Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Blount Family Bombing Pt. One

Transcript

Blount Family Bombing Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:31
Welcome back to the Path went Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
0:35
I'm Ashley. Hey Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
0:39
about the True Crime Podcast Festival you just attended, And I'm very jealous Jules
0:43
and I were not a part of. Oh yes, yeah, I definitely
0:46
have to get both of you to one of these festivals at some point because
0:49
there are people there who ask about you both this and Crime Con. But
0:53
that's another issue. But yeah, for the third time, I attended the
0:57
True Crime Podcast Festival just a few days before we recorded this. I went
1:00
to the first one in Chicago in twenty nineteen, I went to one in
1:04
Dallas last year, and this year it was held in Austin, Texas.
1:08
It is like crime Con, only it's more smaller scale and focused exclusively on
1:12
podcasters, where no matter who you are, if you apply, then you'll
1:17
be able to attend and get your own booth where you can greet listeners,
1:21
hang out with them, and you can also see a bunch of cool live
1:23
sessions with not just podcasters, but for victims, advocates and family members.
1:29
I know that Moura Murray's sister Julie was there for the second straight year and
1:34
gave a very interesting session. But I also did one with Gary from the
1:38
Truck Stop Murder. We talked about the topic of human trafficking at truck stops
1:42
because he's a truck driver, and I also talked about and identified serial killer
1:48
named Doctor No who was believed to have murdered a number of sex workers at
1:52
truck stops during the early late eighties and early nineties in Ohio. And also
1:57
did a lot of other fun things while I was there. I went to
1:59
see the original house where the Texas chainsaw massacre took place. It's been turned
2:04
into a restaurant slash tourist distraction, so I had lunch there, which was
2:07
very fun. I also went on a Haunted Hurst tour through Austin and saw
2:13
a bunch of haunted locations and I even went to the spot of the Austin
2:16
yogurt Shop murders, which is a case I covered in a two part series
2:21
on the trail went called Recently and it took place at a strip mall which
2:24
was only four miles away from the hotel, so I got to see the
2:29
location where the murders took place. And there's also a memorial plaque for the
2:31
four victims right there in the parking lot, so it was a pretty haunting
2:37
place to visit. Well, it sounds like you had a really good time,
2:39
and I'm super jealous that you got to meet all of these people in
2:43
person, and I'm also jealous that they got to meet you in person.
2:46
Yeah, that's the thing. We at the time of this recording, we
2:49
have still not officially met each other in person. So I'll have to get
2:52
you two to one of these get togethers so that you can meet everyone else
2:54
that you know, because there are whole bunch of great podcasters there. But
2:58
finally meet me for the first time, that's so crazy. I'm going to
3:01
give you a massive hug when I get there, and then watch your very
3:05
uncomfortable face because as we all know, I'm very shy and you're very outgoing,
3:08
so it's gonna be great. It's not the only big bear hug that
3:13
I've gotten from people who feel awkward about it at these events, so not
3:15
alone. Well with that, let's dive right into this week's case. November
3:24
twenty eight, nineteen eighty five, Tarrant County, Texas, the family of
3:30
forty four year old Joe Blount gathers together for Thanksgiving dinner in their trailer at
3:37
the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. After making a trip to a convenience store later
3:42
that night, they return home to discover a briefcase on their front doorstep.
3:46
When the briefcase is opened, a bomb goes off, claiming the lives of
3:51
Joe, his fifteen year old daughter Angela, and Joe's eighteen year old nephew,
3:55
Michael Columbus. Fourteen years later, a suspect named Michael roy Tony is
4:01
convicted of the bombing and sentenced to death, but it turns out the prosecution
4:06
withheld evidence supporting Tony's innocence at trial. As a result, Tony's conviction is
4:13
overturned and he is released from prison in two thousand nine. So no one
4:17
knows who actually committed the Blount family bombing. After that, the path went
4:24
chilly. So we've got a pretty unique unsolved mystery to cover today, the
4:28
Blount Family bombing. I originally covered this on the Trail Went Cold right before
4:32
American Thanksgiving in twenty twenty after coming to the realization that I had never done
4:38
a Thanksgiving themed cold case on this podcast. That's probably because we celebrate Thanksgiving
4:44
one month earlier here in Jules and I's home country of Canada. But that's
4:47
beside the point. The last article I ever published for list first dot com
4:51
back in twenty sixteen was titled ten Unsolved Thanksgiving Mysteries, and since I included
4:58
this case on that list, I thought it would be an interesting one to
5:00
cover. This is the tragic story of a family called the Blounts, who
5:04
got together for Thanksgiving dinner in nineteen eighty five before someone left a briefcase on
5:10
their front porch, which turned out to be a bomb. When it went
5:13
off, it claimed the lives of the family's patriarch, Joe Blount, as
5:16
well as his fourteen year old daughter and eighteen year old nephew. Since the
5:20
Blounts were just an average working class family who didn't seem to have any enemies,
5:25
the crime left everyone baffled and the respeculation that the bomb may have been
5:29
intended for someone else. It would be over fourteen years before a suspect named
5:33
Michael roy Tony was charged and senced to death for the murders, but since
5:38
his trial was fraught with prosecutorial misconduct, Tony's conviction would be overturned and he
5:43
was released from prison. So unfortunately, this meant the investigation went right back
5:47
to square one, which is why I thought it would be worth revisiting here.
5:51
Okay, so many things are frustrated about this case, but I've got
5:55
to start with the suspect, Michael Tony. So you said that he was
6:00
not only found guilty, but he was sentenced to death. Is it a
6:03
actual innocence wrongful conviction or were his rights violated? Both are incredibly awful,
6:10
But were his rights violated to a point where they had to overturn the conviction?
6:14
Like do you believe the elements that started to point towards him not being
6:17
the correct suspect? It was more, he wasn't actually proven innocent, Like
6:21
his conviction was overturned because of civil rights violation. And this isn't actually like
6:27
a case with DNA or anything to conclusively prove that he did not do it.
