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Life Sentence Given In '87 Slaying Of Largo Bar Employee

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 20, 2008

Updated: 10/20/2008 04:16 pm

Every day for 21 years, Bill Heyliger thought about his wife's slaying and the fact that nobody had been brought to justice.

On Friday, Heyliger finally got the chance to see a man convicted of first-degree murder in her slaying.

"This business about closure is frankly a soap opera word," the Largo man said today to The Tampa Tribune. "But to have this savage animal off the streets is huge."

Jeffrey Lobik was sentenced to life in prison for the June 1987 slaying of Susan Heyliger at Country Club Lounge on East Bay Drive. She had been a bartender at the business.

She had five children and was 42 years old.

It's rare for a person to be convicted for a murder so long after the fact, Sgt. John Trebino said.

"For us, it was justice served," Trebino said. "It was a long time coming."

Investigators determined that Heyliger locked herself in the lounge at closing time to stock bar items and close the register. That's when Lobik descended from the men's room ceiling, police say.

"The suspect struck the victim several times in the head with a trophy, strangled her until she was unconscious and slit her throat with a large knife," a Largo Police Department news release states. "The suspect then stole the money from the cash register and fled the scene. … Heyliger's presence most likely surprised the burglar and her murder was the result."

Witnesses said they saw Lobik enter the restroom that morning, but nobody remembered seeing him leave.

There were a few clues: a shoe print, an overturned chair, rubble that indicated the killer dropped in through the ceiling.

Lobik told police he had been in the lounge but never entered the bathroom ceiling, officers say.

Lobik was known to Pinellas County authorities, who arrested him eight times in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show.

He has served nearly 10 years in state prison on robbery and burglary charges, corrections records show. He was released in March 2002 and, according to FDLE records, he eventually registered as a landscaper living in Ocala.

On June 30, 2004, investigators interviewed him again.

Trebino said that during that interview, Lobik told investigators he had entered the bathroom the morning of the murder and hidden in the ceiling to he could smoke crack cocaine.

That allowed investigators to indict Lobik.

After being arrested, Trebino said, Lobik told another inmate he had killed Heyliger.

"To have it come to this resolution is pretty gigantic," Bill Heyliger said. "Just the knowledge that this predatory animal is off the street is enough to make me feel much better."

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at jpoltilove@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7691.

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