposed to be Austin's new stamp on the map for creating a living community. They were going to build a city. There should have been roads. There should have been homes. But what do you see? A broken down barn and a head of cattle.

[00:12:40] Now, when Stephen and Brian found out that Wild Horse Ranch was a Ponzi scheme, the two decided to cut their losses in Austin and move back to Dallas. All of this happened in 2008, only four years after Stephen's father had passed away.

[00:12:54] And OK, after hearing that these guys lost all their money in a Ponzi scheme and discovering that Stephen was willing to take on a partner who's going to have lifelong health issues and yet still commits to being his caregiver, I felt a little bad about my assumption

[00:13:08] that maybe there was more going on with his masseuse business that meets the eye. I was afraid I had let my little judgy self go too far. Elena, you know, I know I can do that. However, in 2016, Stephen Aubrey was arrested as part of an ongoing prostitution sting.

[00:13:24] And I apologize now then for thinking you were being judged. You and everybody else listening to this was like, there goes Heather again. In fact, Elena, though, when the two moved back to Dallas,

[00:13:36] they rented two apartments, one for them to live in and one for Stephen to practice his business in. Now, according to an article in the Dallas Morning News, as part of the prostitution investigation, an officer sent a text message

[00:13:50] to Massage by Steve, which is spelled B I in case it matters, in response to an advertisement on a website. An unknown person responded and set up an appointment at the Hilton Anatole on Stimman's Freeway. I think that doesn't matter. The spelling doesn't matter.

[00:14:07] I think it does, too. Yeah. So that day, an officer was inside the room at the Anatole when someone knocked on the door. Aubrey was at the door with a massage table. And so the officer invites Aubrey into the room and they started a casual

[00:14:22] conversation that turned into a sexual conversation. And during that conversation, Stephen Aubrey agreed the sex act of masturbation and deviant sexual intercourse for three hundred dollars. They had recorded that on video and audio according to records. So you're dying laughing over there.

[00:14:43] The way you said deviant sexual intercourse for three hundred Alex. We are not judging over here. We're just judging maybe of. That was a quote from the Dallas Morning News article. Maybe I added some inflection to it. So what is? No, yeah, don't think I'm answer.

[00:15:04] What is deviant sexual behavior for three hundred Alex? All right. But ladies, believe it or not, we're not covering the Ponzi scheme today or the prostitution ring. We're actually covering the murder of Ira Tobolowski in May of 2016, only five months before Stephen Aubrey was arrested

[00:15:25] for prostitution. Dallas attorney Ira Tobolowski was found burned to death in the garage of his home in the seventy four hundred block of Kinshire in the Janmar neighborhood of Preston Hollow. An article in D magazine describes the Janmar neighborhood as home

[00:15:40] to thoughtfully remodeled 1950s and 1960s era ranch or mid-century properties named after the developers, two dollars, Janet and Margaret. A realtor friend of mine, Cower Vinsky, who's a hilarious and funny guy, is quoted in this article as saying you have hills, water and Buffalo Creek,

[00:15:59] which flows to White Rock Lake. It doesn't feel like any other part of the city. I personally love Janmar, the homes there on at least like third of an acre, but often even like closer to an acre in size.

[00:16:11] It does not feel like you're living in the city of Dallas. The beautiful part of Dallas. Yeah. According to the Compass website, the larger area of Preston Hollow is named for its trees, creeks and hollows and is known as the Golden Corridor of Dallas,

[00:16:24] an affluent neighborhood home to many of Dallas's wealthiest residents. Now, for those listening who are less familiar with Dallas geography than we are, Preston Hollow sits to the north and west of downtown Dallas by maybe like 20 minutes, which I'll say.

[00:16:39] And it's home to some of the best private schools in the state, if not the country, also home to former president George W. Butch and his wife, Laura. Have you all ever been by his house? You have as close as you can get. Well, yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:52] You can get super close, but yeah. When he first moved here, I was like, oh, I got to see this. Of course you did. Yeah, I shouldn't have even asked. So my understanding is that they live on like a cul-de-sac or a street that,

[00:17:03] you know, doesn't go not a through street. And so they've gated off that street so that the Secret Service can sort of determine who comes in and out. Well, when he first moved in, at least the whole street was unblocked off

[00:17:15] because he does have neighbors, not super close, but he does have neighbors. And so his drive was blocked off. But then there's like there were black cars that you couldn't get. You couldn't get too close to that being super intimidated. Yeah. No, I've been near a shit.

