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The Blount Family Bombing Part Three: The Career Criminal · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. For nearly twelve years, the ATF,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: along with investigators from other agencies, tried to determine who
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: left a briefcase bomb outside the Blount family's trailer on
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving night nineteen eighty five. They investigated the family, neighbors,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: drug dealers, and people found with explosives and bomb making materials.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: More than once, they returned to fifteen year old Mikey Huff,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: angela Blount's former classmate and also a resident of Hilltop
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Mobile Home Park. In nineteen ninety six, a new task
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: force started over, going back through the case from the beginning. Initially,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: it appeared that their renewed investigation into Huff might finally
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: go somewhere, but that lead collapsed again. Then investigators received
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a tip. This one pointed them toward a thirty one
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: year old man who members of the task force described
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: as a career criminal, Michael roy Tony. For the next
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: five months, the task force built their case. During that time,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: they found several witnesses who they believed corroborated the information
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: given in the original tip. Eventually, prosecutors took their evidence
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: before a grand jury, and an indictment followed. On Thursday,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: December fourth, nineteen ninety seven, investigators went to the Wise
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: County Jail in Decatur. That was where Michael Tony was
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: being held on a Parker County bench warrant involving burglary
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and credit card abuse charges. He had been transferred there
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: from prison the previous June. Until that day, Tony had
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: never been questioned about the November two, twenty eighth, nineteen
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: eighty five bombing that killed Joe Blount, Angela Blount, and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Michael Columbus. In fact, they wanted the indictment to surprise him.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Investigators hoped that confronting him without warning might produce a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: statement or a slip up, but it didn't. Tony refused
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to cooperate. After his arraignment, he remained in custody awaiting
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: transfer to Tarrant County. Authorities finally had someone charged with
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: three murders at Hilltop. Michael Roy Tony was hardly a
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: stranger to the criminal justice system. His arrest record in
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Tarrant County went back to nineteen eighty four. That year,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: he was charged with trespassing and burglary, which resulted in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a fine and probation. A theft by check charge followed
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, also ending without prison time. In
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, however, that lucky streak changed. Tony was
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: sent to prison for burglary that year and was paroled
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: in July nineteen ninety. By September nineteen ninety one, he
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was back in prison following a parole violation involving the
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He was paroled again
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: in August nineteen ninety two. Another arrest, this time for theft,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: violated his parole again, and he returned to prison in
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: March nineteen ninety four. At some point he was released,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: it isn't clear exactly when. Then, in April nineteen ninety seven,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Tony was convicted of another burglary, and seven months later
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: came the indictment for the bombing murders. A life of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: abuse shaped Tony into the man he would eventually become, and,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: though his criminal record fails to reflected, that man was
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: uncontrollably but perhaps predictably violent. Michael roy Tony was born
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and raised in Cottonwood, California, about ninety miles north of Sacramento.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: His father left the family when he was young. His
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: mother spent much of her time in local bars and
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: brought home a succession of men. According to Tony and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: his relatives, some of those men abused him, his mother
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and his younger brother, Tony sometimes escaped by sleeping outside
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: or in a shed, and other times the boys slept
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: in their mother's car outside the bars where she was drinking.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Relatives remembered him and his brother Ricky wondering the streets
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of Cottonwood as children, asking people for food. Tony described
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: particularly horrific abuse by one of his mother's boyfriends when
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: he was around nine or ten years old. According to him,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the man forced him into a lawn chair, duct taped
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: his wrists to the armrests, poured lighter fluid onto his hands,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and lit them. The man would extinguish the flames and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: then light Tony's hands again. He remembered screaming while the
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: man laughed. Violence seemed to rear its ugly head at
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: every turn during his childhood. When his eleven year old
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: friend Annette Celix was raped and murdered in Cottonwood in
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, a serial killer coincidentally known as the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Hilltop rapist was arrested and later convicted. Annett's murder wasn't
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Tony's first taste of overwhelming hatred, and it wouldn't be
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: his last. When he was fifteen, another one of his
