I Think My Neighbor Did It

 During 2013, 17-year-old Tara Willenborg was excited for the rest of her life. She had moved out of her family home and started living at an apartment, which she shared with her 21-year-old partner, Josh Lewis. Despite their age gap, family and friends reported that the couple were happy together, and even though they weren’t formally engaged, they had started referring to each other as fiancées. Josh was in the process of saving up to buy an expensive ring for Tara, which he planned on using to officially propose to her in July that year.

On March 2nd, 2013, Tara was sitting on the end of the staircase that led up to her apartment when she was approached by a familiar face. It was 49-year-old Richard Hooten, whose girlfriend lived in the apartment opposite Tara’s.

That night, Richard had been out drinking with his girlfriend and her family at a bar, but he’d decided to go home alone because he wasn’t in the mood to get drunk. When he greeted Tara, he asked her if she was interested in hanging out for a while. Tara agreed, and invited Richard inside her apartment.

Later, Richard reflected on the moment that he’d seen Tara sitting on the stairs and admitted that, as soon as he saw her, he had known that he was going to try to sexually assault her. Soon after Tara turned on her television and the two of them sat down to watch, Richard suddenly attacked her. He was able to overpower Tara, who was younger and smaller than him, and proceeded to sexually assault her while choking her.

At one point, Richard looked at Tara and noticed that, during the assault, she had stopped breathing. He panicked and attempted to resuscitate her, but when his CPR attempt failed, he realized that he had killed her. Now, he needed a way to make her death look non-suspicious, and tried to stage the crime scene to make it look like Tara had taken her own life. He grabbed Tara’s uniform from the time she had worked at Subway and tied the apron tightly around her throat, hoping that it would obscure the fact that she’d been manually strangled to death.

Richard left Tara’s body lying inside her apartment, and fled the scene. Later that night, Tara’s fiance returned home from his shift at work.. He immediately thought it was strange that the apartment’s door was unlocked - the couple always made an effort to lock the door, even if one of them was inside the apartment. In the living room, Josh discovered Tara’s dead body, with the apron still tied around her neck. He cut the apron before attempting to perform CPR, but deep down, he knew that his fiancee was already gone.

Later, Josh vividly recalled the moment when he found Tara. “I remember staring at the wall blankly,” he said. “I couldn’t move. I wanted to throw up so bad.”

Searching desperately for help, Josh ran to ask the neighbors for help. In the apartment directly across the hall, he saw Richard Hooten. He recognized the other man because he’d seen him hanging around the complex, but the two of them had never spoken. Something about Richard gave Josh a strange feeling. “He didn’t look like he should have,” Josh later said. “It didn’t click at first. When I got to thinking of it, he looked more worried than shocked that it happened.”

Only a few moments after seeing Josh, Richard left the apartment complex. He fled to an abandoned gas station in the area, where he hid in one of the bathrooms.

On the day of Tara’s funeral, Richard was formally charged with her sexual assault and murder. Simultaneously, the sex crimes division of the LMPD was carrying out an investigation into an unrelated assault that had taken place earlier that same year, in which Richard was also suspected to be the perpetrator.

Clark County Prosecutor Steve Stewart announced his intentions to make sure that Tara received justice, stating that he would be trying for the death penalty, and that Richard “should never see the light of day” again.

Tara’s uncle, Neal Curran, commented on Richard’s arrest, saying, “Our hearts are broken, and our lives will never be the same. We’re relieved that the murderer is behind bars where [he] cannot hurt anyone else, but nothing he could say or do will bring Tara back. Our hearts can’t yet imagine a future without her. Tara was our baby, and always will be. 

Initially, Richard had been facing the death penalty, but after he decided to accept a plea deal, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 70 years. He pleaded guilty to a wide range of criminal charges: murder, criminal deviant conduct and rape, as well as being a ‘habitual offender.’ He apologized to Tara’s family, and he seemed accepting of his sentence. When he was asked about his decision to accept the plea deal, he responded that he was “trying to help everyone out in the family.”

Tara’s uncle Neal spoke for the rest of the family, stating that they were trying to remember the good parts of Tara’s life instead of focusing on her death. “We don’t want to focus on the horrible way Tara died,” Neal said, “But on the beautiful life [that] she lived. She brought kindness, humor and peace wherever she went. We’re going to miss her smiles, her curls, and her cupcakes.”