6:31
But I'm sure as we go along you'll find that the case against him
6:34
was very problematic. Okay, So both are wrong. Please don't get me,
6:39
don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Both are horribly wrong. We do have
6:44
a right to have a defense and all evidence presented in trial. What's really
6:50
hard is that both come with such huge consequences when you're actually wrongfully convicted and
6:57
proven to be innocent who has been in prison all that time, And in
7:00
cases like this, there's a huge question mark. Someone's rights were violated,
7:04
and you still have the deceased individuals who were murdered, and now there's really
7:10
a huge hindrance on any chance of justice because did you get it wrong and
7:15
sentence the wrong person or did you get it right. And because someone decided
7:19
not to be professional and do what's correct and ethical, someone actually walked out
7:25
as a killer. So it's really upsetting, and this case in general,
7:29
it is just horrific. You have a fourteen year old and an eighteen year
7:32
old and the family patriarch who's murdered. In this case, our story begins
7:38
in Tarren County, Texas on Thanksgiving Day in nineteen eighty five, and one
7:44
of our victims is forty four year old Joe Blount, who lives with his
7:47
wife, Susan Blount, and their two children, fifteen year old Angela and
7:51
thirteen year old Robert. The couple have been married for eighteen years and in
7:57
July of that year, they decided to make the move to Texas from Seattle,
8:01
Washington in order to help care for Joe's elderly father after he suffered a
8:05
stroke in September. The family moved into a rented trailer on lot number eight
8:11
of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park, located on the Jacksboro Highway between the towns
8:16
of Lakeworth and Azel. Joe works as a mechanic, and while he was
8:22
only able to secure a few temporary gigs after the move to Texas, he
8:26
has recently been offered a steady, full time position at a new auto transmission
8:31
shop, which is scheduled to open the Monday after Thanksgiving. In the meantime,
8:35
the Blounts would hold Thanksgiving dinner at their trailer on November twenty eighth,
8:41
and be joined by Joe's brother, Carl Ray Blount, who goes by the
8:45
name Ray. Also attending would be Ray's eighteen year old son, Michael Columbus,
8:50
who had lived with his mother in Seattle and was now attending school in
8:54
Oklahoma. Michael had been estranged from his father for years, but in an
8:58
attempt to rekindle their relationship, Ray convinced his son to travel to Texas to
9:03
spend Thanksgiving with him. After they finished dinner, Ray left at around five
9:09
pm, but Michael would remain at the trailer to spend the evening with his
9:13
cousins. At approximately nine o'clock, while Susan was taking a nap in the
9:18
master bedroom, Joe decided to drive Robert, Angela, and Michael to a
9:22
nearby convenience store in order to pick up some beer and snacks. They returned
9:28
about twenty minutes later, who were surprise to discover that a briefcase was now
9:31
on their doorstep. When they took the briefcase inside the trailer, Angela decided
9:37
to open it, but once she flipped the latches, there was a sudden
9:41
explosion. Susan was awakened by the noise and instantly ran out of the bedroom,
9:46
where she discovered that the living room was on fire. Susan immediately ran
9:50
out of the back door while her neighbors called for help and started gathering around
9:54
the trailer. By this point, the flames were so strong that no one
10:00
was able to enter the trailer just save the rest of the family, until
10:03
the fire department arrived. Unbelievable, so who that actually was deceased didn't even
10:11
live there. Oh, we don't know that. I mean, it's kind
10:13
of a thing where it's been speculated that the person that they were targeting did
10:18
not live at that trailer, that it was a case of mistaken identity,
10:20
but this has never been conclusively proven. So for all we know, maybe
10:24
someone did have a vendetta against the Blounts. Wow. So the people though,
10:30
like Robert and Angela and Michael, who's actually living in that place,
10:35
Oh, they're living there. They've only been there like for a couple of
10:37
weeks. They're fairly new to the area. But that is their trailer.
10:41
Michael Columbus doesn't live there, he's just visiting his father, Okay, okay,
10:45
And everybody else lives in that residence. Yes, Joe and his wife
10:48
and his two children. Okay. So this is insane because really they go
10:52
out and they return twenty minutes later, and that's when that briefcase is there.
10:58
So it's a very short time framed that somebody, it sounds like,
11:01
was watching the house of when to place the briefcase there. Yeah, exactly.
11:05
But what is strange though, is that they knocked on the door,
11:09
and if Susan had answered it and opened the briefcase herself. Then Joe,
11:15
Angela and Michael would have been spared. So it makes you wonder did they
11:18
actually see these people leave the trailer or was it just blind luck that they
11:22
happened to leave the briefcase there while they were out. I really feel for
11:26
Ray. In this scenario, Ray has been a strange from his son.
11:31
He convinces his son to come and visit him for Thanksgiving. Then Ray leaves
11:35
the trailer. So Ray is safe, but he leaves his son behind to
11:39
visit with his cousins, and in doing so, Michael Columbus is also present
11:45
for this bombing. Like, I can't imagine the amount of guilt that poor
11:50
Ray felt after this happened, especially since he was trying to rekindle their relationship,
11:56
Like they've been a strange for a while and apparently things were going good
11:58
between them and then it just all ends because of this bomb. It's so
12:03
sad. Do you guys think that Ray was ever a suspect of McCay's.
12:07
We mentioned that later they did look into him and they found no reason to
12:09
believe that he was a suspect. I mean, it does look convenient that
12:13
he happened to leave a few hours beforehand, But it sounds like he's been
12:16
eliminated by law enforcement. Especially if he'd put all this time and energy into
12:20
rekindling this relationship with his son, what would be his motivation to annihilate him
12:26
along with the rest of his family members. It just seems like, unless
12:31
there was some kind of money motivation, why would he ever do that.
12:37
So Susan was put into an ambulance and received medical attention, and it turned
12:41
out that the force of the blast had blown Robert through the trailer's front door.
12:45
He now had first and second to reburns, and his clothes and shoes
12:48
were melted into his skin, but Robert was still alive, so he was
12:52
immediately rushed to the hospital. While he ultimately survived, Robert would be forced
12:56
undergo two skin graft operate which left scars all over his body. Unfortunately,
13:01
once the flames were put out, the bodies of Joe, Angela, and
13:05
Michael were discovered inside the trailer. They were burned beyond recognition and had been
13:11
killed instantly by the explosion. It turned out that the latches on the briefcase
13:15
had been attached to a pair of mouse traps, which triggered a homemade bomb
13:18
when the case was opened. The bomb consisted of a glass container filled with
13:22
gasoline, two galvanized metal pipes filled with smokeless gunpowder, a model rocket motor,
13:28
and an nine volt battery. Susan claimed that during the twenty minute window,
13:33
when the rest of the family was at the convenience store, she was
13:35
awoken from her nap by a knock at the front door, but after taking
13:39
a brief look outside the window and not seeing anyone, she went back to
13:43
sleep in the bedroom. Since Susan managed to escape the trailer unharmed, investigators
13:48
started looking into her as a possible suspect, but she had no discernible motive
13:52
to commit the crime. While Susan had taken out life insurance policies on both
13:56
her husband and daughter, they were only worth two thousand dollars and one thousand
14:00
dollars respectively, and would not have even covered the costs of their burials.
14:05
After she passed a polygraph, Susan was ruled out as a suspect and moved
14:09
into an apartment with Robert, though they eventually moved back to Seattle. Investigators
14:13
also looked into Joe's brother Ray, who had left the trail or hours before
14:16
the bombing took place, but there was nothing to suggest he was involved.
