Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / NFL Star and wife shot dead in bed. Did Silver-spoon teen son murder his parents?

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NFL Star and wife shot dead in bed. Did Silver-spoon teen son murder his parents? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace. It's not even the fact
0:16
Speaker 1: of just dealing with not having my parents anymore. It's
0:21
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm being accused of something of this magnitude.
0:25
Speaker 1: I mean, AJ's attorneys say he can't discuss the facts
0:27
Speaker 1: of the case, but the team maintains he didn't kill
0:31
Speaker 1: his parents. An intruder dead, I'm innocent. There was somebody
0:35
Speaker 1: else in the house that night in a note that
0:38
Speaker 1: this is something I'm being accused of just makes everything
0:40
Speaker 1: so much worse. Police say there were no signs of
0:44
Speaker 1: a break in. Investigators found bullet holes on the floor
0:47
Speaker 1: of AJ's room, in a pillow and comforter in his closet,
0:52
Speaker 1: but AJ's fingerprints and DNA were not on the gun
0:55
Speaker 1: that was found on the kitchen counter, along with a
0:58
Speaker 1: note that read I have been walking for a long time.
1:01
Speaker 1: Get me. For more than two years, the case has
1:04
Speaker 1: dragged on in court. AJ spent eight months in juvie jail.
1:09
Speaker 1: Junior year of high school in a sell no football games,
1:12
Speaker 1: no prompt no graduation. Jail was very very hard. I
1:19
Speaker 1: mean I many sleepless nights just not being able to
1:24
Speaker 1: be around my family. I mean, only having ten minute
1:27
Speaker 1: phone calls a week, like it was just hard, and
1:30
Speaker 1: hearing my little sister on the phone, like it was
1:32
Speaker 1: just tough to do about how hard things get. I know,
1:36
Speaker 1: if I just get into my word, I pray, I
1:40
Speaker 1: just I know everything will turn out. Okay. I know
1:43
Speaker 1: I'll feel better. I don't know how it's going to
1:45
Speaker 1: turn out okay. The son of an NFL star on
1:50
Speaker 1: trial for murdering both of his parents as they slept.
1:56
Speaker 1: The defense of course they got to point the fingers somewhere,
1:59
Speaker 1: so they're pointing it at his brother. I'm talking about
2:03
Speaker 1: Antonio AJ Armstrong Junior, just nineteen years old, now charged
2:08
Speaker 1: with capitol murder in the shooting desks of both parents.
2:12
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about a silverspoon. It's just your dad's
2:17
Speaker 1: an NFL star and now you're charged with murdering him
2:21
Speaker 1: and the mom. I Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories.
2:25
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. All Star Panel with me.
2:27
Speaker 1: Doctor Brian Russell, host of the hit series Fatal Vows
2:32
Speaker 1: on Investigation Discovery, renowned divorce lawyer Kathleen Murphy, also family lawyer,
2:38
Speaker 1: doctor Michelle du Pre, medical examiner and author of Homicide
2:41
Speaker 1: Investigation Field Guide, and John Linley Crime online dot Com
2:45
Speaker 1: investigative reporter. Before I get all the facts, I wanted
2:48
Speaker 1: to go out to Kathleen Murphy, family lawyer expert out
2:52
Speaker 1: of North Carolina. You know Kathleen Murphy. Sometimes I feel
2:56
Speaker 1: like the more you give, the more certain children get,
3:00
Speaker 1: the more they are entitled, and then when they don't
3:03
Speaker 1: get a particular thing, they nut up. You scare me.
3:07
Speaker 1: You scare me because I have a twelve year old.
3:10
Speaker 1: But Nancy, this case is very concerning to me, and
3:14
Speaker 1: I can jump into it at anytime. But you're right,
3:17
Speaker 1: we're spoiling our children and we need, we absolutely need
3:21
Speaker 1: to have them outside in the backyard weeding and pulling
3:26
Speaker 1: up rocks and pulling up dirt and working hard. Generation Now,
3:31
Speaker 1: I don't see hard work. I don't see no. I
3:35
Speaker 1: get what you're saying. But how often do you see
3:38
Speaker 1: this is a slang term, but parenticide. Yeah, we see
3:42
Speaker 1: it more and more, We see it more and more.
