The Liberty County Sheriff’s investigators have arrested a 37-year-old man accused of killing, dragging, and burning his mom’s former boyfriend over the weekend.
Robert Eugene Hoffpauir is being held on a $1 million bond on murder and abuse of a corpse charges in connection with the grisly Sunday night incident.
Authorities said that Hoffpauir murdered 60-year-old Roman Rodriguez after “severely beating him into submission” at his mom’s home.
Hoffpauir then attached a tow strap to his pickup truck and tied the helpless man to its end and dragged him for lengthy miles before stopping near the Rye unincorporated community.
The suspect abandoned the truck there but not before setting ablaze with the man still attached to it.
Capt. Ken DeFoor said that it remains unclear whether the man was still alive when dragged behind the pickup truck to the fire scene.