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: mother's boyfriends attacked him with a fishing gaff, gouging a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: large wound into his hip. That was when Tony decided
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: he'd had enough. He left school before completing the tenth
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: grade and traveled to Texas to live with his father.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Over the following years, Tony worked some in Texas and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: in Alaska and Hawaii, before eventually settling in the Hurst
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Euless Bedford area of Tarrt County. He worked construction, moving
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: from apartment to apartment and through a series of relationships
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: that failed at his cruel hand. Women who knew him
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: described him as handsome and detracted, but they also described
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a man capable of erupting into violence over almost nothing.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: One girlfriend said Tony beat her because he disliked her
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: new perm. Another woman screamed while he hit her, but
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the screaming only angered him, so he tried to suffocate
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: her with a pillow. Yet another girlfriend said Tony forced
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: her to play Russian Roulette. Tony found the fact that
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: it terrified her amusing and laughed as she pulled the trigger.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: He eventually left that woman for Kim, who he later married.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: She would later describe beatings that resulted in broken bones
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and being stomped with boots. Once, while she was pregnant,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Tony beat her with a motorcycle helmet. He punched his
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: wife because he thought a television program she was watching
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: featured too many attractive men. Years after their relationship ended,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: she described a lasting inability to trust people after what
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: she experienced with him. None of those things, however, proved
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that Michael Tony placed the briefcase bomb on the steps
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: of the Blounce trailer. That was a question to be
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: answered in court. The indictment of Michael roy Tony brought emotions.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Susan Blount had stopped allowing herself to feel long before.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: She had spent years training herself to believe justice would
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: never come. It was how she learned to protect herself
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: from disappointment. Michael Columbus's mother, Lynn Blount Wright, had spent
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: those same years refusing to give up. The News that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: someone had finally been indicted brought relief, but also reopened
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: all the old wounds from Thanksgiving Day nineteen eighty five.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: She knew an arrest wouldn't end her grief, but she
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: hoped a conviction finally provide some semblance of closure, and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: if the man responsible for the bombing was convicted, Lynn
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: wanted the death penalty. Meanwhile, Susan and Robert Blount began
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: preparing themselves for the trial that might end with that result.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Since he was the only one who had actually seen
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the briefcase before it exploded, the only person who had
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: lived to speak of the deadly blast, Robert would undoubtedly
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: have to testify. He rarely spoke about what happened, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: returning to the worst night of his life publicly was
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a new nightmare for him. But after the arrest, the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: trial wouldn't begin for well over a year. On Monday,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: May tenth, nineteen ninety nine, n coolroy Tony finally went
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: before a jury in the courtroom of State District Judge
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Everett Young in Fort Worth. Prosecutors began by returning the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Blount family to Thanksgiving Night nineteen eighty five. Robert testified,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and it turned out Susan did two. Almost fourteen years
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: had passed Robert talked about his sister bringing the briefcase
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: into the trailer. The Blounts were struggling financially, and he
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: remembered Angela hoping there might be money inside or something
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: else that might make their family's problems disappear. Robert recalled
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: her opening the briefcase, then the click, then the explosion.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: His next memory was being outside the trailer, rolling on
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the ground to extinguish the flames that consumed him. Robert's
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: testimony presented an opportunity for the defense. On cross examination,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: attorney's Jim Shaw and Bruce Ashworth attacked inconsistencies. Months after
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the bombing, Robert had been recorded while under hypnosis, and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: during that session he referred to it as a suitcase
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: rather than a briefcase. He also said Michael Columbus had
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: driven the family to the convenience store rather than Joe.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: The discrepancies were minor, to be sure, and certainly the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: result of what is now known to be an extremely
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: flawed investigative tool, but the defense didn't have much. When
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: she took the stand, Susan described waking in the back
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of the trailer and the screams she heard. She told
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the jury about seeing a body burning before escaping through