3:44
Speaker 1: There's a trend. There's a trend, and it's concerning because
3:49
Speaker 1: I feel like these kids that I see come in
3:51
Speaker 1: and out of my court systems every day when the
3:54
Speaker 1: parents are going through the divorce, they want to toddle
3:56
Speaker 1: their kids, and I tell them, this is not the
3:59
Speaker 1: time to title your children. This is the time to
4:02
Speaker 1: hold them even more responsible. To John Linley, Crime online
4:05
Speaker 1: dot Com investigative reporter. Now, this kid, and I'm saying kid,
4:10
Speaker 1: but he's nineteen, he's about to turn twenty, claims that
4:13
Speaker 1: there was an intruder in the home. I can't properly
4:16
Speaker 1: discuss the case without all the facts. I need those
4:19
Speaker 1: facts to go to medical examiner doctor Michelle Dupree and
4:23
Speaker 1: psychologist doctor Brian Russell. So, John line, let's just start
4:27
Speaker 1: at the beginning. Sure, for our purposes, it's probably best
4:30
Speaker 1: to begin. Around ten o'clock on the night of Thursday,
4:34
Speaker 1: July twenty eighth, this family of four is heading to
4:38
Speaker 1: bed for the night. It's the Armstrong family. Antonio Senior,
4:42
Speaker 1: his wife Dawn, his then sixteen year old son, Antonio Junior.
4:47
Speaker 1: Everyone calls him agent, the football star. I mean, this
4:53
Speaker 1: guy's an NFL star. For those of you that don't
4:56
Speaker 1: watch football every Sunday, the Dad Armstrong big NFL or
5:02
Speaker 1: go ahead, right. He also played for the Canadian Football
5:05
Speaker 1: League in the US, first at Texas A and M
5:09
Speaker 1: and later with the Miami dolphins in the NFL. Also
5:14
Speaker 1: in the household that night, there is another older son,
5:18
Speaker 1: but he's not there with them. In the house that
5:21
Speaker 1: night also Armstrong's youngest child, their daughter Kira. Before turning
5:28
Speaker 1: out the lights, someone in the household turns on the
5:31
Speaker 1: alarm and fairly soon all is quiet. Antonio Senior and
5:37
Speaker 1: Dawn are in their bedroom on the second floor of
5:40
Speaker 1: the house, with Kara just down the hall, sort of
5:44
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the house, but still on
5:46
Speaker 1: the same floor. Ajas is in his loft style bedroom
5:51
Speaker 1: on the third floor, so he's up there by himself
5:54
Speaker 1: on that floor. It's really just another weeknight in the
5:58
Speaker 1: Armstrong home. They're in the bel Air neighborhood of Houston, Texas.
6:03
Speaker 1: Within just a few hours, though, all of that quiet disappears.
6:08
Speaker 1: Aj is on the phone with a nine one one
6:11
Speaker 1: operator reporting that he's heard gunshots coming from downstairs. He
6:16
Speaker 1: thinks his parents' bedroom. Aj says that he thinks there's
6:20
Speaker 1: an intruder in the house and he's hiding in an
6:24
Speaker 1: upstairs closet when that nine one one call begins. Now
6:28
Speaker 1: Nancy nine one one call was not released to the public,
6:32
Speaker 1: but as Ivory Hecker with Fox twenty six tells us
6:35
Speaker 1: it was played in court. In court, there was debate
6:38
Speaker 1: over whether to let the jury hear the nine one
6:41
Speaker 1: one call made by the team charged with capital murder. Ultimately,
6:45
Speaker 1: the judge decided to let it play. Parts of the
6:48
Speaker 1: call are hard to hear as Armstrong is whispering. The
6:52
Speaker 1: prosecution transcribed its interpretation. We have the video of that transcript,
6:57
Speaker 1: but the jury was instructed to listen for its own interpretation.
7:01
Speaker 1: Part Way into the call, Armstrong tells the dispatcher he
7:04
Speaker 1: thinks his dad kept a gun in the drawer right
7:07
Speaker 1: next to his bed. Dispatcher's then ask if he hears
7:10
Speaker 1: anything else. He says he hears a loud, high pitched noise.
7:13
Speaker 1: The dispatcher asks where his parents' bedroom is located, then
7:18
Speaker 1: tells him that the police are on their way. The
7:20
Speaker 1: dispatcher asks does anyone need medical He says, I have
7:24
Speaker 1: no clue. I don't know. He tells the dischpatcher he's
7:27
Speaker 1: calling from a closet on the third floor of the
7:30
Speaker 1: home and that his twelve year old sister is on
7:32
Speaker 1: the second floor. Later in the call, he's heard saying
7:35
Speaker 1: how'd you get into our house? The dispatcher says, if
7:38
Speaker 1: you hear anything, it might be police, because they're almost there.
7:41
Speaker 1: Armstrong says, I heard some of them. Armstrong is then
7:45
Speaker 1: her giving further directions on how to get to the house.
7:48
Speaker 1: The dispatcher asks if police knocked on the door yet.