[00:17:27] And no, I've never driven by it. Now, so when you heard Jan Maher, did you know exactly like what neighborhood it was? Yeah. Yeah. Like where are some of the is there any thing that I would know of where it's near? I mean, it's almost pushing like Addison.

[00:17:43] It's real far north Dallas, but really big, beautiful lots and a lot of mid-century ranch style homes. Yeah. I mean, it's wonderful to have dark. I mean, we love trees here. We love, you know, larger lots, a little bit of Elborum,

[00:18:00] but also being the proximity to restaurants in downtown. So it sounds like a really nice blend of both worlds. Yeah. So it's in this prestigious neighborhood of Preston Hollow that we find Ira and his wife of 40 years. Debbie, congrats to them. That's amazing. They look so sweet. Yeah.

[00:18:18] So the two similar to Rick and Betsy Aubrey were very well respected in Dallas business and social circles, and both couples had also raised three sons. The Aubreys had Buck, Stephen and Tom and the Tobolowskis had Zach, Michael and Jonathan.

[00:18:34] Iris was a civil attorney in Dallas, having been practicing for over half a decade. And more importantly, he was Betsy Aubrey's attorney in the case she was bringing against her son, Stephen Aubrey. So let's recap on the timeline of this story. Yeah, it gets a little confusing.

[00:18:52] So Stephen Aubrey's father, Rick Aubrey was the orthodontist and he died in 2004. In 2006, Stephen and his partner, Brian, were involved in that horrible Ponzi scheme at Wild Horse Ranch, where they lost over $900,000 of their savings.

[00:19:12] And then in 2008, the two men decided to sell their home in Austin and move to Dallas. Now, all during this time, Stephen was still upset with how his mother was handling the trust that his father had set up upon his death.

[00:19:25] Remember we touched on that at the very beginning of the episode. And the two continued to spar over how the trust was being handled for years. According to Betsy, Stephen had gone on a rampage and she had had enough.

[00:19:38] In 2012, she sent Stephen an email stating that he was being cut out of her will. In response, Stephen replied with an email of his own to his mom dated Thursday, December 13th, 2012, in which he wrote, Betsy. Notice he did not title it Mom.

[00:19:53] I know you do not like to hear the truth, which includes reading my emails. If you are inclined not to read this one, please skip to the bottom and read the ultimatum. Now, I'm going to go ahead and skip ahead because he writes ugly things about

[00:20:05] his sister-in-law Carla and his brother Buck, who he disparages as like fat and blind, but a jobless narrative well, who's leaching off his mother's money and trust. You know, he just sort of rambles on a vicious cycle.

[00:20:19] So he goes on to say, on my 50th birthday, when you learned that Buck was stealing from you, your initial reaction was that he would pay you back for everything. Then I find that years ago, he stole your buildings. How perfect. He owned the buildings.

[00:20:32] He had the bank account in his name and he had the tenants in his name. All he had to do was wait for you to die and then tell me and Tom to fuck off, laughing all the way to the bank.

[00:20:42] You had the nerve to make the excuse for him that it was a mistake. Well, God bless you. If you think your son is that stupid, a mortgage broker, not understanding how deeds are transferred away from you and to him alone.

[00:20:55] I worked with Tommy to get them back to you. Not only did I not get a thank you from you, you decided to pay Buck the builder's fee he always wanted. Remember on the anniversary of dad's death this past summer, you and me and Tom set

[00:21:07] in your breakfast room appalled at how Buck was raping you yet again with 12% real estate commissions. You said you would put a stop to that. So how is that working for you so far?

[00:21:18] And then how are you too embarrassed to tell me or Tom how much money Buck extorted from you so that he would give you your buildings back? Let's see. I'm guessing 2% of 5 million of a building he did not build equals 100,000 would do it.

[00:21:33] And that would pay for Carlos plastic surgery. Is it at all curious that Tom and I never got a friggin penny out of that cash cow property? Okay, and I'm going to skip ahead again here in the letter a bit because he

[00:21:45] just goes off on Carlos surgery some more. He says, all I have to say is shame on you. You are the most pathetic of a mother's, the type that eats her own. If you want to know the truth, none of this is the fault of the new

[00:21:57] building or my fault or even Buck's fault. It's yours and yours alone. And skipping ahead more to the ultimatum that he referred to at the beginning of the letter as he continues going off on another family member for several more paragraphs.

