Sara Tokars

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Fred Tokars arranged for a hitman to kill his wife Sara Tokars in 1992

In November 1992, Sara Tokars and her two small children return home late at night only to be met by an intruder with a gun.  What did he want?  Why was he there?  Listen to the story of how greed and a thirst for power brought ruin and murder to one young Georgia family.

The Big Chicken in Marietta, Georgia
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Location

Our episode takes place in Marietta, Georgia, located in Cobb County, one of the largest suburbs of Atlanta.  One of its famous landmarks is The Big Chicken, a 56-foot-tall steel structure in the shape of a chicken rising out of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.  Famous citizens who hail from Cobb County include country singer, Travis Tritt, and actor Robert Patrick, from the Terminator 2 movie.  

Coming Home

Marietta Square, GA - Judson McCranie, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Marietta Square, GA Judson McCranie, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On the evening of November 29, 1992, 39-year-old Sara Tokars and her two young children, Mike, age 6, and Rick age 2 were coming back from Sara’s parent’s house in Florida.  The family, including her husband, Fred Tokars had spent the Thanksgiving Holiday there.  Fred Tokars, a lawyer, had left on Saturday to return home for business.  

When Sara turned into the driveway of their Marietta residence that evening the house was completely dark.  Sara and Mike left the vehicle leaving Rick in the back seat sleeping only to be met by a man in the house.  This man had a gun and forced both Sara and Mike back into the vehicle and told her to drive.  

The man had put a gun to her head and told her to drive towards the city, but then directed her to turn off into an empty cul-de-sac.  Sara refused and begged the man to let her children go and not to hurt them.  In the next moment, the man shot Sara in the back of the head, grabbed her purse, and took off.  

Mike had to reach over to his mother and turn off the ignition to stop the car from moving.  Mike then got Rick out of the backseat and ran across a field to the nearest neighbor’s house telling them someone hurt their mom.  He also asked that someone call his grandfather who was a doctor so he could make his mom better.  

Empty Field

Police descended upon the crime scene on Powers Road.  There they found Sara Tokars slumped over the steering wheel.   The shooter had been sitting directly behind her in the back seat but left no evidence behind.   Mike described the shooter to detectives.  He was a black man wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and a toboggan hat.  The gun he was carrying looked like a pirate’s gun you would see in the movies.  From this description, detectives believed that the murder weapon might have been a sawed-off shotgun.  There were no fingerprints, fibers, or foreign hairs found in the vehicle or on Sara.  

After running the plates of the vehicle authorities tracked down family members to take custody of the boys.  Next, was getting ahold of Fred Tokars to inform him that his wife had been murdered. He had been located at a hotel later that evening.  Fred, a lawyer, had left Georgia on Saturday for a meeting with a client in a Montgomery, Alabama prison. While Fred made his way back to Georgia, detectives went back to the Tokars’ residence to begin processing the scene.

In the living room, detectives found a security dowl lying on the floor that looked like it went to the sliding glass door.  They also found that the security system had not been turned on.  At this point, the detective’s theorized that perhaps Sara had surprised a burglar who wasn’t expecting anyone to be home.  Unfortunately, no trace evidence was left behind in the home.  

Returning Home

When Fred returned to the area he agreed to meet with detectives to be interviewed.  At that interview, he had his defense attorney present because he knew that he would be looked at first for having something to do with his wife’s murder.  Detectives were concerned that possibly one of Fred’s clients might be involved in Sara’s murder.  Fred was a criminal defense attorney who’s clients were involved with drug trafficking and potentially dangerous.

He told detectives that he and Sara had a good marriage and that he would do anything to find out who did this to her.  Fred agreed to walk detectives through their home explaining that when he left on Saturday for Alabama he had turned off all the lights and locked the doors, making sure the security rod was in place.  He admitted that he did not turn on the alarm because a plumber was scheduled to fix the water heater that weekend.  

Fred next took detectives to the basement where his home office was located.  He told them that the office safe usually held $1500 in cash, but it was open and empty when he came home.  Fred wasn’t sure if there was $1500 in the safe, but nothing else looked to be missing.  With Fred’s alibi confirmed, detectives continued to follow up on other leads.