7:51
Speaker 1: He responds, mhm, go ahead, John Limley. What more do
7:54
Speaker 1: we know? Well, while he's on the phone with the
7:57
Speaker 1: nine one emergency opera reader, the operator hears AJ go
8:02
Speaker 1: into his sister's room and wakes her up and together
8:07
Speaker 1: that's where they wait for police to arrive. Now, when
8:11
Speaker 1: investigators arrive at the house, from the outside, everything looks normal,
8:17
Speaker 1: maybe a little too normal, if there is such a thing.
8:21
Speaker 1: Nothing appears disturbed on the outside of the home. No
8:25
Speaker 1: doors have been burst open, no broken windows. However, there's
8:30
Speaker 1: something holding the cops back from initially getting inside the house,
8:35
Speaker 1: and that's the alarm system. It's still on. They have
8:39
Speaker 1: to wait for AJ to come and disarm it so
8:42
Speaker 1: they can get inside. Once inside, investigators check out the
8:47
Speaker 1: first floor. Of course, everything is in pristine shape, nothing
8:52
Speaker 1: unusual until they get to the kitchen, and as we
8:56
Speaker 1: heard in a clip earlier, on the kitchen counter is
9:01
Speaker 1: a gun and a note that says we've been watching you.
9:05
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, it sounds straight out of a like
9:08
Speaker 1: a fifth grade mystery novel, We've been watching you and
9:12
Speaker 1: the gun laying there screaming, please find me. But you know,
9:17
Speaker 1: this brings it down to two people in the home.
9:20
Speaker 1: Weren't there the two parents, the football star Antonio Armstrong,
9:25
Speaker 1: the wife, Dawn Armstrong, the son, a j Junior and
9:28
Speaker 1: the little sister. Isn't that all that's in the home, right?
9:31
Speaker 1: Just the four of them? Okay, so that's a yes.
9:34
Speaker 1: So the alarm didn't go off. There's no sign of
9:36
Speaker 1: a forced entry in any way. There's a gun lying
9:39
Speaker 1: on the kitchen counter in a note that says we've
9:42
Speaker 1: been watching you. But what could be the possible motive?
9:59
Speaker 1: Crimes stories with Nancy Grace? The front doors locked and
10:08
Speaker 1: the backdoors locked on the first floor, the windows and
10:15
Speaker 1: let me back up locked and monitored. The door to
10:21
Speaker 1: the garage monitored, the windows on the first floor closed, locked,
10:34
Speaker 1: screens on the outside monitored by the system. So the
10:39
Speaker 1: alarm didn't go off. There's no sign of a forced
10:41
Speaker 1: entry in any way. There's a gun lying on the
10:44
Speaker 1: kitchen counter in a note that says we've been watching you.
10:47
Speaker 1: But let me ask you this literally, what could be
10:50
Speaker 1: the possible motive? We know the little girl didn't do
10:53
Speaker 1: it because we hear him a J junior waking her
10:57
Speaker 1: up on the nine one one call if that is
10:59
Speaker 1: to be leave, But what could be the possible mode
11:02
Speaker 1: of Lemley? Well, it appears that in the past week
11:04
Speaker 1: leading up to this date, Aj and his parents had
11:09
Speaker 1: had a number of arguments over school, over his behavior,
11:17
Speaker 1: really not concentrating enough on his school work, and he
11:21
Speaker 1: had been grounded at one point. What do you know
11:24
Speaker 1: about that? To doctor Brian Russell, we boy, do we
11:27
Speaker 1: need a shrink, psychologist, lawyer or a host of fatal
11:30
Speaker 1: vows on ID? What about the argument? Well, I think
11:35
Speaker 1: all of this is indicative of what we were talking
11:38
Speaker 1: about earlier, which is that you can get kids who
11:43
Speaker 1: are feeling so entitled that when they get deprived of something,
11:47
Speaker 1: they actually feel that that is that is an affront,
11:52
Speaker 1: you know, and in this case, potentially a death penalty offense.
11:56
Speaker 1: And you know, most parents who who find themselves in
12:00
Speaker 1: this situation with their kids are not going to be
12:04
Speaker 1: killed by their kids. But you have to keep in
12:07
Speaker 1: mind that you know if you don't get this attitude
12:12
Speaker 1: under control, at the very least, you're turning your kid
12:15
Speaker 1: loose on the world, and not only not only to
12:20
Speaker 1: do damage to others, but also to be knocked around
12:23
Speaker 1: by others who aren't going to take their crap. We
12:25
Speaker 1: also know that there's an older brother. He doesn't live
12:30
Speaker 1: in the home, and the suspect in this case, Antonio
12:35
Speaker 1: Armstrong Junior AJ is trying to point the finger at
12:40
Speaker 1: his older brother who lives in a different area. Now,
12:45
Speaker 1: Doctor Michelle Dupree, medical examiner and author of Homocide Investigation
12:50
Speaker 1: Field Guide, You've been on so many murder scenes. The
12:54
Speaker 1: home alarm was still in place. It had not alarmed, right,
13:00
Speaker 1: So isn't it a very simple matter with the home
13:04
Speaker 1: alarm and the alarm company to look at the data
13:09
Speaker 1: you can see if say, let's just pretend and believe me.