14:22
That's the sad part of cases like this is that you do have to start
14:26
at the center of the family and start saying, Okay, who was there,
14:28
who's related who knew these individuals because usually were hurt by people that we
14:35
know and specifically are related to our friends, with, our coworkers with and
14:39
so it's not uncommon to really focus on those closest to the case. And
14:45
these are the people who were in the midst of their own grieving, who
14:48
actually have their own survivor's guilt, that are sitting there going it could have
14:52
been me, maybe it should have been me, And so poor Ray and
14:56
Susan. I feel really sad for them that they're not only trying to help
15:01
the police, but they're also trying to say, like, gosh, if
15:03
you only knew how horrific this situation was, Like I'll do anything to help
15:09
you, but we had nothing to do with it. I imagine Susan goes
15:11
to sleep, she has this nap in the master bedroom or in the primary
15:16
bedroom, and in doing so, she wakes up when she hears this explosion,
15:22
and when she wakes up, nothing will ever be the same. Her
15:24
husband is deceased and her daughter, like, I can't even imagine how that
15:30
would feel. And then also Michael Columbus, who is the cousin or the
15:35
son of Ray, who is Joe's brother, So I can't even imagine how
15:41
that would feel. And I can only imagine the survivor's guilt that would go
15:46
along with that. Yeah, I can understand looking at Susan as a potential
15:50
suspect since she wound up surviving, But the big point in her innocence is
15:54
the fact that she was still inside the trailer when the bomb went off.
15:58
So it's a huge risk she could have been killed too. And you have
16:00
to assume that if she was the one who set this bomb, that she
16:03
would have made sure that she was far away from the trailer when it went
16:07
off, and she would have got life insurance that exceeded two thousand and one
16:11
thousand dollars, like, not even enough to have a funeral and to support
16:15
a burial. That isn't somebody who unless you know she'd been wronged by her
16:21
husband. We could come up with scenarios where that could be feasible as an
16:23
explanation if say, he cheated or he was abusive, but not your daughter,
16:27
and not putting everybody else at risk as well during or in the process,
16:33
it just doesn't make any sense. The crime left everyone baffled, as
16:38
the Blounts did not seem to have any known enemies or involvement in criminal activity.
16:45
However, since there were other residents of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park who
16:48
did have ties to criminal activity, the authorities began speculating that the bomb may
16:53
have been left at the wrong trailer. One of these residents was Tim Tortella,
17:00
who lived in the mobile home behind the Blount residence and was there watching
17:04
television when the bomb went off. Even though Tortella was a jeweler by trade,
17:10
he was known to be involved in other illegal activities, which included operating
17:15
a methamphetamine business from his trailer and selling automatic weapons to drug dealers Skywards a
17:21
lot of Halts. Another resident to the park who was known for selling methamphetamine
17:27
from his trailer was Darren Irvin, who lived on Lot number two, six
17:33
spaces away from the Blount residence. In fact, on the afternoon of the
17:37
bombing, Irvin had a fight with his wife and left the trailer park,
17:41
but when questioned about the crime, Irvin passed to polygraph and investigators were unable
17:45
to find anything to suggest that either he or Tortella were linked to the bombing.
17:52
Another interesting development would take place in March of nineteen eighty six, when
17:57
a man named Douglas Raymond Brown was arrested for selling an explosive device to an
18:02
undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms aka the ATF.
18:08
Brown lived in Azel and owned a company that manufactured business machinery, but was
18:15
being investigated by the ATF because he was reportedly using his business as a front
18:21
to sell drugs and automatic weapons, even though the undercover agent had not specifically
18:26
requested this. The explosive device Brown provided to him was in the form of
18:30
a briefcase and very similar to the bomb which was left at the Blount residence.
18:36
While Brown ultimately wound up receiving a four year prison sentence for selling the
18:41
device, the authorities could not find anything to link him to the Blount bombing
18:45
and seemed to chalk the whole thing up to a bizarre coincidence. Okay,
18:51
so this whole mobile home park seems to be filled with characters who are into
18:56
questionable behaviors right there, Manu factoring drugs or selling drugs. What extent do
19:03
you think that that bomb was placed on the front doorstep and they had the
19:07
wrong mobile home, Like I've seen incredible cases where people go to great links
19:11
over a very small amount of drugs or drug money or being on the wrong
19:18
turf. Is it possible that this is not actually even meant for the Blount
19:22
family whatsoever? I think there's a decent chance of that because the Blounts had
19:26
not been there all that long, and they'd only been there for a few
19:30
months since they were originally from Washington State, And I can't imagine what they
19:33
could have done during that short amount of time that would merit someone placing a
19:37
bomb on their doorstep to kill them in such an intricate fashion. So I
19:42
definitely do think it is possible because there were so many criminals living in that
19:45
trailer park that someone just left it at the wrong place. But even though
19:51
like Tortella and Urban were involved in illegal activity, it's not like they were
19:55
Heisenberg or Walter White for breaking batter or anything like high profile criminals so it
20:00
just makes you wonder, like a briefcase bomb is such an intricate way to
20:03
kill someone that what could anybody from that park have done to prompt someone to
20:07
try and murder them in that fashion. I like how it's like this kind
20:11
of small criminal ecosystem that reminds me of like a small town where somebody is,
20:18
you know, the mayor, but they're also a hairdresser and they're also
20:22
the county coroner. We've got Tortella who's a jeweler, but he also has
20:26
a methambetamine business, and he also sells automatic weapons to drug dealers, and
20:33
he's not the only one. It's like, these are very enterprising individuals.
20:37
I gotta give it to Joe. He was getting a legitimate job as a
20:40
mechanic, so he made even the only one living there who wasn't involved in
20:44
neth and selling weapons. Is there like a lot of people buying automatic weapons
20:48
in this area. Yeah, it's quite a rural area of Texas. It's
20:52
not known for being like a high crime area, So that is kind of
20:56
crazy just how frequently this stuff seems to be going on, so believe it
21:02
or not, Investigators considered the most promising suspect to be a fifteen year old
21:07
named Mikey Huff, who was known for being a violent drug user and had
21:11
a history of criminal offenses such as burglary. Mikey first popped up on the
21:15
radar when the ATF received some anonymous calls alleging that he had bragged about setting
21:21
off a bomb. Mikey's stepfather also claimed to have found pieces of a bomb
21:25
in Mikey's bedroom, and that a pair of Victor brand mousetraps the same brand
21:30
of mousetraps which were attached to the briefcases latches and used to trigger the bomb,
21:33
had gone missing from their home. It was rumored that Mikey had made
21:37
advances towards Angela and became angry when she rejected him, which could have given
21:41
Mikey a potential motive to leave a bomb at her trailer, but once again
21:47
the authorities could not find anything to conclusively link him to the crime. The
21:51
investigation remained at a standstill for a decade, but would received new life after
21:56
the infamous Oklahoma City terrorists bombing in April of nineteen ninety five. The attack
22:00
compelled the ATF to assemble a new task force to investigate domestic bombings which were
22:06
still unsolved, so the Blount case was reopened. A grand jury investigation would
22:11
be launched in order to take a fresh look at Mikey Huff, who was
22:14
now married and had children, but they never indicted him. So now we
22:18
have two people that are really linked to bomb making in this small area too,
22:22
Like what kind of places are we living in here? Yeah? I
22:26
mean I can see like a fifteen year old getting angry enough that a girl
22:30
rejected him that he would inflict violence upon or as revenge, but doing so
22:34
by building a briefcase bomb scenes a bit sophisticated for a fifteen year old.