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the back of the trailer and ending up in the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: bushes outside. During both testimonies, defense attorney Shaw raised the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: names of other people who had once drawn investigator's attention.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Among them was Tim Tortella, the jeweler and methanthetamine dealer
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: who had lived a couple trailers down at Hilltop. Susan
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and Robert told the court they weren't familiar with him.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Then the jury began hearing about the physical remnants of
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the bombing. On the second day of trial, prosecutors brought
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: in evidence to put in front of law enforcement witnesses,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: peace by peace, wire, metal fragments, a battery connector, a
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: slow poke candy wrapper, and other small scraps recovered from
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the ruins after the briefcase exploded. Atf special Agent James
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: McCall identified items recovered from the victims during their autopsies.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: By the time they were finished, prosecutors had introduced nearly
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: eighty pieces of evidence, including nails and screws that were
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: used for shrapnel, but none of those fragments answered the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: most important question in Michael Tony's trial. Did he place
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the briefcase on the steps of the blounce trailer. Prosecutors
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Mike Parrish, Sheila Wynn, and Mick Meyer had said little
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: about motive. During a break, however, Parrish disclosed the prosecution's
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: basic theory Tony had bombed the wrong home. He said
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the briefcase was supposed to kill someone else, but the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: prosecution still could not identify the intended target, and the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: defense team intended to bring that uncertainty front and center.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Attorneys Shaw and Ashworth again pointed toward alternative suspects. Inevitably,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the name Mikey Huff came back up. The defense implied
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Huff planted the bomb, leaning in on the ridiculous notion
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: that the kid actually worshiped Satan, But after nearly fourteen years,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the question of who had built the bomb would not
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: be decided by teenage rumors. On the third day of trial,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the prosecution called witnesses who claimed they could place Michael
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: roy Tony near Hilltop Mobile Home Park that Thanksgiving in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen eighty five. Tony and Chris Meeks
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: were friends. They drank and chased women together. On the stand,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Meeks said he and Tony considered each other as close
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: as brothers. The Task Force investigating the Blount family bombing
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: had tracked down Meeks in October nineteen ninety seven, and
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: within about a month he provided them with a five
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and a half page statement. According to him, Tony had
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: been associating with a group of men Meeks described as
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Samowen or Hawaiian, some of whom spoke Tongan. They gathered
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: at an old movie theater in Uless, a small city
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: about fifteen miles northeast of Fort Worth, about a week
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: before Thanksgiving. Meeks said he overheard a conversation between Tony
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and these men, one of whom was called Larry. Besides
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the name, two other words stood out to Meeks, contract
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and bombing. Then came Thanksgiving Day. Meeks testified that Tony
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: invited him over and said they needed to go on
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: what he called a mission. Tony had a briefcase with him.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Meeks said that he told him he needed to deliver
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: it for someone, and also claimed Tony said he had
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a contract to fulfill. They drove to northwest Terret County
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and ended up adjacent to the Hilltop Mobile Home Park.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: According to Meeks, Tony stopped his Chevy Silverado at a
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: propane business next door after which Tony sent him for
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: through some bushes to look around recon Meeks said he
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: called it. The problem was that he didn't know exactly
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: what it was he was supposed to be looking for.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Meeks said he didn't know which trailer Tony was interested in.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Meeks returned and told him that the trailer on the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: end appeared to be empty. Then, according to the witness,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Tony left carrying the briefcase. He was gone only briefly,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and when he returned, the briefcase was no longer with him.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: He said. Tony seemed almost giddy and told him the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: contract had been fulfilled. Meeks was scared, he testified, but
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: what he claimed happened several days later frightened him more.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: He went to Tony's apartment, and once there, he said,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Tony suddenly asked him why he had killed three people.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Meeks denied doing anything and told Tony he was going
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to go to the cops. Tony, he said, became enraged
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and threatened to kill him if he did. Meeks didn't
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: go to police. In fact, he never told anyone, he testified.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, he enlisted in the army and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: served for three years before receiving an honorable discharge. Afterward,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: he returned to New Mexico, where he was originally from
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: years passed and Meeks, who'd been drinking excessively since he
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: was a teenager, accumulated four drunk driving convictions. At no