13:12
Speaker 1: This is pretending that the older brother came to the home,
13:16
Speaker 1: knows the code, cuts the alarm off, goes in, kills
13:19
Speaker 1: his parents, leaves behind a ridiculous note we've been watching
13:25
Speaker 1: you and a gun, resets the alarm and leaves. Okay,
13:31
Speaker 1: there's no blood on the doors, there's no blood on
13:33
Speaker 1: the alarm, no blood in the kitchen, no trail of blood, nothing.
13:37
Speaker 1: But isn't it true, doctor Michelle Dupree. You can look
13:41
Speaker 1: at the history of an alarm. You can see what
13:45
Speaker 1: it's been turned on and off. For instance, cops can tell, oh,
13:48
Speaker 1: it was turned off one hour before the nine one
13:51
Speaker 1: one call. Isn't that true? Yes, Nancy, that's exactly right.
13:54
Speaker 1: And depending on how the alarm is set up, if
13:57
Speaker 1: each person has of there a code, you may be
13:59
Speaker 1: able to hell who turned it off and when. Another
14:02
Speaker 1: issue to John Limley is they've got this alarm system
14:05
Speaker 1: and you can't tell me. A guy that was with
14:08
Speaker 1: the Miami Dolphins, Texas A and m then the Canadian
14:11
Speaker 1: League they got some money, all right. I guarantee you
14:16
Speaker 1: his alarm system was totally tricked out, including surveillance cameras
14:20
Speaker 1: and number one. They can look at the security log
14:24
Speaker 1: number two that doctor Dupree and I are just talking about.
14:28
Speaker 1: Number two. There's probably surveillance video that, my guess is
14:33
Speaker 1: going to show nobody coming into that home. John Linley,
14:37
Speaker 1: what do you know. It's amazing, Nancy, how much of
14:40
Speaker 1: this case actually hinges on that security system. One thing
14:46
Speaker 1: that investigators found out through records from the from the
14:52
Speaker 1: company that monitored the Armstrong home, is that when someone
14:57
Speaker 1: turned on that alarm at nine fifty two pm on
15:01
Speaker 1: that Thursday evening, they pressed the buttons stay. For anyone
15:07
Speaker 1: who has a system, a security system, there are multiple
15:11
Speaker 1: ways that you can set it for security, and stay
15:16
Speaker 1: means that you want to make sure that people inside
15:20
Speaker 1: the house can move around as they want to. They
15:23
Speaker 1: can go down to the kitchen, maybe go to the
15:26
Speaker 1: den and watch them TV move around without setting it off.
15:29
Speaker 1: What will set it off in stay mode is if
15:33
Speaker 1: a door or a window is open, and that is
15:37
Speaker 1: the way it was set on that night. You know,
15:41
Speaker 1: I've got another issue right here now. The suspect, the
15:45
Speaker 1: nineteen year old son who's been given everything on a
15:49
Speaker 1: silver platter by his NFL dad Antonio and mom Dawn
15:55
Speaker 1: Armstrong out of love. He says a masked instrewder aim
16:00
Speaker 1: in the home the night of the killings. So I
16:02
Speaker 1: guess the masked intruder had the alarm coade. But in
16:06
Speaker 1: his nine one one called John Linley, does he mention
16:08
Speaker 1: a masked intruder or did that pop up later? No, well,
16:12
Speaker 1: he doesn't mention the mask yet. He just says that
16:15
Speaker 1: he believes there is an intruder in the home. And
16:19
Speaker 1: that's when he's hiding in the bedroom before excuse me,
16:23
Speaker 1: hiding in the closet before going to wake up his sister.