22:40
Incredibly, Then there was the other man that they confronted two I was Darren
22:45
Evan. No, Douglas Raymond Brown. Yeah, Douglas Raymond Brown. He's
22:49
also sitting there making these intricate suitcase bombs. So I don't know, this
22:55
is just not the way I would first think to get back at somebody.
22:57
And I would think that Mikey at the age of fifteen, he's this violent
23:02
drug user, does he have the clarity to be able to figure out how
23:07
to formulate this bomb? Like, we're not looking at a time frame where
23:11
there was the advent of the internet. Now, any Tom Dick or Harry
23:15
can stumble across instructions on how to put together a myriad of bombs. But
23:22
back then, to be able to figure that out someone who seems to be
23:26
really emotionally unstable, which could lend itself to the fact that he might not
23:30
take rejection well, But like, wouldn't you just pick up a gun and
23:33
shoot somebody To actually put a bomb on somebody's front door, it seems like
23:38
you're sending a message, like a broad message, not just like, hey,
23:42
this girl rejected me and so I'm going to place a bomb there,
23:47
but like the message would be lost. Do you know what I mean?
23:52
Oh, exactly, because nobody would suspect like a fifteen year old to do
23:56
something like that, and they hadn't even known Angela for that long, So
24:00
it just seems kind of weird that she would be he would feel so like
24:03
in rage that she turned him down, that he would not only try to
24:06
kill her, but potentially wipe out her entire family. And I do agree
24:10
with your point. I don't know how a fifteen year old in nineteen eighty
24:12
five is going to find the instructions about how to properly put together a suitcase
24:18
bomb in the pre internet era of nineteen eighty five. And just by the
24:22
way he's described, he sounds like a bit of a douche. So I'm
24:26
sure that he's been rejected by many women in the past. I'm sure that
24:30
Angela was not the first woman to reject him. So I think to have
24:34
this escalation to a point where somebody would potentially leave a bomb on her trailer
24:41
right at Thanksgiving, that seems like you wouldn't just start there. You would
24:45
have escalated with behavior where if a woman rejected you, you would behave violently.
24:52
And do we know anything about that with Mikey Haff Has he ever done
24:55
that in the past? Your knowledge, not that I've heard. And as
24:59
time goes on, it comes out that maybe Mikey was a guy who liked
25:02
to make himself look like more of a tougher, more violent criminal than he
25:06
really was. So it seemed like a facade where he had a history of
25:10
probabling behavior, but he maybe was just too much of a cow or to
25:12
ever go through with killing anyone. The case would take an unexpected turn in
25:18
August of nineteen ninety seven, when the Parker County Sheriff's Office in the town
25:22
of Weatherford was contacted by a man named Charles Ferris. At the time,
25:27
Ferris was incarcerated in the Parker County jail for driving without a valid license and
25:33
cross paths with a thirty one year old inmate named Michael roy Tony. According
25:38
to Ferris, they started a conversation about the Blount family bombing when Tony suddenly
25:45
confessed that he was responsible for the crime. Tony was a career criminal who
25:49
had multiple felony convictions on his record and was in the county jail awaiting a
25:55
hearing on a burglary charge. Tony originally hailed from California, but when investigators
26:00
looked into his history, they discovered that he was living in Tarrant County in
26:04
November of nineteen eighty five when the bombing took place. At the time,
26:10
Michael had recently started dating his future wife, Kim Tony Kim Tony Niehem,
26:15
whom he married in March of nineteen eighty six. The couple wound up divorcing
26:19
three years later, but investigators decided to track Kim down and question her about
26:25
her ex husband's alleged confession. At first, Kim completely rejected the idea of
26:30
Michael being responsible for the bombing, but after doing her own independent research into
26:36
the case, she contacted the authorities again and shared a brand new story.
26:41
Not only did Kim suspect that Michael committed the crime, but she now believes
26:45
she might have been present when he planted the bomb. According to Kim,
26:49
in nineteen eighty five, she spent Thanksgiving Day hanging out with Michael and his
26:53
best friend, Chris Meeks. They all went out together and michael Chevrolet Silverado
26:59
pickup truck before he stopped at a propane shop located on the Jacksboro Highway next
27:04
to the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. Kim claimed that she saw Michael climb out
27:08
of the truck with a briefcase in his hand before he walked away, but
27:12
when he returned a few minutes later, Michael was no longer carrying it.
27:18
They then left the area and drove to the nearby Fort Worth Nature Center and
27:22
refuge should go fishing. Kim maintained that she never heard an explosion and had
27:26
no idea a bomblin off that night until she started digging into old newspaper articles
27:32
about the case and realized that Michael had stopped at the same trailer park.
27:37
Kim's story finally gave investigators the evidence they needed to make an arrest, so
27:41
on December fourth, Michael was indicted on three counts of capital murder. Okay,
27:48
so her case sounds incredibly convincing, but I also am starting. I
27:52
mean, she's starting the story after breaking up or getting a divorce from this
27:56
man, and clearly he's had a little bit of trouble in his past too.
28:00
So were the police at first skeptical of her story because to me,
28:04
you have an ex wife who all of a sudden has a recollection that she
28:08
might remember Michael getting out with this suitcase and not coming back, and her
28:15
story is very scary, right to think. Okay, wait, looking back,
28:18
I might have been president of my husband our ex husband placed this suitcase
28:22
on the trailer park doorstep, but it's also her ex husband. So part
28:27
of me I always start those kind of relations, was like, Okay,
28:30
how much did she learn from the police and how much did she bring to
28:33
the police without information. Well, the thing that's unique about this is that
28:38
you're right to be skeptical about her because she is his ex wife. But
28:42
she started off by saying, Nope, there's no way Michael would have ever
28:45
done something like that. I do not believe it. And she only came
28:48
back to them after reading through newspaper articles and realizing, oh my god,
28:52
I might have been at this trailer park. I think Michael did it.