Offshore Accounts

It was the very next day that a major lead was delivered to detectives.  Sara’s sister and cousin came to the station and gave them something Sara had taken from Fred’s basement office.  She told them that if anything was to happen to her that they promise to take this information to the police. Sara’s sister and cousin informed detectives that Sara wanted a divorce, but Fred would always threaten her that he would use his legal connections to make sure he won sole custody of the children.  They claimed that Sara knew she needed some leverage to use against her husband so she made copies of the information she found and gave it to them for safekeeping.   

The documents handed over a list of various offshore bank accounts and corporations set up by Fred for his clients.  These offshore accounts were located in the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos. The Cobb County authorities, realizing that they needed assistance to wade through this financial information, notified the FBI field office in Atlanta.  

Special Agent Michael Twibell reviewed Fred’s financial documents.  In examining the various corporations Tokar set up, Agent Twibell realized that they all had “in-name-only” ownership, which means that the in-name-only owners were not the real owners of the corporations.  They were perhaps dummy corporations used for money laundering usually involving drug trafficking.  

Sara

Sara Ambrusko was one of seven sisters originally from Buffalo, New York to John & Phyllis Ambrusko.  She is described by those that knew her as having a sunny personality and being a hard worker.   Before reconnecting with Fred Tokars, Sara worked as a marketing director for a trendy Perimeter nightclub in the Atlanta area.  It was while watching the news that Sara first saw Fred Tokars. She remembered Fred from their time in high school and on an impulse called him.  Fred was a junior prosecutor for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.  He was the second chair on a murder trial when Sara saw him on tv.  

That first call led to a date and then a simple ceremony in front of Judge John Langford in his chambers the following year.  This would be Sara’s second marriage.  Her first marriage was to a fitness club owner whom she had met on a beach in Florida.  After they married, Sara relocated to the Atlanta area.  For a time she worked as an aerobics instructor in her husband’s club until the marriage ended due to her husband’s infidelity.  

Sara and one of her sisters moved in together in the Dunwoody Condominiums when she reconnected with Fred Tokars.

Fred

Fred Tokars is described as tall, slender, but not classically handsome, but more of a sensitive face.  Tokars had been working as an accountant before earning his law degree by attending night school.  People who worked with Fred would describe him as a “habitual self-promoter.”  Tokars told anyone who would listen that he was an expert in white collar and computer fraud crimes.  He even gave seminars to local, state, and, federal law enforcement agencies on money laundering.  

When Fred began dating Sara he would regale them with tales of cases he had worked on after making himself the star of the show. Fred also didn’t make a secret of wanting to break into politics and work as a tax attorney for the Atlanta elite.  Sara would have been an asset to Fred with her charming personality and good looks plus her business contacts throughout her job.  

In one article I read Sara, who was over thirty at this time, wanted out of the late-night lifestyle of club promotions.  She wanted to settle down and have a family and thought that Fred had similar thoughts on family and children.  One red flag early in the couple’s relationship is that Sara’s family didn’t feel that Tokars was very attentive toward Sara.  He often worked late or was out of town on business and the couple rarely ate dinner together.  

New Home

Within a month of their “I do” Sara was pregnant with the first of their two children.  Michael Philip Tokars, who went by Mike, was born on April 20, 1988.  The couple also purchased a home in King’s Cove, an affluent subdivision close to the Atlanta County Cub.  Sara continued working while she was pregnant, but hoped to quit and be a stay-at-home mom to their baby.  Fred rejected that idea so after Mike was born Sara who is described as always being a peacemaker worked half days in the office and the rest of her job requirements from home.  

Fortunately for Sara, the nightclub business in Atlanta took a nosedive due to stiffer drunk driving laws and the 2 for 1 drink offers at happy hours being banned.  This was also around the time of HIV/AIDS being heightened.  Sara was let go from her job when the club she had been promoting had to fire workers due to declining profits. Sara, got her wish to stay home full time with her new baby.

It was also around this time that Fred decided to leave the DA’s office and open his practice.  He began first working on criminal defenses and then expanded to tax fraud and divorce cases.  Fred rented office space from Murray Silver, another criminal defense attorney and according to Silver Tokars always wanted to “make fast money.”