16:26
Speaker 1: So he did not mention a mask on nine one
16:30
Speaker 1: at all. And I'm called, does he say he saw
16:33
Speaker 1: the alleged intruder. No. At this point, we think it's
16:37
Speaker 1: just because of the gunshots that he heard down below
16:41
Speaker 1: that he says he believes there is an intruder in
16:44
Speaker 1: the house. The gunshot said did not wake up the
16:47
Speaker 1: little sister. Okay, question to you, what do you make
16:51
Speaker 1: of this? Witness Maxine Adams, who states the murders were
16:55
Speaker 1: related to the dad's alleged involvement in a prostitution ring. Yeah,
17:02
Speaker 1: that's something that has emerged of just in this sense
17:06
Speaker 1: this has gone to court, that there is some sort
17:10
Speaker 1: of nefarious business going on, a prostitution ring, a lot
17:16
Speaker 1: of money changing hands, and that somehow Antonio Senior is
17:22
Speaker 1: involved in all of this and this is some sort
17:26
Speaker 1: of payback for a deal that went bad. On the
17:29
Speaker 1: second floor windows not monitor and second floor windows are
17:33
Speaker 1: thirteen fourteen feet up in the air, but windows, and
17:40
Speaker 1: they went to bed that night, closed blocked screens on
17:48
Speaker 1: the outside on the second floor, third floor. One thing
17:53
Speaker 1: on the third floor really is the defendant's room, windows closed.
18:07
Speaker 1: That was the safety That was the safety bubble that
18:10
Speaker 1: had been set up by the Armstrong while no one's
18:12
Speaker 1: bed that night. You know, John Limley, you've led me
18:16
Speaker 1: all the way through the home. You told me about
18:18
Speaker 1: the alarm system, But what you haven't told me about
18:20
Speaker 1: is the single most important thing. The dead bodies, right,
18:24
Speaker 1: the actual murder scene, which is the master bedroom. This
18:28
Speaker 1: is when investigators move up after finding that gun and
18:32
Speaker 1: note in the kitchen, move to the second floor of
18:34
Speaker 1: the house. They enter Antonio and Dawn's room, and what
18:40
Speaker 1: they see there could not be any different to what
18:43
Speaker 1: they had seen on the first floor, which was almost
18:45
Speaker 1: in pristine shape. Let's take a listen to Courtney Fisher
18:49
Speaker 1: with ABC thirteen. A g Armstrong sat down with police
18:53
Speaker 1: question for sixty minutes, how's your relationship with your parents?
18:57
Speaker 1: Detectives begin, we were all like, really, dad was the
19:01
Speaker 1: go to for everything aj described the day before Dawn
19:04
Speaker 1: and Antonio were killed, nothing out of the ordinary. He
19:07
Speaker 1: says he was still up at one am and as
19:10
Speaker 1: he walked down from the third floor. He says he
19:12
Speaker 1: heard two gunshots and saw an intruder run. I just
19:16
Speaker 1: like personally felt bad because I saw the guy, Like,
19:19
Speaker 1: I feel like I should have done something. What did
19:22
Speaker 1: he look like? Asks the detective. They had it was
19:25
Speaker 1: like a mask and you could only see the eyes
19:27
Speaker 1: and the mouth, but he looked like a black guy. Later,
19:30
Speaker 1: AJ says he's never touched his dad's gun, but then
19:33
Speaker 1: changes his story when police say they found a bullet
19:36
Speaker 1: hole in the team's bedroom floor, AJ admits he shot
19:39
Speaker 1: the gun two to three weeks ago. About halfway through
19:42
Speaker 1: the interview, AJ says, there will be no gunpowder, nothing
19:45
Speaker 1: like that will come back on me. I had nothing
19:48
Speaker 1: to do with this. Antonio Senior and Dawn have been
19:51
Speaker 1: shot and pillows are covering their heads. Dawn is already
19:56
Speaker 1: dead and Antonio's wait a minute, a minute, pillows covering
20:02
Speaker 1: their heads? Correct. I wonder if they were shot through
20:05
Speaker 1: the pillows or if the killer covered them up after
20:11
Speaker 1: the murder, because that tells me it's not a random shooting.
20:16
Speaker 1: Because a random shooting, I mean, first of all, you're
20:18
Speaker 1: going to have a burglary or a sex assault. Neither
20:21
Speaker 1: of those here. Nothing was taken, but a random killer
20:25
Speaker 1: doesn't take the time to cover up the bodies. They
20:27
Speaker 1: steal what they're going to steal, the get out of there.
20:29
Speaker 1: Prosecutors contend it was a case of both that he
20:32
Speaker 1: actually used the pillows to silence the gunfire, and once
20:38
Speaker 1: the killings or almost killings when it comes to his dad,
20:42
Speaker 1: are complete, he actually covers their heads with the pillows
20:47
Speaker 1: and leaves the pillow there. And Dawn when police arrives,
20:51
Speaker 1: she's already dead, and Antonio Senior is barely hanging onto
20:56
Speaker 1: life and dies very soon after arriving at the hospital.
