Naman Shrestha
Just a couple of years after her husband’s unexpected death, Barbara Loesch’s soul also departed from the face of the earth in 1998. As the authorities found her body floating in the hot tub, it sent shockwaves through the entire community. The mysterious murder case is covered in the episode titled ‘Troubled Water’ of Oxygen’s ‘Accident Suicide or Murder,’ which also includes interviews with the victim’s family members and the officials directly and indirectly involved in the investigation of the case.
Barbara Loesch Was Found Floating in Her Backyard Hot Tub
On April 7, 1945, in Sacramento, California, Barbara Dean Stultz Loesch was welcomed into the world by her loving parents. Having had a memorable childhood, she grew up to be a beautiful woman inside out. Her kind and compassionate nature struck a chord in the heart of a guy named Gary Charles Loesch, and the two became bonded in holy matrimony. Soon, they gave birth to their adorable daughter and named her Tina Loesch.
Living in Post Falls, Idaho, everything seemed to be going great in their lives until a heavy tragedy struck — the death of Gary. The Loesch family was devastated when they heard the news of the passing of the newspaper deliveryman, who was shot to death on November 13, 1995, while delivering newspapers. Following the tragedy, Barbara tried her best to heal from the loss of her husband. However, more than just a couple of years later, on January 8, 1998, the police received a call from Barbara’s family members, who were concerned about her well-being as they hadn’t gotten in touch with her.
When investigators rushed to the residence of the Loesch family, they began searching for the 52-year-old single mother in and around the property. Soon, they searched the backyard, and upon looking down the steps, they saw the lifeless body of Barbara floating in the hot tub, which also consisted of a plugged-in TV. Upon inspecting the scene, they found that her body had started decomposing in the hot tub, making it difficult to figure out what caused her death. Thus, her cause of death was announced as “undetermined” at the time.
Tina and Skye Died of Suicide as the Police Closed in on Them
Despite launching an extensive investigation, the police could hardly find any leads or witnesses in order to get to the perpetrator/s responsible for the murder of Barbara Loesch. After almost five long years of patience and investigation, the police found a link between the 1998 murder and a guy named Bradley Steckmen. When the investigators dug deeper, they found enough dirt on him to take him into custody. He was already serving time for a 1996 murder case of a 1996 murder case, involving an 89-year-old Pullman woman. In April 2004, Bradley pleaded guilty to the murder charges against him related to the electrocution death of Barbara.
In 2003, he decided to break the silence by confessing that Barbara’s daughter, Tina Loesch, and her partner, Skye Hanson, hired him to carry out the murder and make it look like an accident. He claimed that the duo had promised to pay him $10,000 from the life insurance they would receive from her death. He confessed, “They pushed the TV in, which stunned her and made her unconscious. Then they rolled her over and drowned her.” In October 1999, when Tina and Skye learned that Bradley had snitched them out, the lovers fled the state and disappeared with the former’s 10-year-old son, Kristopher. Three years before they plotted to kill Barbara Loesch, Tina and Skye began dating.
Tina’s father did not approve of their relationship, so he removed her from the will. So, when he died in 1995, she made the most of the opportunity to get closer to her mother, getting in her good books. It all worked in her favor as just eight months prior to her murder, Barbara took out a $530,000 life insurance policy and named Tina as the beneficiary. Finally, in October 2008, about a decade after Barbara’s demise, first-degree murder warrants for Tina and Skye were issued related to the 1998 murder case.
Just a month later, on November 15, a motorist came across the couple’s bodies in a white Dodge Durango on a road northwest of Tucson, Arizona, at around 11:30 pm, about three hours after they were profiled on national television in ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ When the authorities arrived at the reported site, they found the suspects’ bodies with a suicide note expressing their regret over the crime. The police discovered gunshot wounds to the women’s heads that were most likely inflicted by a 9mm semiautomatic pistol they found in the vehicle. Since Tina was also alleged to have been involved in the killing of her father, she ensured to address it and wrote that she had nothing to do with it. After that, the investigators turned all their focus on finding Tina’s son, Kristopher.
Bradley Died in a Hospital After Serving More Than a Decade of His Sentence
While serving an 18-year sentence for the 1996 murder of an 89-year-old Pullman woman named Dorothy Martin, Bradley Marion Steckman pleaded guilty to the charges against him for Barbara Loesch’s murder case. He was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing Barbara in 1998. On December 4, 2012, the 44-year-old convict died in Valley Hospital Medical Center while he was serving his sentence.
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