Sounak Sengupta
NBC’s ‘Dateline: Behind The Badge’ features how 36-year-old Viki Lozano was murdered inside her Denton, Texas, residence in early July 2002. While the authorities indicted the perpetrator within a year of the crime, the charges brought were dismissed due to insufficient evidence. However, a little over seven years later, the prosecution succeded in getting a conviction and bringing justice for Viki.
How Did Viki Lozano Die?
Virginia Kaye “Viki” Farish Lozano was born to Stephen Thomas Farish, Jr. and Anna Withers Montgomery Farish in Denton in Denton County, Texas, on April 11, 1966. Growing up in a middle-class family, she had four girls her age, including Robin Wyrembelski and Valerie Grissom, living in the same block. They formed a “girls’ gang” and shared everything — from bicycles to skates and playing together. Her friends described little “Viki” as a “little chunky with braces, who was far more the bookworm than the social butterfly.”
The show noted how Viki was a “shy, but happy” child growing up, with her shyness especially evident around boys — except one named Robert “Bobby” Cruz Lozano. Robin Wyrembelski recalled, “Once they started dating if I saw Viki, I saw Bobby.” The friends stated the young couple hooked up the summer after she completed her high school graduation. Bobby was older and used to work at his family’s gas station. Robin described Bobby as “a kind of the outcast loner type” who “didn’t hang out with anybody except for Viki.”
According to her friends, Bobby showered Viki with the attention she craved, and the teenager blossomed into a gorgeous young lady. Her buddy, Valerie Grissom, recollected, “She was a swan. She turned out to be a pretty woman. Very beautiful.” Meanwhile, Bobby changed too, joining the local police academy and getting “more buffed up.” Viki graduated from Denton High School and the University of North Texas before marrying Bobby in Denton on July 5, 1986.
She worked as a teacher at McNair Elementary School. Bobby rapidly climbed the ranks, was promoted to detective at the Denton Police Department, and was touted as “a rising star.” Former fellow officer Lee Howell recounted, “He was thorough, very meticulous in his work as he was in his in a lot of his personal life.” He was also the doting husband who frequently showed up at lunch or after school to meet Viki. Viki’s colleague, Christy Kerner, recalled how Viki was an excellent elementary school teacher.
She added, “I admired how she could have this classroom management because to get a bunch of fifth graders to not only line up and stay in line and walk down the hall, but they did it with love and respect.” Friends and acquaintances described the newlyweds as a happy couple who sat together and joked around, held hands, and gave each other swift pecks. The icing on the cake was when Viki and Bobby birthed a beautiful baby boy, Monty, 15 years into their marriage in 2001.
As their 16th wedding anniversary knocked around the corner, it seemed the Lozanos had it all — good jobs, a comfortable home of over 5,000 square feet, and a nice family. Viki’s mother, Anna, stayed with the couple and even paid a portion of the house’s price. On July 5, 2002, they celebrated their 16th anniversary, only for tragedy to strike the next day. Reports stated Bobby returned home to find his wife, 36, fatally shot in the middle of the chest. The autopsy determined she had died of a multiple-trauma gunshot wound.
Husband Bobby Lozano Was Found Guilty of Killing Wife Viki Lozano
Bobby called 911 at 9:05 pm, and first responders rushed to 3800 LaMancha to help one of their own. They found a deceased Viki lying on her bed with Bobby’s gun cleaning kit beside her. The grieving husband claimed he had taken his gun out to clean it since he planned on taking his wife to the shooting range the following day. However, he had gone for a tanning session and returned half an hour later to find her shot in the chest. He alleged she might have been attempting to clean the weapon when the firearm might have accidentally gone off.
One of Bobby’s former colleagues, Richard Godoy, stated Viki’s mother was not at home during the incident. She returned a few minutes later to receive the disastrous news and offered a strange theory — “Did the dogs jump up and make the gun go off?” However, the investigators dismissed her words as they probed the crime scene and found Bobby’s demeanor strange. Richard explained, “There are no tears. He’s like, you know, grimacing, faking like, forcing himself to cry, but there’s nothing there.”
The lead paramedic, Luke Scholl, also asserted the same, citing how Bobby had insisted on the 911 call about trying to revive Viki. However, the senior paramedic noted he “was not perspiring like someone who had done CPR efforts” and had no blood on him. He alleged it was impossible not to have blood on the clothes of someone attempting CPR based on the bullet’s entry wound. The investigators noticed the blood had settled around Viki’s ankles and her back, signifying she had been dead for over 30 minutes as opposed to Bobby’s claims.
The investigators looked into various parts of Bobby’s story, and the evidence at the crime scene contradicted them all. He claimed he played Mahjong between 7:00 and 8:00 pm on July 6, but a computer forensics examiner dismissed the claim. The firearm was dripping in oil, seeming like someone sprayed it down, yet Viki didn’t have a drop of oil on her. The body’s resting position also appeared to rule out suicide, and the detectives soon learned Bobby had been embroiled in a string of affairs.
As they delved deeper and deeper into the Lozano marriage, an unflattering picture of Bobby emerged — a controlling husband who was a stickler for his late wife’s body image and weight. Three weeks after his wife’s death, Bobby resigned from the police department, and Cindy Waters, another police officer, did the same. The investigators also learned Bobby had more than $1 million in life insurance on Viki. In light of all the circumstantial evidence, he was indicted of murder on December 12, 2002, six months after the crime.
However, the district attorney dropped the charges on July 14, 2004, claiming the circumstantial evidence against Bobby was insufficient for a conviction. The case went cold for four years as Bobby broke up with Cindy and married Heidi Renee Whitehead—Monty’s preschool teacher. The murder again garnered attention when a reporter wrote an article about it in September 2008. Bobby was again indicted on murder charges in October 2008 and found guilty in 2009, seven years and 29 days after Viki’s death. He was sentenced to 45 years.
Read More: Bobby Lozano Now: Where is Virginia “Viki” Lozano’s Killer Now?