21:00
Speaker 1: You know, John Louily, I'm very curious about that crime scene.
21:03
Speaker 1: What other details can you give me? I'm trying to
21:07
Speaker 1: figure out is there any way that a j junior
21:10
Speaker 1: did not do this thing? From what investigators say, the
21:15
Speaker 1: rest of the bedroom looks just as they assume the parents,
21:21
Speaker 1: Antonio Senior and Dawn left it before going to bed.
21:25
Speaker 1: There was nothing overturned. There was no ramsacking of the room.
21:31
Speaker 1: Nothing had no drawers pulled out or anything. It is
21:36
Speaker 1: just as if there was a shooting involved and absolutely
21:41
Speaker 1: nothing else, No ramsacking, no theft, no sex assault, nothing, nothing. Now,
21:48
Speaker 1: what were you telling me about the significance of the
21:51
Speaker 1: alarm being on stay, because that, to me is very
21:56
Speaker 1: very probitive. In other words, it proves something to me.
22:00
Speaker 1: The stay function is when a family or anyone is
22:05
Speaker 1: at home and they want to be able to move
22:07
Speaker 1: about the house. Maybe they have a dog or cat
22:10
Speaker 1: that is going to be moving around the house during
22:13
Speaker 1: the night. They want that not to set off the alarm. However,
22:18
Speaker 1: they do want the alarm to go off if a door,
22:22
Speaker 1: the front door, back door windows are opened. Interesting in
22:26
Speaker 1: the records that investigators find is there are also these
22:32
Speaker 1: little monitors that are hooked up motion detectors on different
22:37
Speaker 1: floors of the house. And the only movement after that
22:42
Speaker 1: alarm is set around ten o'clock is shortly after one am. Incidentally,
22:50
Speaker 1: the emergency call was made around one forty. The first
22:55
Speaker 1: movement is seen on the third floor, as someone will
23:00
Speaker 1: assume it's aj is coming down the stairs onto the
23:05
Speaker 1: landing of the second floor, and then the next movement
23:11
Speaker 1: after that is a good twenty twenty five minutes later.
23:16
Speaker 1: Then there is movement detected on the first floor. Okay,
23:21
Speaker 1: where are the parents' bedrooms? The parents' bedroom is on
23:24
Speaker 1: the second floor right there in the middle of the house,
23:28
Speaker 1: and the children are on the third floor. Well, the
23:32
Speaker 1: daughter k Rug, She's actually on the same floor, the
23:35
Speaker 1: second floor as her parents, but at the other end
23:38
Speaker 1: of the house. AJ is the only one that has
23:41
Speaker 1: a bedroom on the third floor up in the loft. Correct,
23:45
Speaker 1: So let me understand what you're telling me. This alarm
23:48
Speaker 1: system is so sensitive. A detective movement on AJ's floor,
23:55
Speaker 1: then movement on the second floor and nothing for twenty
23:58
Speaker 1: five minutes, then movement on the first floor where the
24:02
Speaker 1: gun and the note is found. And then what well,
24:07
Speaker 1: when that movement is first detected on the first floor,
24:10
Speaker 1: it's another ten fifteen minutes before AJ makes that nine
24:15
Speaker 1: one one call around one forty one forty one am
24:19
Speaker 1: from a landline at the home. It's not known if
24:22
Speaker 1: it was a landline or a cell phone. So recap.
24:27
Speaker 1: You've got movement on a junior's floor, third floor, Then
24:32
Speaker 1: you have movement on second floor where the parents are.
24:36
Speaker 1: Then you have movement on the first floor where the
24:39
Speaker 1: note and the gun are, and then before there's any
24:41
Speaker 1: other movement, the nine one one call is made. Right,
24:43
Speaker 1: And what's very interesting is the amount of time where
24:48
Speaker 1: really no movement is detected in the hallways. From the
24:53
Speaker 1: moment that someone goes from the third to second floor,
24:56
Speaker 1: there's this twenty twenty five minute gap with no one
25:00
Speaker 1: in the hallways, then this other gap after someone moves
25:04
Speaker 1: down to the first floor, and between that and the
25:08
Speaker 1: nine one one call. It's not even the fact of
25:10
Speaker 1: just dealing with not having my parents anymore. It's the
25:15
Speaker 1: fact that I'm being accused of something of this magnitude
25:18
Speaker 1: and I'm innocent. There was somebody else in the house
25:21
Speaker 1: that night in a note that this is something I'm
25:24
Speaker 1: being accused of just makes everything so much worse. Jail
25:28
Speaker 1: was very, very hard. I mean I many sleepless nights
25:33
Speaker 1: just not being able to be around my family. I
25:36
Speaker 1: mean only having ten minute phone calls a week, like
25:38
Speaker 1: it was just hard, and hearing my little sister on
25:42
Speaker 1: the phone, like it was just tough to deal with
25:44
Speaker 1: about how hard things get. I know, if I just
25:47
Speaker 1: get into my word, I pray, I just I know
25:51
Speaker 1: everything will turn out okay. I know I'll feel better.