Trouble

Fred didn’t share with Sara much about how his new practice was going or the clients he had taken on.  Although, Sara knew her husband’s clients often paid in cash and she was worried that money was dirty.  Other trouble began to emerge in the marriage.  The home they had purchased was not a new build and needed some repairs.  Repairs that Fred wasn’t willing to spend money on.  With Sara’s loss of salary, Fred took complete control over the family finances and gave Sara a weekly allowance.  Sara was not permitted to have her own checking account or credit card.  Fred insisted that everything be bought in cash.  Any time Sara inquired about their finances Fred shut her down.

Fred also forbade Sara from entering his basement office.  He also began objecting to Sara visiting her family in Bradenton, Florida even though he would often go with her.  However, Sara and Mike would make the 9-hour drive to her parent’s home while Fred would always fly.  Now in all fairness, I couldn’t find the reason for the separate travel plans.  That being was Sara afraid to fly and would rather drive or did Fred only want to pay for one plane ticket?  

Escalation

It was after their second child, Rick, was born that Fred’s behavior took a more physical turn.  Sara would tell a friend who had invited a couple to a party he was hosting that she could not attend.  At first, she said she wasn’t feeling well, but then told him “I can’t come because I have bruises on my left arm and side where Fred beat me.”  She then begged her friend not to say anything, especially to her husband.  

By 1988, Fred began taking steps into the world of Atlanta politics.  He served as the campaign treasurer for a state judge.  Fred himself was appointed a part-time judge by Mayor Andrew Young.  He also gave generous donations to various political campaigns.

It was in 1989,  that Sara believed that Fred was having an affair and hired a private detective to verify her beliefs or not.  Remember Sara’s first marriage had ended in divorce to infidelity.  Sara also sought out some legal advice once the P.I. was able to confirm that Fred was having an affair.  Sara wanted a divorce.  Fred’s next move was to form a partnership with a divorce attorney using that new relationship as proof that he had the means to get full custody of their boys.  

Staying

It was due to Fred’s political and legal connections that Sara knew that for her to have a chance at custody she needed to gather some evidence to use against her husband.  That is when she broke the rule about going into Fred’s basement office.  Sara had contacted the P.I. she had hired and had him come over one day to show him what she had found; financial records and prescription drugs.

She wanted the P.I. to make copies of the information, but he refused because of legal issues.  Instead, he told Sara to make copies and give them to someone she trusted.  He also told her to call the doctor on the prescription bottles to find exactly what the medications were for.  Sara then told the P.I. that if anything were to happen to her he had her permission to turn over to authorities any information he had gathered on her husband.  

Bad Clients

At the beginning of November 1992, approximately three weeks before Sara’s murder federal authorities had begun investigating clients of Fred Tokars on allegations of drug trafficking and money laundering.  Fred was viewed as a potential witness initially and then as a suspect.  He was being looked at for managing the drug proceeds and setting up dummy corporations for money laundering purposes.  

When Fred was initially interviewed by police after his wife’s murder he admitted that several of his clients had a reputation as alleged drug dealers.  He informed detectives that one of his clients had been forced out of the Atlanta area by another drug dealing client.  The first client returned to the Detroit area afterward only to be shot dead outside of his mother’s house.  The handgun used to kill him was traced back to a North Atlanta gun shop.  Fred told detectives that possibly the murder of his wife was to send a message to him about keeping his mouth shut.  

Detectives obtained a search warrant for the Tokar’s residence and along with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Agents searched for any evidence confirming Fred’s involvement in illegal drug trafficking and money laundering.  Though no direct proof of a connection was found, what was discovered was that the money Fred had in his own offshore bank accounts didn’t match what he claimed on his taxes.  

Busted

More trouble lay ahead for Fred when in August 1992 one of his clients, Anthony Brown, an alleged cocaine dealer, was arrested.  The day before Brown’s arrest law enforcement authorities had intercepted a drug courier in Texas with over 100 kilos of cocaine.  This bust was traced to Brown’s organization. When he was arrested in Atlanta authorities found in the trunk of his car $49,700 in cash, two digital beepers, and weekly financial reports from the Diamonds & Pearls Club.  