[00:22:10] Stephen writes, ultimatum, I hate that you treat it. I hate that I treated you well for 50 years. All the trips home I made to help you around the house. It appears Tom helps you out as well. In return, you shower Buck and Carla with attention and money.

[00:22:26] I hope for your sake. Tom is around to take care of you on your dying bed because Buck will be done with you at that point. You are some kind of so-and-so as you would say.

[00:22:36] Thus far all love notes sent by me have gone to people close to my retarded brother, chosen to embarrass only him and dig the knife in his back. This will not be the case in the future Betsy. You attack me. I will come back at you 10 times harder.

[00:22:50] I know your reputation means everything to you. Imagine as all of the stareats learn about problems of theft and then how you handled it. Then you have the Howard's, the Mott's, the Kohl's, the Pettie's, the Dolan's, your bridge group, and so on and so on.

[00:23:05] Everyone you know will pity you and also think how you screwed things up so badly and how disappointed dad would be in you. You have three days to change your mind and apologize to me or else

[00:23:17] or else I will make it my mission to make the rest of your life miserable as you deserve. Everyone you have ever known will know what has happened and the poor choices you have made. It is sickening to watch you make threats with the money dad made

[00:23:30] while you played bridge. I guess I'm lucky that what I got from you is thin good looks, but poor Buck got the lazy never had a job part of you. Y'all should see Atlanta's eyes right now.

[00:23:41] He goes on to say dad would never do what you were doing and he would never let Buck get away with this. Of course, Buck would not have done this with dad alive. He sees you as the easy mark that you are.

[00:23:51] I don't know a single mother that would do what you have done. You should never have had children three days period. That's so sad. I mean, there are so much to unpack there. And y'all weasel like Melanie worked really hard to pair down

[00:24:07] this letter to the key points because he just goes off and off and off. Did you tell us the birth order? He is the middle son. OK. So yeah, so there is Richard Buck. So named after his father, who is a mortgage broker in Dallas.

[00:24:26] And we should be very clear on the record that we have no idea, you know, what is true or not. I'm inclined to, you know, to think that this is just a crazy, crazy story and to negate everything. But it's obviously there's some family turmoil going on.

[00:24:44] And then Stephen was the middle son and then the younger brother who seems to kind of get off a little bit, Thomas, in this scenario. And yeah, I don't know what is true or not.

[00:24:57] And it's not our place to judge at all other than to say this is a crazy, messed up letter. And while there may be nuggets of truth, it's packaged in a whole lot of crazy in there and sadness. Right.

[00:25:13] Yeah, he could have used some editing skills in this letter where you just need to get to the points. Maybe a little less emotional might have been a tactic to do it. Yeah. So on Saturday, December 15th, he wrote his mom again. All right.

[00:25:31] Now he had given her this ultimatum of like three days, remember, to change her mind. And he goes on to say, Betsy, you can thank Tom. He has a way of calming things down and getting me to at least settle down for a little while. Good job, Tom.

[00:25:45] That was me, not Stephen in the letter. He goes on to say, after talking to him, I have decided not to unleash jihad on you just yet. You still need to make some dramatic changes in your attitude and of course actions for me to change my mind indefinitely.

[00:26:00] For now, I will give you the entire holiday season to figure out what you want to do. I am lifting the three day ultimatum and we'll make the first of the new year of the new deadline. Happy holidays. Dang.

[00:26:14] I mean, I feel like these emails are evidence of some sort of psychotic break. Yeah. Yes. Yes. You're like, I don't have anything to profound to say, but yes. All right. So if these emails weren't enough two weeks later, someone broke into Betsy's house and stole several pieces

[00:26:38] of art that were sentimental to her. While there, the thieves left loose for rats from a pet store. Apparently it was common knowledge that Betsy was terrified of rats. Is there anyone who's not terrified of rats? Yeah. I'm a pretty like go get her.

[00:26:59] No, I'm terrified of rats. That's like it. I do not like rats. No rats. The sweet new puppy we were talking about earlier tried to carry on a squirrel today. I mean, that's bad, but better than rat. Oh, it's definitely better than rats,

[00:27:14] although I do feel like squirrels are sort of like rats with tails, fluffy tails. OK, but they can be cute ish. It's all relative. Well, regardless, Betsy called the police and filed a report which caused a local judge to issue an order

[00:27:28] that prevented Stephen Aubrey from contacting Betsy or Buck for a year. Can you imagine doing an order against your child? Like don't contact me. No, but so they just did that without even knowing for sure it was him that did it.