28:55
So I can see why they wouldn't be a skeptical since she tried to deny
28:59
the possibility that he did it at first before changing her mind. But as
29:03
we go along, you're going to find out that there are a lot of
29:04
issues with this story she provided, even though it sounds convincing on the surface,
29:10
but when we have eyewitness testimony, first she's saying no. Her first
29:15
instinct is no, and then she jumps to yes. And then we've got
29:18
to wonder is she like internalizing and conflating these details that she's reading in this
29:23
article and kind of taking it on as her story, whether she's aware of
29:29
it or not. I think that we've seen in far too many cases people
29:32
are very sure of what they've seen, especially when it's going back years and
29:37
you're like, why do you have this crystal clear memory right now? What
29:40
was so important, like how many times have you stopped on a random day
29:45
it could be on a holiday or not, and you're not going to remember
29:47
little details like oh, yeah, he had a briefcase and then he put
29:49
it down and he came back and he didn't have a briefcase. It just
29:52
sounds entirely too specific and like she's too sure of it for them to be
29:57
able to get an arrest sworn or an indictment on you know, capital murder.
30:03
That sounds like you're taking a lot from one person here. And also,
30:07
even if she's being genuine and she does, after reading newspaper articles come
30:11
up with this information, how much of that is information that then is transferred
30:15
into her memory saying like, oh god, I remember that one time,
30:18
Like I swear if I read a newspaper article that rebel I don't know,
30:22
did something, I'd be like, there was one time that something close to
30:26
that did happen and we were at that one lumber shop, you know.
30:30
And it's like how much of that kind of convolutes your actual memory and you're
30:34
not drawing from similar instances. I mean, a briefcase on somebody's doorstep is
30:40
bizarre, but could it be where her memory is actually altered by observing that
30:45
with the lens of saying could he have done this and then going, oh
30:48
my god, yes he did. Like, can't your brain convince itself that
30:52
you actually picked up on some of the things you saw in the newspaper?
30:56
And that's what I was thinking. It's conflating the details that she's read in
30:59
the newspaper as her actual memories. And they've done multiple different studies where participants
31:04
have been shown this picture where say they photoshop them in being on a hot
31:11
air balloon with their family, but they've never actually been on a hot air
31:14
balloon with their family. But then when they go back and they ask questions,
31:18
this person then is pulling these memories and talking about it as if they
31:22
were there. So I don't think that our memory is nearly as hard and
31:26
fast as we like to believe that it is. It's incredibly malleable and so
31:32
easily influenced by outside events or things that we read or what people tell us.
31:37
So the case would be prosecuted by the Tarrant County District Attorney's office,
31:41
But before Tony's trial began, they hit a major snag when Charles Ferris,
31:47
the man who implicated Tony in the first place suddenly changed his story and claimed
31:52
that the whole confession was a scam. It turned out that Tony had a
31:56
reputation for being a quote unquote jail house lawyer who would cox schemes to help
32:00
his fellow inmates get out of jail. As an example, there was one
32:04
prior incident in which Tony convinced an inmate to fake a suicide attempt by hanging
32:08
himself in order to secure his release. Ferris now said that after they struck
32:13
up a conversation about the Blount bombing, Tony proposed a scheme in which Ferris
32:17
could approach the authorities and feed them a false story about Tony confessing to the
32:22
crime in exchange for an early release from jail. Tony was apparently under the
32:27
impression that he had been in jail for another crime on the night of the
32:30
bombing, so he figured that the investigation would immediately eliminate him as a suspect.
32:36
However, it turned out that Tony was mistaken about the date and was
32:38
not actually incarcerated when the bombing took place, so this strategy wound up backfiring
32:44
on him in a huge way, Tony maintained that he never actually heard about
32:47
the bombing until a short time before his conversation with Ferris. He claimed that
32:52
he first learned about the case from another inmate named Benny Joe Toole, who
32:57
had once been a friend of Mikey Huff and even looked at as a potential
33:00
suspect at one point before he was ruled out. Indeed, Tool would testify
33:05
as a witness for the defense, corroborating Tony's story that he told him about
33:09
the bombing. Well, even though Charles Ferris recanted his story, it would
33:14
not appear as a witness for the prosecution at Tony's trial, it would still
33:16
go ahead as planned in May of nineteen ninety nine. Oh goodness, yeah,
33:22
right there, you're already having issues. We know the jailhouse snitches and
33:25
jailhouse informants and people who are used by the police to be placed into certain
33:31
jail cells and to communicate with suspects. We know that they have incredible problems
33:38
being part of a case. And here, not only do you have the
33:42
person who's saying that they heard the confession and they got the confession, but
33:45
do you even have other inmates saying like, yeah, I was there.
33:49
I was there when this guy was told about the bombing. We weren't involved
33:53
in that at all, and I really think that he was shocked when he
33:58
learned the details. And then all of a sudden, he isn't going to
34:00
testify that person who's supporting the defendant here, So you have that, and
34:06
then you also have this guy who's coming forward with the information also not testifying.
34:10
Correct he's recanting what he was told exactly. So that's not even really
34:16
a strong case because they only have the testimony from Tony's ex wife and his
34:21
best friend. And now this person who heard him confess is saying, Nope,
34:23
this was just a scam. He told me to say this. So
34:27
as they're going to trial, you realize that really isn't much in the way
34:30
of evidence at all. No, So you have the friend who's vouching for
34:35
him who won't testify. You have the man who says that he got a
34:37
confession in jail. He's not testifying, he's recanting what he said. And
34:42
then the poor ex wife like either vindictively, which I don't necessarily think is
34:45
a case, or because her memories altered, she's going to be the only
34:50
story that they actually have to go forward with. There's another one from his
34:54
former friend Chris Meeks, who was supposedly with him on the night of the
34:59
bombing, that, as we're going to find out, Chris Meeks is not
35:00
a reliable witness either. Oh my lord, we'll bring it on. This
35:04
sounds about as weak as I don't know, a house built on sand.
35:07
Let's go. Since there was no physical evidence against Tony, the state's entire
35:13
case would hinge on the testimony of his ex wife Kim and Tony's former best
35:17
friend Chris Meeks. The two men had not seen each other since the spring
35:22
of nineteen eighty six. The Meeks backed up Kim's story, claiming that he
35:28
was with Michael in his pickup truck when they stopped at the propane shop and
35:30
Michael carried a briefcase into the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. Meeks also testified that
35:37
a few days prior to the bombing, Tony had opened up the briefcase in
35:40
his presence and showed him the bomb inside. Tony apparently told him that he
35:45
needed to blow something up, and Meeks would even describe the colors of the
35:50
bomb's wires. In addition, When Tony returned to the truck without the briefcase
35:54
in his hand, he allegedly told Meeks that he had fulfilled the contract.