In looking at the corporation documents for Diamonds & Pearls Brown wasn’t listed as the owner someone “in name only” was.  Authorities now believed that Fred had bought the club and other area clubs for his drug dealing clients to use as a front for laundering drug proceeds and that Fred was a member of the corporations he set up.  

Money Laundering 101

There are many different ways to launder money which is taking illegitimate funds and “washing” them so they can be used legitimately.  There are three steps, the first involves placing ill-gotten money into a legitimate financial institution.  In Fred’s case, he bought cash incentive businesses such as strip clubs or nightclubs.  These are service-oriented businesses that usually generate lots of cash revenue.  

The second step in the process is called layering where you camouflage or mix in the illegal money with legal proceeds. The final step is integration where illegal money has been run through a business, banked, and then removed from a financial institution thereby cleaned.  

So an example of how this worked with Fred’s clients is that a strip club was primarily a cash business, especially in the late 80s and early 90s.  Let’s say the club made $10,000 in revenue over one weekend, but the money delivered to the bank and put on the financial books was $20,000.  So now $10,000 has been cleaned.  For authorities, it is difficult to detect discrepancies with cash businesses because how are they to know what was taken in over the weekend?  

Closer to Home

Detectives began to reinterview the Tokar neighbors in the weeks after her murder.  One neighbor told detectives that Sara was afraid of her husband and wanted a divorce.  They had talked a week and a half before Sara’s death with Sara sharing that he had proof of Fred’s criminal activity and she felt that she now had leverage to use against him and she felt protected by having this information in hand.  Detectives theorized that perhaps Sara had confronted Fred and that she now had proof to make his life very difficult if he didn’t grant her a divorce and custody of the boys.  

Detectives also got a break when a deputy from Fulton County who happened to be the brother of an officer working on Sara’s case gave him the name of businessman Eddie Lawrence, age 27.  Eddie had been in business with Fred Tokars and had been arrested recently for writing bad checks on Fred’s account.  Eddie’s primary business was in construction, home renovation, and mortgages.  Fred was also a part owner of these businesses.  

Connection

Eddie agreed to meet with detectives after they had discovered several calls the day of Sara’s murder between the two men.  At the time, Eddie claimed that they were all business related. Seven weeks later he was singing a different tune after being charged with more serious offenses.  Eddie was charged again after a connection was made between him and the alleged shooter, Curtis Rower, age 22, aka Cornbread.  Eddie told detectives that Fred had lent him $70,000 and that the business they jointly owned was in financial trouble.  Fred had pressured him to either kill Sara himself or hire a hitman to do the job.  Fred gave him $20,000 for the hit.  Eddie offered Rower $5,000 to commit the murder which he accepted.  

Eddie told detectives that on the day of the murder Fred had called him twice saying that he needed someone to come out to his home to fix the “water heater.”  The final call had been in the afternoon after Sara had called Fred and told him they were on their way home and should arrive between 9:30 – 10:00 pm.  

Three weeks after Sara’s murder the boyfriend of Curtis Rower’s sister came to authorities informing them that Curtis was the shooter. It seems that Curtis’s sister worked for Eddie Lawrance as a secretary.  On December 22, 1992, detectives went looking for Rower in College Park at a home he was rumored to be hiding out at.  

When authorities arrived a woman answered the door telling them that she wasn’t sure if Rower was there or not. A search warrant allowed them to search the home and in an upstairs bedroom hiding under a bed was Rower.  

Shooting

Rower confirmed for detectives that he had been offered $5,000 to “get rid of the white lady who was standing in the way of a lot of money.”  On the night of the murder, Eddie Lawrence had driven him out to the Tokar residence and dropped him off to wait for her arrival. Rower claims that he was inside the house for over an hour.   Shortly before 10 pm Sara pulled into the driveway and exited the vehicle.  She didn’t get far when Rower confronted her and forced her back in the car.  Rower sat in the seat directly behind Sara with a sawed-off shotgun pointed to the back of her head.  

He claimed that he thought Eddie had taken him off abandoning him so he wanted Sara to drive him back to Atlanta.  Rower stated that Sara pleaded with him to not hurt her or her kids.  About a half mile from her home Rower ordered Sara to turn down a darkened street that ended in an empty cul-de-sac.  Instead, Sara pulled off the road.  Rower would then tell police that Sara offered him her purse and car if he wouldn’t hurt her or the kids.  