26:04
Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace at the core of this case,
26:11
Speaker 1: when you look past the claims and evidence and opinions
26:14
Speaker 1: are three heartbroken parents. They were amazing, They were two
26:22
Speaker 1: amazing people. And Tonio's mother, Dawn's mother and father. They
26:27
Speaker 1: are navigating the deep waters of grief but fully support
26:31
Speaker 1: their grandson. And we've got waivering now. I wouldn't were
26:39
Speaker 1: the thing. We know our grand we know what he's
26:42
Speaker 1: capable of doing and what he's not capable of. Now
26:46
Speaker 1: we know that he's not capable of murdering his mother
26:49
Speaker 1: and his father. You know, it's amazing to me and
26:52
Speaker 1: I want to go to you doctor Brian Russell on this.
26:56
Speaker 1: You've got the dad who was an nfl are. The
26:59
Speaker 1: only way that son could have overcome him is to
27:02
Speaker 1: attack him in his sleep, attack him in his sleep,
27:04
Speaker 1: attack him with a firearm. And I think that's another
27:06
Speaker 1: thing that we ought to point out here that if
27:10
Speaker 1: this kid is guilty, and I am don't get me wrong.
27:14
Speaker 1: If anybody listens to the show regularly, they know I
27:16
Speaker 1: am a huge Second Amendment supporter. However, one thing that
27:21
Speaker 1: we know here, if this kid is guilty, is that
27:23
Speaker 1: we have yet another teenager who found access to a firearm,
27:28
Speaker 1: presumably his parents firearm in the home. And you got
27:33
Speaker 1: to watch that parents You've got to keep these things.
27:37
Speaker 1: If you're going to have him, you got to keep
27:39
Speaker 1: him responsibly. The kids should have never had access. And
27:43
Speaker 1: to you, doctor Michelle Dupree, renowned medical examiner, what does
27:47
Speaker 1: it say to you why would he employ the use
27:50
Speaker 1: of pillows in the martyr and NC That could be
27:52
Speaker 1: several reasons. He could be silencing the noise. He could
27:56
Speaker 1: also be trying to smother them. He could also be
27:59
Speaker 1: covered them up after the fact as a sign of remorse.
28:03
Speaker 1: Whatever was discovered about the alleged prostitution ring, is there
28:08
Speaker 1: anything to that? There hasn't been a lot. It was
28:11
Speaker 1: brought up sort of peripherally in arguments brought about by
28:17
Speaker 1: the defense, but they didn't go into death. Got a witness, Maxie,
28:21
Speaker 1: that is talking about it, right and as she is
28:24
Speaker 1: the soul witness when it comes to this supposed prostitution ring.
28:30
Speaker 1: Well wait a minute, so is she saying that the
28:33
Speaker 1: NFL star Antonio Armstrong yeus prostitutes or ran a ring? Nancy,
28:38
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to Courtney Fisher with ABC thirteen
28:42
Speaker 1: inter Maxine Adams, a close friend to Dawn and Antonio.
28:46
Speaker 1: Six months after the murders, Adams spoke to police saying
28:50
Speaker 1: her husband and Antonio were involved in a prostitution ring
28:54
Speaker 1: and Antonio had received death threats. Prosecutors told AJ's attorneys
28:59
Speaker 1: about that conversation quote the defense could have spoken with
29:04
Speaker 1: Adams at the time, but chose not to do so.
