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A promise long ago made good

A detective's words to a suspect he couldn't arrest in a slaying nearly 18 years ago finally came true Wednesday.

By GRAHAM BRINK
Published March 13, 2005

LARGO - Sixteen years ago, Detective Kelly Goswick sat across a table from the prime suspect in a brutal murder.

It was a late-night burglary gone bad. A bartender had been beaten and strangled two years earlier as she closed up shop. Her throat was slit.

Goswick's suspect fit the profile. He was drinking at the lounge that night and had no alibi for the early morning hours. His tennis shoes matched a print left on a glass window the killer tried to kick out. And he had a criminal record that included burglary.

Goswick pressed for a confession. The suspect wouldn't budge and asked for a lawyer.

The detective knew in his gut that the guy was the killer. But he didn't have the evidence to prove it.

Before he left, Goswick made the suspect a promise.

"It may not be me," Goswick told the man. "It may not be next week or next month, but someone will come back to get you."

Susan Heyliger had worked at the Country Club Lounge on East Bay Drive for six months. A veteran bartender, she had worked in some tough places.

But not the Country Club. It was a quiet, neighborhood lounge where most of the patrons knew each other. Many of the customers drank soft drinks. No one could remember any fights.

She shooed away the last patrons at about 2 a.m. and began to clean up. She could not have known a would-be burglar was hiding in the crawl space above the men's bathroom, waiting for the place to empty.

The target was the cash register. Heyliger, 42, simply got in the way.

It's a mystery why the burglar came down from his perch while Heyliger was still in the lounge. Police speculated that she may have walked into a cooler, muffling any sounds and making it seem as if she had left.

The attacker appeared to crack Heyliger in the head with a trophy and choke her. Then he dragged her behind the bar, where he cut her throat and left her to die. He got away with $600.

At home, Heyliger's husband, Bill Heyliger, thought his wife was having a drink with friends, something she sometimes did after her shift.

The couple, married for five years, had come through some tough times. Her five children from a previous marriage were nearly all grown. And they were getting their shaky finances in order.

At sunup, he knew something was wrong. He drove to the bar. He found a web of yellow police tape and a swarm of activity. The officers standing guard at the scene could not look him in the eye. He knew his wife was dead.

Detective Goswick, 28 years old at the time, arrived at the lounge that morning soon after a cleaning man found the body. The crime scene was easy to decipher. Investigators found a hole in the ceiling in the men's bathroom and a shoe print on the top of the urinal. Insulation was scattered about. The ceiling tiles and part of a trophy turned up in a nearby field.

The investigators quickly compiled a list of everyone who had come to the lounge that night. Someone on that list is the killer, the investigators agreed.

A few days later, they had interviewed everyone. They all had solid alibis.

Except one.

Jeffrey M. Lobik had drunk at the bar that night. He had been in a few times before, but wasn't well known among the regulars.

One patron had told police that Lobik went into the bathroom around closing time. No one remembered him coming out.

Lobik, 6 feet tall with blue eyes and redish blond hair, agreed to an interview at the Largo Police Department. Goswick and Lobik already knew each other. The detective had arrested him two years earlier on a burglary charge.

In the interview room, Lobik voluntarily turned over his tennis shoes, which the police matched to the footprint on the lounge's window. Lobik said he was not the killer and had not tried to kick out a window. And he insisted he never climbed into the crawl space. He was adamant about it.

Lobik then asked for a lawyer. The interview ended. He walked out of the station barefooted.

Soon after, the investigation stalled. Divers searched a nearby lake for the murder weapon. They found fingerprint smudges in the crawl space, but none could be matched to anyone involved in the case.

The shoe print wasn't enough. Anyone with similar Nikes could have left the print. It would be an easy target for any defense attorney.

About a year and half later, Goswick took another shot at Lobik, who was in jail for violating probation. Again, Lobik insisted he wasn't in the crawl space.

Goswick was sure he had the right guy. That's when he promised someone would return.

Every few years, detectives looked again at the case. They'd do some interviews or use new forensic techniques to retest evidence. But nothing ever shook out.

Goswick eventually went back to patrol and was promoted to sergeant. He kept his eye on the case and on Lobik.

Lobik moved north for a spell and then back to Florida. His rap sheet grew. Burglary, fraud, illegal use of stolen credit cards, dealing in stolen property, violating probation. In 1991, Lobik was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a robbery charge.

For Goswick, the sentence was bittersweet. He was happy Lobik was off the streets, but he longed to give Heyliger's family - and himself - some peace.

The Heyliger killing was the only one of his homicide cases he hadn't been able to solve. The case haunted him. He remembered all the blood. The position of the body was seared into his mind.

The family knew investigators had a prime suspect. But they did not know his name or that he had gone to prison on an unrelated charge. Goswick and his colleagues could not tell the family the details.

"It's heartbreaking watching a family suffer like that," he said.

And Bill Heyliger was suffering.

Anger followed him everywhere. Anger at the killer. Anger at the investigators. Anger at his wife.

He chastised the Largo Police Department. He didn't think the investigators cared enough. It galled him that they had a prime suspect but wouldn't take a chance on arresting him.

Heyliger knew the law only allowed one shot at prosecuting the suspect. One chance using iffy evidence was better than never even trying, he thought.

"Why is everyone so afraid of losing?" he wondered. "At least take a chance."

Over the years, Heyliger's full throttle rage eventually subsided to a slow burn and then resignation that justice wasn't coming. He remarried and tried to move on as best he could.

In 2002, Lobik left prison and moved to Massachusetts. He failed a drug test, a violation of his probation, and was forced back to Florida.

His return gave Largo detectives another opportunity to talk to him about the Heyliger case.

Largo Detective Joe Coyle had recently inherited the cold case. The veteran patrol officer had four years' experience as a detective and had recently helped solve another 18-year-old murder.

Coyle knew all about Lobik. He figured it couldn't hurt to question him again. So he and his partner, Keith Barton, drove to the construction site in Ocala where Lobik picked up shifts. They told him parts of the case file had been lost and that they were recontacting everyone connected with the case. The detectives used a soft touch, acting almost dumb about the details.

The ruse worked. Lobik talked.

He explained how he was at the lounge that night. Then he said something that sealed his fate. He told the detectives that he had gone up into the crawl space, but only to smoke crack.

Coyle knew at that moment that they had him. He knew Lobik had insisted to Goswick 18 years earlier that he had never been in the crawl space. Coyle captured it all on tape. It would take a few months to dot all the I's and cross the T's.

"This guy can't remember his own lies," Coyle thought to himself as he left the construction site.

The indictment was handed up in the morning. By early afternoon, Coyle and Barton were on their way to Ocala. They made a quick a stop along the way to pick up Goswick.

Coyle fought off a rising paranoia. He thought Lobik would slip away, that somehow he'd sense something was up and run. Coyle kept the indictment quiet. He waited until they were 20 minutes outside Marion County to alert the Sheriff's Office that they needed help arresting a murder suspect.

At 4:30 p.m., a team was set up outside the duplex where Lobik lived. When they confirmed Lobik was inside, the officers moved in. Lobik saw them coming through a large window on the front of the house.

He walked out onto the front porch, dressed in blues jeans and a T-shirt. He calmly surrendered, saying he wanted an attorney.

Goswick stood an arm's length away as the cuffs clicked shut.

"I told you we'd be back," Goswick said. "And here we are."

[Last modified March 13, 2005, 00:21:06]