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Killer who mailed himself evidence of crime pleads guilty

 
Published Jan. 15, 2014

A Miami man who mailed himself the key evidence in the murder of his older lover in North Bay Village pleaded guilty Wednesday and will serve 25 years in prison.

Dwayne Lebarr Jr., 20, strangled and beat Craig Douglas Wolfe, 63, inside the man's apartment last June. Wolfe had once lived and worked in Tampa.

Afterward, Lebarr went to a UPS store and sent himself a package containing the bloody clothes police believe he wore during the murder.

Miami-Dade detectives intercepted the package, which also contained a laptop police believe that Lebarr stole from Wolfe. The clothes and electronics, including a camera police believe he bought with Wolfe's money, became crucial evidence in the murder case.

Police believe Lebarr — who eventually called police to report finding the body — mailed himself the items in an attempt to hide the evidence.

A neighbor's surveillance camera also captured Lebarr coming and going from the apartment after the murder, according to an arrest warrant by Detective Rich Raphael.

Lebarr pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, armed robbery and burglary with a battery on Wednesday before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William Thomas.

Wolfe, 63, was a California native and one-time rock-loving hippie who spent the '60s and '70s in San Francisco. He also lived in Hawaii, Texas and Tampa, where he worked as a mortgage underwriter.

While in Houston, Wolfe worked as a vice president of loss mitigation for Franklin Bank, which collapsed because of toxic mortgages during the economic meltdown in 2008. His internal "whistleblower" letter detailed shoddy accounting at the financial lending institution and later became part of a class-action lawsuit against the bank's top executives.

While that lawsuit ultimately failed, the Securities and Exchange Commission in April filed suit against the defunct company's former executives, saying they lied about their financial losses.

Wolfe, according to his family, considered writing a book about the behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the company's collapse. Wolfe later moved to Tampa, and then North Bay Village, where he worked underwriting mortgages and took up boating and fishing.

Lebarr, a Central High senior who worked at a Burger King, met Wolfe through an online dating site.