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: point did he offer information about the Hilltop bombing in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: an attempt to receive a lighter sentence. In October nineteen
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: ninety seven, Meeks reported to his probation officer where two
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: investigators from Texas were waiting for him. At first, Meeks
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: denied knowing anything. They subpoened him to text to testify
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: before a grand jury, and prosecutors offered him immunity for
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: his part in the murders of Joe Blount, Angela Blount,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and Michael Columbus, But still Meeks said he continued to lie.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He testified he was afraid Michael Tony would find and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: kill him. Then, when he failed a polygraph examination, Meeks
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: changed his story and told investigators what had really happened
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving Day nineteen eighty five. Defense attorney Jim Shaw
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: questioned him aggressively. He raised the problem of the immunity agreement,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: questioning whether it had covered all the bases, perhaps Meeks
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: could still face federal charges, Shaw said. At one point,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the attorney asked whether Meeks really wanted to continue testifying
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: if his answers might implicate him in a crime. The
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: witness continued despite the pressure of cross examination, including defamation
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of character via alcohol abuse, his account remained consistent, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Chris Meeks wasn't the only person who claimed to have
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: been with Michael roy Tony near Hilltop Mobile Home Park
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that Thanksgiving. The following day, another witness took the stand
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Tony's former wife, Kim. Her memory of the day in
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: question also placed a briefcase in her ex husband's hands.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Kim remembered that day, she said, because she had been
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: angry at the time. Tony was her boyfriend and he
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and Chris Meeks were talking about going fishing. She wanted
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to go with them, but Meeks didn't want her there,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Kim testified, but she finally convinced them to let her
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: come along. According to Kim's testimony, the three drove to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a business near Hilltop Mobile Home Park. Once they arrived,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Meeks went behind the building for a short time. When
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: he returned, Tony went to the back of his truck,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: where Kim watched him take a briefcase from the bed,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: then he disappeared behind the business. Within minutes, he returned,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Kim said on the stand, but the briefcase was gone.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Her account matched that of Chris Meeks's testimony to a tee. Afterward,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: she testified they drove a short distance to the Fort
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Worth Nature Center. At some point. While they were there,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Kim said Tony shot a beaver. Kim told the court
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: she married Tony in nineteen eighty six, but they divorced
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: three years later she moved to Wisconsin. She told the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: jury she'd gone through those years without ever knowing that
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: three people had been killed in a bombing that Thanksgiving night.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: During cross examination, the defense made it clear they had
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: a problem with that testimony. Kim said she had never
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: heard an explosion or the fire engines that responded. Afterward,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the defense pointed out that since some of the responding
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: vehicles would have driven directly past the Fort Worth Nature
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Center on Jacksborough Highway, and the sound of the explosion
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: could have been heard from miles away, Kim having heard
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: nothing seems unlikely or at least incredibly strange. The witness
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: was dismissed to get ahead of the defense. Prosecutors called
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Mikey Huff to the stand. Angela Blount's classmate and neighbor,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: had built a bomb before, and people claimed he'd bragged
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: about being responsible for the Blount family bombing. On the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: witness stand, huff admitted that he had deliberately cultivated a
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: reputation for being a bad guy, but also said he
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: never alluded to bombing the Blounts, only that he let
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: people believe it. Defense attorney Jim Shaw didn't accept that.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: From the defense perspective, Huffett spent twelve years as a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: prime suspect. Shaw argued there was at least as much
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: reason to suspect him as there was to suspect their client.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: The defense's strategy was clear, prosecutors had the wrong Michael.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: The following week, the time came for the defense to
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: call witnesses. On Monday, May seventeenth, nineteen ninety nine, Michael
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: roy Tony took the stand in his own defense. He
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: denied everything as the jury likely expected, and said he
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was the victim of a conspiracy. According to Tony, until
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: only a couple months before the trial, he'd only heard
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: of the Hilltop Mobile home Park from newspaper reports, he
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: had no idea where it was. On Thanksgiving night nineteen