[00:27:42] I mean, I don't have like the background on. Yeah, which is interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think she probably felt like it was. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So in that year, Betsy had had enough and she decided to hire Ira Tobolowski to represent her

[00:27:58] in various lawsuits that Stephen had filed against her. Now, Stephen went on to continue the same antagonistic tone that he had had with his mother in his dealings with Ira Tobolowski. At this point, Ira was a 68 year old prominent attorney from this prestigious Dallas family that was active

[00:28:16] in both the legal community and the local Jewish community. His actor cousin, which Melanie mentioned earlier, had hundreds of credits to his name. Stephen Tobolowski was the actor, director, podcaster and the recognizable character actor from Ground Honk's Day. He's Ned Ryerson. Is that right? The insurance man.

[00:28:34] Oh, yeah. Come on. He's the one who tells Bill Murray, watch out for that first step. It's a doozy. Yeah. So OK. It's been a long time since I've seen that movie. OK. I remember Beline. Yes.

[00:28:46] Yeah. He's got a couple of points in the movie, but I always remember that. But then you start seeing him and you're like, lots of movies and Seinfeld, etc. But yeah, he was the one that I Wikipedia'd and I'm like, oh, he's related to a weird strange crime.

[00:29:00] Yeah. So his Wikipedia mentions Ira, which is how we got back to this case. So Ira was a family man married to Debbie, like we said, and had three sons, and many of his relatives were area lawyers as well.

[00:29:12] I feel like a lawyer does run in the family a lot. Yeah. No. Just my son, when he was doing one of his mock trial things down at the courthouse downtown, one of the rooms is named Tobolowski.

[00:29:27] And I'm not sure if it's actually over Ira or his female cousin who is a prominent Dallas judge as well. So but yeah, I mean, they definitely everywhere which way but loose there's a lawyer in the family school. Now, unfortunately, Ira had this spine condition

[00:29:47] and it caused him to walk hunched over for many years. And according to his son, you know, the way he walked sort of caused people to underestimate him until he opened his mouth. I love that. Yeah. And then, you know, he was just brilliant.

[00:30:01] And so he would begin to talk and people like, oh, yeah, shouldn't have underestimated this guy. Yeah, I saw some pictures and he looked like a distinguished older gentleman, but he looked short. And I don't know if he really was as short as he really was

[00:30:17] because he had to be kind of hunched over that, you know, we're always telling ourselves and probably our kids to have a little bit better posture. Yeah. No, he just couldn't. So I think he looked smaller than he really was. Gotcha. And I think that's sort of the

[00:30:34] exact like dynamic between Steven and Ira, you know, Ira walked in. Steven thought, oh, I've got this. Oh, OK. And then Ira opened his mouth and began to talk. And for the first time they met, they were in a conference room for a deposition

[00:30:48] in which Stephen had decided to represent himself. Side note, I think that's always a bad idea. And Ira objected no less than 200 times in four hours to Steven's questions of his mother and the transcript of the deposition. If I could speak, y'all,

[00:31:06] it's clear that Aubrey is frustrated by these interruptions and the transcript reads Aubrey, can you just be quiet? Ira, you're wasting my time. Aubrey, I don't care about your time. Oh, I think I was like, I would love to read the full transcript. Yeah.

[00:31:22] And now it's actually sort of be the tone of their relationship or lack thereof moving forward. Steven filed a frivolous restraining order against Ira, faxing it to his office over and over until they eventually had to unplug the fax machine. I think frivolous is going to be a

[00:31:41] common theme with Stephen Aubrey. Yes. And lawsuits. You're exactly right. Now, Ira objected to depositions that Steven tried to schedule on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and asked for another date, which then calls Steven to an antagonize Ira

[00:31:57] about other Jewish holidays that he had worked on over the years, saying, Jews spend these days working to amend their behavior and seeking forgiveness for wrongs done during the past year. My suggestion, you attend the scheduled deposition and amend your behavior while there.

[00:32:12] Perhaps God will forgive you for your many wrongs during the past year and previous depositions. Missed up. I mean, do you all like the attitude of my voice as I'm reading that? Yeah, I mean, there's so much wrong. Like it makes me shake. I'm so annoyed.