36:00
However, Tony claimed that the testimony from both Meeks and his ex wife was
36:04
completely false. He continued to maintain that he'd never been to the Hilltop Mobile
36:09
home Park or even heard about the bombing until Benny Joe Toole told him about
36:14
it in nineteen ninety seven. Tony's alibi for Thanksgiving Night in nineteen eighty five
36:21
was that he visited Meeks at his home in the town of Keller, where
36:23
three other witnesses, including Meeks's mother, stepfather, and girlfriend, were present.
36:30
Afterward, Tony said that he met up with Kim at her apartment,
36:34
which was located about twenty five miles away from the trailer park. Tony also
36:38
debunked the claim that he'd been driving a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, claiming that
36:44
he did not even purchase this truck until December thirteenth, two weeks after the
36:49
bombing occurred. While the defense was unable to turn up any official documentation to
36:53
verify this, they did turn up some other paperwork which poked holes in the
36:59
proseguian scenario. Kim specifically said that she saw Michael take the briefcase out from
37:06
underneath the toolbox in his truck, but documentations showed that this toolbox was purchased
37:12
as a birthday present for Michael one month later, on December twenty ninth.
37:16
Kim also testified that when they traveled to the Worth Nature Center and Refuge that
37:22
night, she saw Michael shoot a beaver with a twenty two caliber Rugal model
37:25
rifle, but atf Gun Register records showed that he did not purchase this rifle
37:31
until December nineteenth. Furthermore, records from the National Weather Service showed that the
37:37
temperatures on the evening of November twenty eight was between thirty and forty degrees fahrenheit,
37:43
making it the coldest date of the month that year and a very unusual
37:46
night to go fishing at the nature center. So this is insane. Whether
37:52
Michael did it or not, you have not Michael, so sorry, no,
37:59
it is Michael. Yeah that's his name. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,
38:00
then I got Chris. I saw Chris, and I panicked. Okay,
38:04
Okay. Whether or not Michael is guilty of this or not, the
38:07
fact that you're telling me we're going to trial for capital murder against this individual
38:14
with a story that at this point Kim's the only one telling, right,
38:17
and we know that there's holes in this story. He has an alibi where
38:22
he was spending time with his family, three family members. Now, again,
38:29
when you have a murder case and someone has an alibi that they're with
38:31
family members, the truth is, your family is most likely to know where
38:37
you were. They're most likely going to be the people who truly do know
38:40
what you were doing that night or that afternoon. But they're also the most
38:45
suspicious and the ones that we say, oh, well, they would cover
38:47
anyway for this person, right, They're they're family, they're protecting them.
38:51
So it's almost like when families your alibi witness, you're in big trouble.
38:54
And then added an next wife who is either purposefully or just misconstruming facts that
39:00
she's read and placing them into this day with Michael, that's all we have.
39:07
How did they get to this place where not only are we going for
39:10
a murder charge, they're going for capital murder with the risk of the death
39:15
penalty. How I mean, we were talking about Kim's unreliable memory and how
39:22
she could have read these newspaper articles and had something like confirmation bias. I
39:25
mean, I do believe parts of her story are probably accurate. That one
39:30
time she went out with Michael and Chris to this nature center and shot a
39:34
Biber and they went into Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. But that's a memory of
39:37
a completely unrelated incident that she probably they probably did like maybe a month or
39:42
two after the bombing took place. But she's looking back and her memory is
39:45
playing tricks on her and thinking, oh my god, I think this happened
39:47
the same night of the crime, and that my husband did it. And
39:51
it's just very unreliable testimony. And I do commend Michael's defense team because they
39:57
really did their homework and their due diligence in order to poke holes in her
40:00
story. So the defense attempted to direct suspicion towards Mikey Huff, who was
40:05
called upon to testify at the trial and denied any involvement in the crime,
40:08
though he did admit that he had once built a bomb during his youth,
40:13
While other witnesses testified about having heard Mikey Bragg about being responsible for the bombing
40:17
during the nineteen eighties. He claimed this wasn't true. However, Mikey did
40:22
concede that he enjoyed the attention he received during this time period because it enhanced
40:27
his reputation as a quote unquote tough guy. He testified, quote it was
40:31
a thing with me. I never alluded to being a tough guy. I
40:36
just let people believe end quote. Unfortunately for Michael Ray Tony, he was
40:40
not painted in a very flattering light during his trial, as the prosecution brought
40:45
up previous criminal convictions and a history of drug usage, and his ex wife
40:49
and some other former girlfriends testified that he was abusive towards them. In the
40:53
end, the jury ultimately believed the prosecution's version of events, and after deliberating
41:00
only four hours, they found Tony guilty on all three counts of capital murder.
41:05
During the sensing phase, the state suddenly produced a new eye witness named
41:08
Finnis Blanketship, a career criminal who had been a cellmate of Tony's while he
41:14
was in jail awaiting trial. According to Blanketship, Tony had confessed to him
41:17
that he was paid five thousand dollars to commit a drug related murder with a
41:22
briefcase bomb, but he wound up leaving the bomb on the doorstep of the
41:24
wrong trailer. The jury subsequently voted to sentence Tony to death for his crimes,
41:30
and he would be sent to death row at the Alan B. Polunsky
41:32
unit in West Livingstone. That's insane, Okay, So again the only person
41:37
coming forward is the ex wife and this career criminal. Again, Michael might
41:44
be involved in this. I'm not saying he's innocent. I'm saying the case
41:46
is incredibly weak. When we're talking about someone's life and actually ending their life
41:52
via the death penalty. It's interesting here because the idea that he's a bad
42:00
spouse, he's a bad friend, he has poor moral decisions, right,
42:05
he's a criminal, doesn't make him a murderer. Those are very very different
42:08
things, and so I always find it very interesting when people are like,
42:12
let's go and talk about his character. There's a lot of bad people where
42:16
are around them every day. There's a lot of people I wouldn't want my
42:20
poor dog to be left with, you know. But I don't think that
42:23
automatically comes into play when you're saying did they kill people or not. It's
42:28
like abusive husband doesn't mean murder of strangers or a pipe bomb, you know,
42:34
I think that's I don't know, I just think that's a big stretch.
42:36
And it seems like they just attacked his character and he wasn't worthy of
42:39
really digging much deeper according to the people who were judging him. Yeah,
42:44
I think it really influenced the jury, because it does seem surprising that they
42:47
would only deliberate for four hours because it was a pretty weak case and they're
42:52
sensing him to three counts of murder for which he could receive the death penalty.
42:55
So I have a feeling they probably heard all this testimony about his abusive
42:59
relationship ships in his criminal history and just thought, well, he sounds like
43:01
a bad guy. He probably committed these murders, even though there really isn't
43:06
much evidence placing him at the scene. And do either of you think that
43:10
it's strange that when Meeks was describing what he had done that he had said
43:16
like that, Tony had said, Okay, well yeah, I really want
43:20
to blow something up with regards to the bomb, and then later he said,
43:25
oh, I fulfilled that contract. Those are two very different things.
