88-year-old vanished with $25K from safe. Woman accused of murder, Texas officials say
_fitted.png "Robert Isaacks, 88, went missing in November and was later found strangled to death, officials say. Now, six months later, a woman has been charged in his killing.")
Six months after an 88-year-old man was strangled to death in Texas, authorities found and arrested his accused killer in Oklahoma, officials say.
Freda Thomas was “taken into custody without incident” in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, nearly 500 miles from where officials said she is believed to have killed Robert Isaacks, according to a May 20 news release by the Bandera County Sheriff’s Office in Texas.
Suspicious circumstances
A doorbell camera captured the last time Isaacks was seen alive, investigators told WOAI. He was living at a home in Bandera County — northwest of San Antonio — and on Nov. 15, he’s seen entering through the front door with a woman nobody in his family recognized.
“She wasn’t over to the house. She didn’t visit. We hadn’t met her … we didn’t know who she was,” granddaughter Stephanie Holan told the station.
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Some time later, the unknown woman exits the home wearing a pair of gloves, but Isaacks is nowhere to be seen, according to the outlet.
In the days following his disappearance, family took to social media to spread the word about the missing man and the “young woman” he was with. She had been inside the home for two hours before the doorbell camera captured her leaving, one post said.
Isaacks’ Jeep was missing too, along with $25,000 in cash that he’d kept in a safe, the Bandera County Sheriff’s Office told KENS, adding that “blood droplets” were found in several spots at the address.
A witness told investigators they saw someone matching the woman’s description driving a Jeep in the area, with a large black tarp covering the roof rack, the station reported.
A long search
Two days after he went missing, investigators found Isaacks dead in another county, his body sealed inside a black tarp using duct tape, officials told the outlet. He had been strangled to death, according to authorities.
Investigators learned the identity of his alleged killer, a woman named Freda Thomas, though she proved difficult to find. Thomas and Isaacks had been calling each other for several days before he was killed, deputies told the outlet.
In December, Isaacks’ Jeep was found in Las Vegas but Thomas wasn’t, KENS reported. In March, authorities believed she had been arrested in Mexico, but that turned out to be a false alarm, according to WOAI.
Thomas hadn’t gone south, but north, according to the Bandera County Sheriff’s Office news release, which was shared to Facebook.
“After a six-month search, Freda Thomas has been arrested in Oklahoma earlier on Monday,” the sheriff’s office said. The Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office made the arrest.
Officials didn’t say how Thomas was caught, though “a warrant had been issued” for her “in connection with the murder of Robert Isaacks.”
“I want to know what her reasoning is,” a family member commented on the post. “Then to see her rot in prison for what she’s done to him and put our family through.”
Records show Thomas, 45, is being held at the Okmulgee County Detention Center as of the morning of May 21. She was booked at about 6:30 p.m. May 20.
Investigators have not commented on a possible motive for the killing.
This story was originally published May 21, 2024 at 9:09 AM with the headline "88-year-old vanished with $25K from safe. Woman accused of murder, Texas officials say."