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: eighty five, he testified he had been home with his girlfriend, Kim,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: who had just told the jury something entirely different the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: week before. Tony said she was mistaken and that Chris Meeks,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: from whom he'd been estranged for years, was simply lying.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: He denied knowing anything about bombs or a briefcase. The
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: defense then returned to Mikey Huff. The day following Tony's testimony,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the attorneys called people who had known Huff years earlier.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: They told the jury that Huff's teenage bravado had gone
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: considerably further than simply allowing people to think he was dangerous.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: One man testified that sometime in the late nineteen eighties,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Huff told him he'd planted a bomb at the wrong
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: mobile home. The witness said he was frightened of Huff.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: That fear, he testified, was why he waited until nineteen
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: ninety seven before telling investigators what he remembered. By the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: time of Tony's trial, Huff had also accumulated a criminal
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: record of his own. It included driving while intoxicated, public intoxication,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: burglary and low level drug possession hardly indications that he
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: was capable of murder, but other convictions, including assault causing
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: bodily injury and assault family violence, did suggest a possibility.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Tony's attorney wondered if the rumors were true. Had Angela
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Blount rejected Huff's advances causing him to become angry. All
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of it reinforced the same argument in the defense's eyes.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: The state had spent years suspecting Mikey Huh, who'd reportedly
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: confessed to friends and acquaintances plenty of folks were frightened
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: of him even when he was a teenager. He'd admitted
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to building a bomb, and his stepfather had found bomb
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: making components in his room and victor mouse traps missing
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: from the home, the same brand and type used in
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the briefcase bomb that killed three of their neighbors. On Thursday,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: May twentieth, nineteen ninety nine, the case went to the jury.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: There was no physical evidence presented that placed Tony's hands
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: on the bomb, and prosecutors still couldn't identify the person
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the device had supposedly been intended to kill. Up to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: that point, they hadn't even said why Tony had done it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Their case depended solely on witnesses, but witnesses whose testimonies
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: were remarkably consistent after the passage of fourteen years. Jurors
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: deliberated for about four hours, then they returned to the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: courtroom with their verdict guilty. Michael Roy Tony, who was
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: thirty three by then, was convicted of capital murder in
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the bombing deaths of Joe Blount, Angela Blount, and Michael Columbus. Now,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the question wasn't whether the jury believed that the man
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: had committed the murders, rather whether he should die for them.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: During the sentencing phase of the trial, prosecutors portrayed Tony
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: as a liar and a manipulator, and defense attorney Jim
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Shaw didn't attempt to convince jurors that his client was
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: anything other than that. In fact, he agreed Tony had
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: spent a lifetime using people, committing crimes, and abusing women.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Shaw acknowledged that there were plenty of things in Michael
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Tony's life that made him difficult to like, let alone
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: sympathize with, but being a dishonest, opportunist or a woman
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: beater didn't necessarily make him a murderer. Pathetic maybe, but
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: not a killer. The jury, however, had already decided otherwise.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It was during the punishment phase that jurors finally heard
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: what the prosecutors had uncovered as a motive for the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: crime for which Tony was now convicted. Phinis Smith Blankenship
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: was sixty seven years old and had spent much of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: his life in prison. He appeared in court in a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: wheelchair and seemed to have difficulty hearing. Blankenship said Michael
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: roy Tony had once told him about the bombing, and
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: according to him, Tony had been hired to kill someone.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: The agreement, the witness said, was for five thousand dollars,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: half upfront, twenty five hundred dollars for building the bomb,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and half on the other sid side, the remaining twenty
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: five hundred dollars once the intended target was dead, Tony
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: made a mistake and put the bomb at the wrong
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: mobile home. Because the target survived while Joe, Angela and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Michael were killed, Tony never received the second payment. Blankenship
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: said he didn't know the specifics behind the supposed contract,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the wise, the who's, or the wins. He remembered only
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: that it somehow involved four kilograms approximately eight point eight
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: pounds of heroin. Tony reacted angrily to Blankenship's testimony in
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: front of the jury. He cursed the man, calling him
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a lying pedophile. Defense attorney Jim Shaw then attacked Blankenship's