[00:32:25] All right. So to summarize some of what happens next, I'm going to quote an article in D magazine, which of course will link in our show notes. We love we love ourselves some D magazine. Actually, we have a really good episode coming up

[00:32:37] recent D magazine article, but side note. OK, so this article goes on to outline their legal sparring saying Ira filed a motion for contempt saying anti-Semitism should not be tolerated by this court plaintiff's response is fraught with innuendo and outright anti-Jewish remarks that are insulting, cruel and evil.

[00:32:57] Aubrey responded to Bilowski's pattern in all of his filings is to rant and rave and bold uppercase lettering while he wants to course the court to believe something that is not true. The legal battle dragged on as Aubrey filed lengthy motions against his mother.

[00:33:13] Responding that to them began to consume Ira's law practice. But nearly every time the men appeared before a judge, Ira won and given the venom of Aubrey's filings. Ira and his paralegal Lee Allen joked about locking the front door

[00:33:29] and they actually did for a time lock the door to his law offices. Ira wondered aloud whether Aubrey was violent, but mostly he laughed about the case. Allen says we felt like we were fighting the good fight, defending a mother against her hateful son.

[00:33:44] Three days before Ira was set to question Aubrey under oath and a deposition, Aubrey non-suited the case. It was the legal equivalent of nevermind. Ira had won, but by that point, Aubrey had accused him of bribery, witness tampering and a host of other crimes.

[00:34:02] In one filing, he compared Ira to an ISIS butcher. What? Uh huh. And after all of that, Ira just wasn't ready to walk away. And in any case, he figured that Aubrey was not finished with his harassment. So Ira enlisted a longtime colleague, Steve Schottmer,

[00:34:20] a former linebacker for Duke University, who worked at Thompson and Knight to file a defamation suit against Aubrey in the summer of 2015. He just desperately wanted them to stop, Schottmer said. And he became resigned that the only way they would stop was if a court ordered them to.

[00:34:39] They were Aubrey and his domestic partner, Brian Vodka, whom Ira made a co-defendant in the defamation suit. So again, this is an attorney hiring another attorney. Don't represent yourself. That's a bad idea. Yeah, totally. Even he realized he needed somebody else. Right. Yeah.

[00:34:54] But Ira also wanted to end Aubrey's ability to sue his mother by having him declared a vexatious litigant. I love that term. Can you say that one more time? Because I like these in like big SAT words. Yes. Vexatious litigant. Ooh, yes. You're so smart.

[00:35:10] I know. It's a rare designation that, if granted, would require Aubrey to get approval from a judge to file further motions or lawsuits. So Ira and his paralegal prepared a 367 page document detailing Aubrey's history. In two years, he had filed seven lawsuits against his mother in different courts.

[00:35:31] He had also sued her lawyers, her accountant and three judges. Ira showed Aubrey's pattern. He filed a lawsuit and would clog the courts with motions. And if rulings didn't go his way, he had sued the judge and demand recusal. If that didn't work, he had just non-suited

[00:35:45] and filed in a different court. And I have to say when I was helping you to do some of this research for Aubrey and his partner, Brian, I mean, Google is just lawsuit after a lawsuit after a lawsuit. I mean, I was reading lawsuits back decades.

[00:36:05] And I mean, and not even just the ones we've talked about here against other people. I mean, they are the definition of just sending out frivolous lawsuits left and right. And maybe some of them are valid. Like maybe the Ponzi scheme.

[00:36:23] And I don't like nothing we say should be as strewed as anything definitive. We do not want a lawsuit against ourselves here. But still, I mean, it is a crazy amount of lawsuits out there. So the D magazine article goes on to say that in February of 2016,

[00:36:41] Judge Eric Moyer declared Aubrey this vexatious litigant and ordered him to pay his mother $250,000. He was no longer allowed to sue his mother, his brother or Ira without permission. Yeah. So I'm fascinated by this term and this distinction. Because apparently it's really hard to get,

[00:37:04] you know, to tell somebody, oh, you can't sue without a judge is a fruitful. It makes sense that it would be really hard to do that. Yeah. It's like a. Yeah, I don't think it's a. Is it a constitutional right that you can sue whomever you want?

[00:37:17] I you're asking the wrong part. I feel like that's not a constitutional right, but it's sort of like the American speech. Yes. OK, we're going to have so many people be like, you guys don't know what to talk about. But you're right. I'm with you ladies.