He claimed that it was then that Eddie Lawrence appeared outside the back passenger window and grabbed the gun ordering him to shoot Sara.  Rower then said the gun had gone off, but he didn’t fire it, Eddie did.  Then they both took off leaving Sara dead and two young frightened boys in the slowly moving vehicle.  Detectives didn’t believe Rower’s claims that Eddie was present outside the vehicle as Mikey had already told them that there was only one man who shot his mom.

Charged

Curtis Rower was charged with first-degree murder and Eddie Lawrance was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, but he would not confirm Rower’s story initially.  Fred Tokars was reached at his in-laws’ home in Florida with the news of the arrests over the Christmas Holiday in 1992.  Sara’s parents were relieved, but to them, Fred seemed despondent.  It was when authorities couldn’t reach Fred that his father-in-law went to the hotel he was staying at and found him unresponsive.

Fred had taken a handful of sleeping pills in a suicide attempt even leaving behind a note apologizing for how his lifestyle had affected his family.  Fred was rushed to the hospital and revived.  The media coverage in Atlanta was intense over the arrests and the rumors that Fred Tokars was somehow involved in his wife’s murder.  To evade the coverage Fred and the boys moved to Florida with the boys staying primarily with his in-laws.  

Building a Case

Eddie Lawrence took a plea deal after 7 months telling both federal and state authorities all he knew about the money laundering business Fred had set up.  He also told them his connection to Sara’s murder that had been planned several months before the actual events.  Fred had come to Eddie pressuring him about repaying the $70,000 he loaned him telling him that if he didn’t help him out that he would destroy his life.  

Eddie initially refused not to want any part in the plot to kill Sara.  He told Fred to just give her the divorce, but Fred said he didn’t want to give her anything because he earned it not her.  Eddie also claimed that Fred offered him $25,000 cash and an additional $910,000 from Sara’s various life insurance policies. In all, Sara had $1,750,000 in life insurance that she had been aware of.   Fred didn’t want his kids hurt, but he did want it to occur in front of them.  According to Eddie, Fred said that they were young and would get over it.  

Eddie Lawrence pleaded guilty to federal charges of counterfeiting and aiding and abetting in a murder.  He received a 12 ½ year prison sentence and was accepted into the Federal Witness Protection Program.  

Arrest

Knowing this information authorities knew that they needed to arrest Fred, but the concern was making sure to do so out of the presence of his children not knowing how he would react.  Detectives decided to lure Fred out of his condominium by pretending to be reporters.  Fred had already confronted reporters having called the police to have them removed.  Fred took the bait and when he came outside once the local police arrived, who were in on the act, he was arrested.

Federal & State Trials

Fred Tokars once a highly connected lawyer with political aspirations in Georgia was now indicted on federal racketeering crimes in addition to crimes that involved the murder of his wife.  He received life without the possibility of parole from his federal trial in 1994.  He would be tried again by the state in January 1997. The Cobb County District Attorney was going for a death penalty sentence.   The jury did find Fred guilty with malice, but they declined to sentence him to death.  He received another life without the possibility of parole sentence.   

Dead

On May 13, 2000, Fred Tokars died in a federal prison hospital in Pennsylvania.  He died of natural causes at the age of 67 having suffered from neurological issues for years.  According to his attorney, Fred had used a wheelchair for the last 10 years of his life.  Fred had been held in secret custody within the federal system that didn’t even list him on their federal inmate lists.  Fred agreed to work with authorities as a jailhouse informant.  

Ripple Effect

Crimes do not happen in a vacuum, especially murder.  Sara’s sons had their share of struggles in the aftermath of their mother’s murder at the hands of their father.  Mike Tokars would go on to earn his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.  Years later he would write a story on the 20th anniversary of his mother’s murder for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  His article highlighted how he and his brother were raised by their loving grandfather and six amazing aunts in Bradenton Florida.  Unfortunately, Mike suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder due to the trauma he experienced as a child.  In April 2020, Mike would pass away from a pulmonary embolism at the age of 31 after driving out to California to reinvent himself after his journalism career floundered.  

Rick Tokars still resides in Florida and works as an emergency room technician.

This episode sponsored by Manscaped.

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