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: credibility on cross examination. He was an arsonist and a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: robber and was convicted of the sexual assault of a child,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: but Blankenship was only part of the prosecution's punishment case.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: They turned their attention away from the bombing itself and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: toward Michael Tony's life. The prosecution portrayed Tony as a
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: drug user and white supremacist who stole virtually anything that
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't nailed down and anything that was witness after witness
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: described a violent, abusive man. Several women who had dated
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: or lived with him testified. Kim Tony once again took
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the stand and told the court about the physical abuse
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: she suffered at Michael Tony's hand, even when she was
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: pregnant with their child. It caused her to miss carry,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Kim said. She also described coming home on another occasion
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to find her sixteen month old daughter alone with a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: hand shaped welt on the child's back. Kim said that
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: was the moment she left Tony ed. She, who testified next,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: had known Michael Tony while working as the manager of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: a Fort Worth bar during the late eighties. The two
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: traveled together to California to visit Tony's mother. According to Shade,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: an argument erupted and Tony beat his mother and brother
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: with the butt of a pistol while they huddled together
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: in a corner. Then his mother took the stand to
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: try and save his life. Martha Robson had listened as
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the prosecution described what her son had become, Remembering her
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: boy as a beautiful child growing up in California who
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: loved his pet ducks and protected his younger brother, Martha
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: begged jurors not to sentence him to death. Tony idolized
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: his father, she said, even after they divorced in the
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: early nineteen seventies. According to Martha, her son began getting
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: into serious trouble during his teenage years after moving to
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Texas to live with his father. When defense attorney Bruce
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Ashworth asked why Tony's father had not come to court,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: her answer was simple, she didn't believe he cared. Ashworth
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: was painting the picture of a little boy who never
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: stood a chance. Martha didn't pretend her son was innocent
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: of everything he had done in his life. She acknowledged
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: his problems, although said she did not believe he had
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: planted the bomb at the Hilltop trailer. If it was true,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: she said it was her fault. Martha told the jury
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: that perhaps she was the one who should be punished.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: It was her who raised him. It was her own
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: failures that had contributed to the person he became, her
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: heavy drinking and abusive boyfriends. Martha apologized to the Blount
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and Columbus families, adding that killing her son would not
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: bring Joe, Angela or Michael back. If it could, she continued,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: she would readily accept both his death and her own,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: but it could not, and she didn't want her son
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: to die. The defense also called forensic psychiatrist doctor Barry Mills.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Mills testified that even if all the prosecution's allegations about
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Tony were true, he wouldn't pose a danger to society
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: as long as he remained incarcerated. Tony had spent much
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: of his life committing crimes, but according to Mills, his
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: behavior while in prison had produced virtually no problems. On
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: May twenty fifth, nineteen ninety nine, District Judge Everett Young
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: formally sentenced Michael roy Tony to death. Tony showed little reaction.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: The sentence itself was secondary to the Blount family and
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Michael Columbus's mom. What mattered most was the conviction. Susan
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Blount was left with the same problem she had faced
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty five. There was no way to make
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: what happened makes sense. The prosecution was unable to name
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the intended target, though she believed she now knew who
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: had done it. Plenty of questions remained. Neither the conviction
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: nor the death sentence provided all the answers, and, unbeknownst
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: to Susan or her family at the time, the case
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of the Blount family bombing murders wasn't over, not even close.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Next time, on Gone Cold Texas True Crime, we conclude
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the Blount family bombing after Michael roy Tony's appeal, attorneys
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: discover exculpatory evidence that was hidden from the defense at
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: trial and what was likely witnessed tampering at the hands
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: of prosecutors. If you have any information about the murders
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of Joe and Angela Blount and Michael Columbus. Please call
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tipline at
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: eight eight eight two eight three eight four seven seven.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to join Gon Cold's mission to shine
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the show at free and have access to bonus content.
• 34:27
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• 34:32
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• 34:34
  Speaker 1: star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,