[00:37:32] That we know. All right. So on May 13th, three months after this legal success, Ira got up as usual to go to work. His wife, Debbie, stayed in bed. She had been up late the night before finalizing the seating arrangements for her son's upcoming wedding.

[00:37:48] So Debbie heard the alarm beep when Ira opened the door to leave and approximately 30 minutes later, the alarm in the house goes off. And when Debbie rushed to the panel to see what had triggered the alarm, it indicated that it was the smoke alarm in the garage.

[00:38:02] Now, interesting real estate tidbit here. Did you know that by code, at least here in Dallas, garage doors like the door from your house to your garage are required to be metal with the idea that if there is a fire in the garage,

[00:38:15] it gives it more time to stop the fire from entering the house. I knew that. I knew you knew that. Did you know that now? I did not know that. Yeah. So this is for attached garages. That's correct. That's correct. So if you have a wood door,

[00:38:29] from your house to your garage, it's going to catch fire a lot faster than if it's a metal door. Well, that makes sense. Can you just go to like Com Depot and buy a metal? Sure. Yeah. OK. See, learn something every day. So when Debbie heard the alarm,

[00:38:43] she leashed their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel dog and grabbed her purse and then ran outside while calling the firefighters. Exiting the house, she called Ira multiple times, but he did not answer. Sadly, she had an epiphany and she ran to one

[00:38:56] of the firefighters who could see into the garage windows. And she was like, how many cars are in there? And when she heard that there were two cars, she immediately knew that her husband was stuck inside the garage. That's heartbreaking. It really is.

[00:39:08] And because she had every expectation that he had gone on to the office. Right. I mean, it had been 30 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. The firefighters, however, discovered that Ira had never made it out of the garage. He was found with his wallet

[00:39:22] and his car keys laying next to him on the driver's side door of his car. Now, further inspection of the property uncovered a juice bottle with its label torn off, still containing gasoline. Fire investigators thought it was possible that the person who committed the crime

[00:39:38] had been burned in the process. And it was crucial that they find the person before these burns would have a chance to heal. Now, initially, investigators had about six suspects on their list. Of course, they looked at Debbie, you know,

[00:39:50] the spouse is always going to be the first look. The sweet 40-some-odd year married, you know what? Yeah. Sure. And they also looked at other people that Ira had sued over the years who could have harbored a grudge. But their interviews with his friends and family

[00:40:05] made it clear that they should also talk to Stephen Aubrey and his husband, Brian Vodka. Hold on a little fast. Do you think six people has a lot to have on the suspect list? I don't think, like for an attorney

[00:40:16] that did this kind of like civil suit stuff, I don't think so. Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I hope if like something happened to me, there wouldn't be six suspects. I'm trying to think of who. Did there be Elena? No.

[00:40:31] She gives me a tequila every time I come over. So that's right. So I'm on your good list, right? Yeah. So four days after the fire, investigators arrived at Stephen and Brian's apartment, but no one answered the door despite both of their cars being in the parking lot.

[00:40:46] Maybe they were at the second apartment. Both men were scheduled to be in court the following day anyway for a deposition in the defamation case that Ira had filed against them. After their court appearance, investigators tried to speak with them at their home again

[00:40:59] and again there was no answer at the door and no answer to the investigators' phone calls. So side note here, the Tobolasky family did eventually win that defamation case and Stephen Aubrey and Brian Vodka ordered to pay them five and a half million dollars.

[00:41:17] Where are they getting their money? I mean, I don't think they had that money. Okay, okay. You know, like, I don't think they had it to give them but that they did win the case. Yeah, it was more of a moral victory. Right, right now.

[00:41:30] Now the Dallas police department got a warrant that allowed them to search Stephen and Brian for burn marks as well as to search their home. And so when detectives arrived at their apartment, they again were not home but they were able to take a laptop into evidence.

[00:41:45] The two were finally found leaving that second apartment that they had rented. Remember the one Stephen used for work, I say with quotation marks and they were taken to the police station for questioning. Now Stephen Aubrey had red marks on his arm

[00:42:00] but the doctor who examined him could not say like definitively that they were from a fire like too much time had passed by this point. Now at the same time, the police were questioning Stephen and Brian, the Tobolasky family was meeting at Iris sister's house.