43:30
Whether you're saying Okay, I'm just building a bomb because like I'm impulsive and
43:35
I really just want to commit like a faithless murder or whatever. And then
43:39
the second one implies that somebody hired you to do so they seem to be
43:44
two different stories. Yeah, that is true that the first time he just
43:49
sounds like he did it as like a thrill, and the second time he
43:52
did it because someone hired him. And also makes me wonder why did the
43:54
authorities, if this was true, try to find out who hired Tony two
44:00
plant this bomb, because that means there's a murderer still out there, but
44:02
you don't seem all that concerned with finding out who it is. Well over
44:08
the next few years, Tony's defense team would find serious issues in the testimony
44:14
from Chris Meeks and Finished Blankinship. Meeks was known for being a heavy drinker
44:20
who would sometimes drink between eighteen to twenty four cans of beer per day,
44:24
and when originally questioned by investigators, he claimed to have no knowledge of the
44:30
bombing or any memory at all a Thanksgiving Day in nineteen eighty five. Even
44:35
though Meeks ultimately changed his story after further questioning, it turned out that he
44:39
failed a polygraph prior to the trial, and his testimony on the witness stand
44:45
proved to be shaky, as he even provided a few details which seemed to
44:49
contradict the testimony of Kim Tony Niehem. In two thousand one, Meeks signed
44:53
an affidavit for a defense investigator in which he acknowledged that the events which took
45:00
place on the night of the bombing may not have happened the way that he
45:02
testified as for Finnish Blanketship. At the time of the trial, he happened
45:07
to be facing two counts of indecency with a child, which was subsequently dropped
45:13
in exchange for his testimony. During the sentencing phase, he eventually admitted that
45:17
this story about having heard Tony confessed to the bombing was a complete lie.
45:23
The controversy surrounding Tony's conviction attracted the attention of the Texas Innocence Network at the
45:30
University of Houston, who agreed to take on his case. While Tony's initial
45:35
appeal, as well as his first state law petition for a writ of habeas
45:38
corpus were denied, his second habeas petition was a lot more successful after his
45:44
defense team uncovered evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. You already need more stuff. This
45:51
poor guy is sitting there, and it's person after person after person coming forward
45:54
and making up stories that don't fit the facts, and they keep recane their
46:00
stories. They keep saying, Okay, listen, that was a lie.
46:02
That was a lie. At some point it gets the I feel like the
46:07
prosecutors in so deep that they've already said, Hey, this is the guy
46:09
who did it. We're going with this story. We've made deals with the
46:13
devil multiple times to try to get him for this case. And so they
46:16
almost turned a blind eye to the case they're pursuing, because again, you
46:22
can drop charges and bring them back later. At this point, I just
46:25
feel like they're so set on it being Michael that they just looked away.
46:30
They didn't pay attention to any of the details. No wonder the Texas Innocence
46:34
Network is saying, hey, we're going to jump home board and help advocate
46:37
for this person. Because again, if you're going to say we're going to
46:42
put somebody into a trial where their life is physically at risk, we're going
46:47
to sentence them to death, you better proved to me one hundred and ten
46:52
percent that they did this, I'll tell y'all. I used to be a
46:54
very strong proponent of the deathfenality growing up, and then as I worked through
46:59
mythters in PhD, I became a massive advocate for people in the courtroom for
47:06
our rights to be protected and for wrongful convictions. We looked at more seriously
47:10
both actual innocence cases and cases where people's rights were taken away from them,
47:15
because I've met humans who sat on death row for years and years and even
47:22
had their execution scheduled, and later we're proven to be innocent. So it's
47:25
like, what are we doing this case? Specifically, you're talking about the
47:30
death penalty, not life in prison, not life in prison with the chance
47:32
of parole. This is someone's life. And I still have yet to hear
47:37
anything that I go, I don't know. I'm I'm ninety nine point nine
47:42
percent sure and almost one hundred percent to sentence this man to death. Yeah.
47:46
I think the finnest Blanketship testimony is particularly despicable because he was not brought
47:52
in as a witness at the trial. He was only brought in for the
47:54
sentencing phase because I'm sure the prosecution would realize that, well, this is
47:59
a guy who's facing two counts of indecency with a child. His credibility will
48:02
be torn apart on the witness stand if we try to make him as evidence.
48:07
So they put him there for the express purpose of trying to make Tony
48:09
look even worse to the jury so that they would vote to send him to
48:13
death because they figured, well, it's a weak case, but if we
48:15
give them death penalty, someday he'll be executed and he'll cease to be our
48:19
problems. And they're willing to drop the charges against a guy who is indecent
48:22
with children just to get their conviction. So it turned out that the Tarrant
48:27
County District Attorney's office had withheld fourteen documents from the defense containing potentially exculpatory evidence,
48:34
as they showcased a number of credibility issues with the testimony of Kim,
48:38
Tony Niham, and Chris Meeks. The documents suggested that investigators and prosecutors had
48:44
fed them both information about the crime and kept pressuring them to revise their stories
48:49
until they fit the prosecution's narrative. For example, one document showed that Kim
48:53
had originally stated that she did not recall her ex's husband carrying a briefcase on
48:58
the night of the bombing, but after the ATF called in a cognitive interviewing
49:01
technique specialists to perform hypnosis on Kim, she suddenly changed her story and remembered
49:07
seeing the briefcase. Another key issue, which was not shared with the defense,
49:12
is that Kim had been exposed to toxic chemicals while serving in the military
49:15
during the Gulf War, which caused her to suffer from memory loss and potentially
49:20
made her suggestible to remembering events which never actually happened. These allegations of prosecutorial
49:25
misconduct were presented to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and on December the
49:30
seventeenth, two thousand and eight, they ruled that Tony's constitutional rights have been
49:35
violated and overturned his conviction. Wow, okay, So now that means that
49:40
the Texas courts have the ability to retry him correct if they have enough evidence
49:45
they believe, I can go forward and do the trial again. Exactly.
