Former judge identified as slain man found at Texas law firm
A man found dead by police inside a Lubbock, Texas, law firm early Wednesday has been identified as attorney and former judge Steven “Steve” Wallace, 61.
Authorities said the lawyer was pronounced dead at the scene after police responded at 2:26 a.m. to a phone call from a man who lived with Wallace and another roommate at the Shackelford, Hawkins & Searcy building. The caller told police he had awakened to a disturbance, gone downstairs and discovered one roommate standing over another, who was bleeding. Roommate Jestin Wayne Hooker, 27, a 2006 client of the law firm, was taken in for questioning by police and subsequently charged with murder, according to KCBD and a A-J Media in a story published by the Amarillo Globe-News.
The Lubbock medical examiner said Wallace suffered “blunt force traumatic injuries” and ruled the death a homicide, KCBD reports. Fox 34, relying on unidentified sources, says Hooker is accused of beating Wallace to death with a golf club during an argument.
None of the articles includes any comment from the law firm and a man who answered the telephone at the firm’s Lubbock offices declined to comment when called Wednesday by the ABA Journal.
Wallace was admitted to practice in 1979, after earning his law degree at Texas Tech University, and listed the law office building as his work address on a State Bar of Texas website. He at one point served as a Tarrant County court at law judge.