[00:42:14] She just lived about a block away and they were just all sort of coming together to figure out, you know, what families do at that time? I had read a so terrible story that apparently we had talked about one of the sons was about to get married

[00:42:30] and so the three brothers were on their like a bachelor weekend in Florida and when they found this and they all had to fly back for it. That's right. And at some point during this family huddle, Iris son Michael and his girlfriend walked outside

[00:42:45] and they ended up walking down the alley that ran behind the Tobolasky home on Kenshire. And at this point, Michael's girlfriend finds a hole that's been drilled into the fence. I mean, I hope he married her because that is a good attention to detail. Yes.

[00:43:04] Oh, you should find that out just for later. We'll post it on socials. The hole was a perfect height for six foot four inch Michael to look through the fence and get a clear view into his family's garage. Interestingly enough, Steven Aubrey is also six foot four.

[00:43:20] The hole looked like it had been recently drilled into the fence and sealed with black paint. So investigators at this point remember seeing a drill at Stephen and Brian's apartment and they quickly requested another search warrant. On this search, police discovered propane torches

[00:43:39] and clothing with flammable residue in the fibers. Then further exploration of the computer seized in the initial search showed that someone had searched for Tobolasky's home and work addresses, his synagogue address and ran other searches for quote, Walmart track phone, Burger phone and alibi definition.

[00:43:59] How do they miss torches the first time? That's a great question. I'm really glad you asked. I had the same thought. Yeah. So shortly after in November of the same year, Steven and Brian are like, get the hell out of Dodge. They relocate to Florida.

[00:44:16] And remember this was around the time after the arrest for the masseuse sting quote unquote operation. Right all that had gone on too. Yeah. So there's a lot going on that, you know, I guess told them to get the hell out of Dodge.

[00:44:31] They remain in Florida for almost six years before the case was reassigned to a new investigator who eventually decided that he had enough evidence to arrest Steven Aubrey for Ira Tobolasky's murder. So Steven was arrested in 2022 and extradited back to Texas to stay in trial.

[00:44:50] And an interview that the Tobolasky family gave after the arrest, Ira Sunzak said, after six point, excuse me, after six years you get to the point when like, is this ever gonna happen? The entire family agreed that they had not given up hope

[00:45:04] that Steven would be arrested over the last six years. And they all believe that Steven Aubrey is 100% the killer. However, the closure that the Tobolasky family was looking for was short-lived. Earlier this year in 2024, Steven Aubrey was released from jail when the district attorney decided

[00:45:22] that there was not enough evidence to take his case to trial. That's crazy. So he's not in jail. He's free as of right now. I mean, this story takes like twists and turns that you weren't expecting to go to.

[00:45:36] And I'm very fearful of saying anything out of the term because I know that Brian and Steven are very litigious. Sex-acious litigants? Yes. And so we wanna be very careful that it's innocent and to proven guilty, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:45:57] But remember Brian was or is the long-term partner of Steven, they've been together for over 25 years. They were married in 2014. And he recently had his law license, I don't know if it was... Revoked, disbarred? Yeah, from the state of Texas.

[00:46:18] And so there's a lot of shadiness going on. You know, it's weird. We've done quite a few stories on this podcast. And sometimes it really annoys me that quote unquote, the rich successful person is found not guilty. And some of the scenarios that we're like, really? Okay.

[00:46:43] I mean, like, you know, we know we don't know what we don't know, but sometimes it feels a little unfair that way. But then in this scenario, you're like, wow, this family of lawyers and a community that is backing them up and supporting them wholeheartedly.

[00:47:01] And that with a lot of, at least on face level, facts saying that this guy was guilty and the lawsuit was dropped. I mean, it's very, I don't know, surprising, interesting, bad altogether. I totally agree. And I hate for them that they did not get that closure,

[00:47:21] whether it was Stephen or somebody else, you know, just to have your father's murderer either unsolved or not vindicated is that's really challenging. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So on a lighter note, do you all want to know what happened at the house? Sure. Why not?

[00:47:40] So as we discussed earlier, the Tobolasky home was located in a premier neighborhood in Dallas. The home was sold again in 2018 and the description for the property at the time reads, updated for bedroom on an oversized Janmar cul-de-sac lot, great entertaining and loads of space,

[00:47:58] 4970 square feet, pristine hardwood floors, plantation shutters, spacious formals with built-in granite serving area, oversized din with limestone fireplace surrounded by built-ins, built-in speakers, vaulted beam to ceilings, 11 beam ceiling and walk in wet bar complete with lighted cabinets, wine vaults, ice maker and refrigerator. Updated island kitchen,

[00:48:18] sub-zero refrigerator and freezer, guest cooktop, double ovens, warming drawer, luxurious downstairs, master retreat, overlooking towering trees, pool and play yard, double oversized master closets, his and hers separate vanities, which side note we don't say anymore. We'll just say dual vanities.

[00:48:35] Oh no, is that, no I'm curious, is that true? Yes, absolutely. I like that. Whirlpool tub, separate shower and marble counters and floors, large bedrooms. So I think for me, this home is a little different than some of the other stories we've covered

[00:48:51] and that I know exactly where it is. And I have an affinity for the neighborhood that it's in and the style of home. So I think knowing that Ira and Debbie had this loving family and had been married for 40 years, I would live in this house for sure.

[00:49:12] I think it is a beautiful family home that deserves the joy that a family brings to it. And I think, I don't wanna put words in their mouth but like if this were my home and something like that had happened, I would want another family to come in

[00:49:26] and love it and bring it happiness again. Is that too like feely? No, I like feely. I 100% agree. I think I would live there, it wasn't gory, wasn't bloody. Why are you looking at me like that? No, no I agree. Oh okay, yeah. And I agree.

[00:49:46] They had a happy home there and they raised children and yeah, I would live there. Yeah, no I would too. And this doesn't trigger me, I mean other than being very sad and it is in the garage which was burned down and I'm sure rebuilt.

[00:50:04] So it would be a new property. And it really isn't, I mean this is sad to say but it wasn't really in the, I mean the story was in the news but we had to kind of dig deep to find the exact address of this house.

[00:50:20] And that's one thing that's kind of interesting, sometimes when there is one of these crimes, the exact address is everywhere. And I felt like this one wasn't and so I think it's a little, I mean I'm sure the buyers would know about it but it wasn't obvious.

[00:50:37] Yeah, and I think that's nice. I mean I just, this family seems like such a wonderful, loving, amazing family and I just hope that like I want all the best for them and all the happiness for them and I hope that at some point they get the closure

[00:50:53] that they so deserve in this story. Yeah, so we don't know exactly how he died but he was incapacitated and then for 30 minutes and then that no fire. Yeah, like probably like smoke inhalation. No, it was gasoline that was poured on him. Okay. Yeah, it was miserable.

[00:51:17] Like let's make no doubt about it. Okay, I wasn't clear on that. Yeah, it was a pretty messy death but it was obviously pretty, it must have been fairly quick just because of the timeline. Yeah. All right, well that's not a varied light note to end on but-

[00:51:36] You will tell us a joke. Oh, I don't have any jokes. I'm sorry. I wish I had one at fingertips. Yeah, me too. Well on maybe a lighter note do we know what we're covering next? Are we gonna do another Dallas store

[00:51:50] or are we gonna mix it up? No, so the one that we're doing next is Ohio. Okay. Yeah and I don't think we've done it. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's the thing that kids say, I don't get it. Do your kids say it's a college football thing.

[00:52:02] Oh, oh no. The kids say Ohio as a joke now. Do your kids not say that? I mean, my kid doesn't really joke with me a lot. Oh, he's very dry. He's very dry. Yeah. Well I'm not sure how often my kids

[00:52:16] have a chance to say the word Ohio. Oh they fit it in. Oh okay, well now I'm gonna go home and ask them. If y'all haven't noticed we've given Elena a little bit of a break on the episodes

[00:52:26] because she has had the biggest job of all time recently creating the eighth grade memory book for our children. It was fun. But then I took a few extra weeks after that. Yeah, well you know. You were hungover from the workload. Yeah, sure.

[00:52:42] Yeah, so okay, so you'll be back next week and we're gonna be talking about Ohio. Yes, a fascinating incident that happened in Ohio that. What town? Yes, well Fulton County, Ohio. Was this recent or? Yes, it's in the 2000s. Oh, okay. Hey.

[00:52:59] We'd love to learn about a story in a town and a location that we're not familiar with. No, that's right. Well we thank y'all for joining us this week and we look forward to chatting with you next week. Thanks, bye. Hey y'all, thanks for listening

[00:53:12] and being a part of our Crime Estate family. If you're curious about today's featured Crime Estate, you can find additional photos and details from today's episode online at crimeestate.com or on Facebook and Instagram by following at Crime Estate Podcast. Have a Crime Estate we should cover?

[00:53:27] Let us know. Shoot us an email at crimeestatepodcast.com Until next week.