49:49
Yeah, So they could have said that if we found new evidence, we
49:52
could bring him back to courts, so he was not officially exonerated. Fascinating,
49:57
But I mean, honestly, guys, if you've ever paid attention to
50:00
any of these wrongful conviction cases. It takes so much to get a conviction
50:05
overturned, like you will see cases where it is so clear that this person
50:10
is actually innocent, right, did not do the crime, and yet they
50:15
raise the antie right, they just keep raising the cost and say no,
50:20
this has to be what happened, like just to cover their own rear ends
50:22
like the Norfolk four is. I think my favorite example of that when I
50:28
teach my students, it's the military guys in the Navy who were charged with
50:32
raping and killing this poor young girl, and they all falsely confessed to it
50:37
over and over again. In fact, they get i think seven or eight
50:39
individuals involved in this case. They keep naming someone else because none of their
50:45
DNA matches, and by the end they find out it's an unrelated man who
50:50
admits and says that I'm the one who killed her. And what they do
50:53
instead of letting these people go none of their DNA matches. It's very clear
50:59
they falsely confess. It's very clear they've made up these stories that do not
51:00
match the physical evidence. And someone comes forward in his DNA matches and he
51:05
did it alone. They said, oh, they all did it together,
51:08
like they just keep uping the story. So the fact that he did get
51:13
his conviction overturned with the help of the Innocence Project here is fascinating because it
51:19
usually takes decades, and even then they will continue to double down, trying
51:23
to deny and not allow that to happen. It's almost like you need to
51:29
solve your own crime in order to get them to pay attention. And even
51:32
then they still might not because everyone wants to cover their own butts and they
51:37
want to avoid having to pay any money which that person would be entitled to
51:42
restitution if they are factually innocent. But that's why I think they often get
51:47
them to plead out with Alfred please and stuff, because it's like, Okay,
51:51
we're gonna let you out, which like you know in the West Memphis
51:54
three they did. But it's like, why would you make deals with child
51:58
killers if you did indeed believe that they killed these children. You're only doing
52:01
it because you know that you know they likely did not do this, and
52:06
you're trying to kind of cover your butts and relieve some of the pressure here,
52:09
which you don't want them to come after you for damages and so they
52:15
end up kind of getting their way, which just seems so unfair. Exactly.
52:20
I mentioned how I recently did a case about the Austin yogurt shop murders.
52:23
That's another one where you had multiple perpetrators, two of whom had confessed
52:28
and then recanted their confessions, and then they found DNA evidence which did not
52:31
match any of the suspects. So of course they come up with a new
52:35
theory that, oh, they must have had a fifth accomplice we don't know
52:37
about, and that's the person who left their DNA but find So sometimes even
52:40
with DNA evidence which exonerates the defendants, they will still try ways to keep
52:45
them in jail by any means necessary, don't They call that like the unknown
52:50
co conspirator or the unindicted coejaculate. They said, there's someone else around who
52:59
left their even behind, but they're still guilty. Don't worry. None of
53:01
the people in prison though, yeah, not the three to four people in
53:05
prison. Just the random one missing is the one who's actually the ejaculator.
53:09
We got it. After his conviction was overturned, Tony was taken off death
53:15
row and transferred to the Tarrant County Jail. While the Tarrant County District Attorney's
53:21
office withdrew from the case and turned it over to the office of the Attorney
53:25
General for the State of Texas. On September two, two thousand and nine,
53:30
after several months of legal wrangling, the state finally announced that they were
53:35
dropping all charges against Tony and he was finally released from custody. One asked
53:40
if the investigation would now pursue other suspects. A spokesman for the Attorney General
53:46
stated, quote, evidence will dictate the direction in this case and possible suspects
53:52
end quote. While in a tragic PostScript to this story, Michael Roy Tony
53:58
would not get to enjoy his new found freedom for very long. On the
54:01
foggy morning of October third, just one month after his release, Tony was
54:07
driving his pickup truck on a remote road in Cherokee County when he suddenly veered
54:13
off the road and the truck overturned. Since Tony was not wearing his seatbelt,
54:19
he was ejected from the truck and wound up losing his life at the
54:22
age of forty three. To date, no one has ever been charged with
54:25
the murders of Joe Blount Angela Blount, and Michael Columbus. So the truth
54:30
about who was actually responsible for the Blount family bombings remains unknown. So I
54:37
guess you could say the path went chilly. Oh, this case is tragic.
54:43
I mean, just the idea that this man is in prison for how
54:45
many years? How many years? Ten? Ten? Yeah, he's in
54:51
prison for ten years on death row, correct, pretty much like he spent
54:54
the last year in the county jail, but the majority of it on death
54:57
row. My god. And then they say, listen, clearly you were
55:00
not granted your constitutional rights. Clearly we did not have a beyond a reasonable
55:06
doubt case built against you, and so we're going to drop all charges,
55:10
which also is massively huge. And then this man is out for a short
55:16
while and dies in a car accident. So it's pitiful for all reasons,
55:23
right, this man who wasn't able to really live a life with his name
55:28
cleared. Even though he had been released, there was no ability to follow
55:32
up and get any more information that might have helped the family have some kind
55:36
of justice for Joe, Angela and Michael. And so it's frustrating because again,
55:42
I in my gut feel like it's very possible that that briefcase was left
55:45
with the intent to hurt somebody, but it's very possible it was not the
55:51
Blount family. It's very possible they had moved into that area, they were
55:55
newer there, and that someone came back for revenge against someone who used to
56:00
live in that trailer, or they came to maybe get revenge on someone who
56:04
lived a door or two down and they got the wrong place. So I'm
56:07
just hurtsick. I want to know more about what it has been done in
56:12
this case. And I know earlier you were asking after Tony's conviction was overturned,
56:17
did they drop the charges completely? Can they bring him back to trial?
56:20
But now they've got a convenient out because he dies in an accident just
56:23
one month after his relief, so they don't have to make that decision.
56:27
They could just say, well, he was the right guy all along,
56:29
but he was killed in this accident, so there's nothing else we can do.
56:31
So they now have no motivation to make finding out what really happened and
56:36
who the real perpetrator was. So I think this would be a good time
56:39
to bring an in to part one. But join us next week as we
56:43
present part two of our series about the Blount family bombing Robin. Do you
56:47
want to tell us a little bit about the trailment Cold Patreon? Yes,
56:51
The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer
56:54
these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out
57:00
stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon.
57:05
If you join our five dollar tier tier two, we also offer monthly
57:08
bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail
57:14
Went Cold's original feeds, so they're exclusive to Patreon and if you join our
57:17
highest tier tier three, the ten dollar tier. One of the features we
57:22
offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaw Mysteries, where you
57:28
can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsaw Mysteries episode on
57:32
Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
57:37
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode.
57:42
And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over
57:45
was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary
57:50
track in which I make more smartass remarks about Jewel kaylor than be sure to
57:54
join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit about
57:58
the Jewels and Ashley Patreons. There's early ad free episodes of The Path Went
58:01
Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili minis, which are always over an
58:06
hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn
58:08
into a series and we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll check
58:13
out those. Patreons will link them in the show notes. So I want
58:15
to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us
58:19
on social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciate it.
58:22
You can email us at The Path Went Chili at gmail dot com.
58:27
You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time,
58:30
be sure to bundle up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing.
58:35
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy