A look into her life and her world in Lockhart, Texas back in the days. There is additional information about the case in it, but also opinions so I tried to filter out the most relevant information to get a better view on this missing persons case.
Written in June 2020
> means snipped (less factional/opinionated IMO, but interesting)
Crime of the Month: A Missing Woman
I'm not sure if posting this is a TOS violation, if so please remove it.
Thirty-six years ago, a woman who was my friend went missing. Her name was Toni Swartz Esbenshade, and she was last seen
leaving her part-time bartending job at a tavern in Lockhart, Texas around midnight on March 26, 1984. During the day,
Toni worked as the office manager at Bufkin Farms, which was a sister company to Countywide Builders, the construction outfit I worked for as a receptionist. We met through our jobs and became fast friends. We had a lot in common. We were both in our early twenties, young mothers, and we both had troubled marriages. My daughter was two years old, and Toni had two daughters and a son. She loved her children and worked hard to provide for them. On occasion, I babysat for her while she worked part-time at night as a bartender for extra cash.
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My friend Toni’s
estranged husband, Roger Esbenshade, was a victim of oil field layoffs. The two of them were in the middle of divorce proceedings when Roger lost his job and became unable to pay mandated child support. He moved back into Toni’s house to help care for the children and save money on daycare, and she began bartending part-time at the tavern.
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On Tuesday morning, March 27, 1984, Toni didn’t show up for work at Bufkin Farms. Darlene was off that day due a doctor’s appointment. When Toni didn’t show up on Wednesday morning either, Darlene became concerned. While the owners of Bufkin Farms and Countywide Builders were annoyed, they dismissed the idea that something terrible could have happened. It was assumed that Toni was being irresponsible and would be reprimanded when she showed up.
After work that day, Darlene had planned a birthday party at the park for her three-year-old daughter, a party that I attended with my two-year-old in tow. Surprisingly,
Roger also showed up at the park with his and Toni’s children; he was driving Toni’s car. When we asked Roger where Toni was, he said she didn’t come home on Monday night. When he woke on Tuesday morning, her keys were dangling from the front door lock, her purse was on the porch, and her car was in the driveway. Roger said he assumed she’d run off, probably with some man she met at the tavern.
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Darlene went home after the birthday party and announced to her husband that she was calling the police to report our friend Toni was missing. Her husband forbade it, but she insisted, and so he told her she’d have to talk to the police outside because he didn’t want them in the house. Darlene called the Lockhart Police and waited in the front yard. When an officer arrived, she told him Toni was missing. The officer interviewed her and agreed to file a missing person report.
Toni’s disappearance made the local news, and a short investigation ensued. One suspect was a traveling photographer who took annual grade school pictures. The photographer had given Toni a single red rose at the tavern, but he had an alibi and was quickly dismissed as a suspect. The police interviewed Roger Esbenshade, and he told them the same story he told me and Darlene, which the Lockhart Police accepted at face value.
Toni’s parents, an older couple who had adopted her as an infant, were bereft in the way of quiet people who abhor public attention, or at least that’s the way I remember them.
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Toni had a strong personality, but she was a slight woman, only five foot five, though she liked to wear platform sandals that made her appear taller.
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Twice over the years, a woman’s remains have been found and tested to determine if they belonged to Toni. In both cases, the remains were not her. In 1990, Darlene called to tell me that
Roger Esbenshade had died. He fell to his death from the upper scaffolding at a high-rise construction site.
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Earlier this year, in late April with Covid-19 spreading its tendrils across America, my friend Darlene received a call from an officer at the Lockhart Police Department, who requested that she come to the station to once again review Toni’s missing person case. Every five or six years, the police called her in for a review. In the midst of the pandemic, Darlene donned her mask and complied, though she later told me that this year was more emotionally difficult than ever. She was shown old photographs and asked to identify the subjects, pictures of Toni and Toni’s children that broke her heart. Darlene was asked the same old questions, and when the interview was finally over, the officer pushed some paper across the table and said, “Now, write the whole thing down in your own words. Here’s a pen. I’ll be back.” Left alone in the room, Darlene lowered her mask and cried. She used it to wipe her tears. If Toni were alive, she’d be sixty this year, and a great-grandmother twice over. Her classification remains: Endangered Missing. Nothing has happened yet to change that.