29:07
Speaker 1: The DA's office sent us that statement they declined to
29:10
Speaker 1: be interviewed for this story. Wouldn't you have done your
29:13
Speaker 1: due diligence and set your PI to talk for as
29:16
Speaker 1: soon as you knew massing Adams is making claims about
29:20
Speaker 1: this prostitution. We could have and that's probably a mistake
29:23
Speaker 1: on our part. A year and a half later, AJ's
29:25
Speaker 1: attorneys were given the taped conversation between Adams and police,
29:30
Speaker 1: and it's thirteen minutes of full details, names, phone numbers,
29:34
Speaker 1: people involved, how it worked. The woman said that must
29:38
Speaker 1: sign was received and threatening phone calls. He did you
29:44
Speaker 1: mean to tell me? That wasn't enough for you to
29:48
Speaker 1: start investigating. She is saying that he was involved in
29:53
Speaker 1: a ring that he didn't run, that he didn't run it,
29:56
Speaker 1: but that there was also some real trouble when it
30:00
Speaker 1: came to money that had changed hands or was supposed
30:05
Speaker 1: to change hands. At one point and that's when the
30:09
Speaker 1: trouble really started, and someone had motive to kill him,
30:13
Speaker 1: somebody that was already hiding on the third floor. Okay,
30:17
Speaker 1: you know, it's bad enough that the guy is murdered
30:21
Speaker 1: along with his wife, but then to drag his name
30:23
Speaker 1: through the mud, and Nancy, can I weigh in on
30:26
Speaker 1: that for a second? Yes? Please. We recently spoke with
30:30
Speaker 1: the Vitranos, and one of the things that I thought
30:33
Speaker 1: of during that conversation, this is the family that the
30:36
Speaker 1: parents of a young woman who was murdered, and it
30:40
Speaker 1: took a long time. There was a mistrial and then
30:42
Speaker 1: finally a verdict and a second trial. But one of
30:47
Speaker 1: the things I thought about when we were talking with
30:48
Speaker 1: them is, you know, the anguish that the survivors that
30:53
Speaker 1: loved the victims go through is sort of the price
30:56
Speaker 1: that we pay in our society for having a system
30:58
Speaker 1: that goes to such eight lengths to make sure that
31:01
Speaker 1: we don't lock up an innocent person. In other words,
31:04
Speaker 1: we give the defense all kinds. I mean, we actually
31:07
Speaker 1: stacked the deck in favor of the defense, and we've
31:10
Speaker 1: decided as a society that we want to do that
31:12
Speaker 1: because it's worse to us to lock up an innocent
31:15
Speaker 1: person than to let a guilty person go free. I
31:18
Speaker 1: understand it, and I'm an attorney, but one of the
31:21
Speaker 1: things that I hate is that we allow defense attorneys
31:26
Speaker 1: to throw up these wild theories that have virtually no support. Well,
31:33
Speaker 1: maybe he was involved in a prostitution ring, and maybe
31:37
Speaker 1: somebody came in here and knew the alarm code and
31:39
Speaker 1: did this really complex James Bond style murder and got
31:43
Speaker 1: back out and turned the alarm back on. Seriously, come on,
31:47
Speaker 1: I mean, we've got a young daughter here who survives
31:51
Speaker 1: these parents. Presumably there's other extended family that are in
31:55
Speaker 1: anguish right now, and it just bugs the hell out
31:58
Speaker 1: of me when I heard these kinds of theories actually
32:02
Speaker 1: being entertained. Let me ask you this. Now, we know
32:05
Speaker 1: the defense was told during the case, during the investigation
32:11
Speaker 1: on the son aj Jor, that the allegation of the
32:15
Speaker 1: DAB being involved in a prostitution ring had been investigated
32:18
Speaker 1: and was not credible that the investigation was complete. So
32:25
Speaker 1: for eighteen months, the defense has been claiming that there
32:29
Speaker 1: were all these recordings about a prostitution ring, and the
32:34
Speaker 1: cops are saying they investigated those claims and that that
32:38
Speaker 1: was not true. Let me ask you this, John Lemley
32:42
Speaker 1: AJ Armstrong Junior were sixteen years old at the time
32:46
Speaker 1: his parents were shot dead in their sleep. Is this
32:51
Speaker 1: being tried in an adult court or GV court? It
32:54
Speaker 1: was moved to adult court. And very interestingly about that
32:58
Speaker 1: prostitution ring of this for Maxine Adams, she said on
33:02
Speaker 1: the stand began because she was suspicious about what her
33:06
Speaker 1: husband was doing. She said that Armstrong Senior and her
33:11
Speaker 1: then husband, Cecil Adams, were involved in some sort of
33:18
Speaker 1: prostitution ring. There were death threats, life insurance policy changes
33:22
Speaker 1: at the time. Maxine said that she hired a private
33:26
Speaker 1: investigator to snoop on her husband due to her suspicions. However,
33:31
Speaker 1: in addition to not even remembering the name of the
33:34
Speaker 1: PI that she hired, Adams could only point to very
33:38
Speaker 1: vague indications of the alleged prostitution ring her ex husband
33:43
Speaker 1: and Armstrong Senior were supposedly involved in, mostly phone records.
33:48
Speaker 1: Adams testified she could not remember who told her about
33:51
Speaker 1: the supposed death threats or about the deceased former footballer
33:57
Speaker 1: changing his life insurance policy shortly before he was killed.
34:01
Speaker 1: Great a man, let me just break that down. I've
34:04
Speaker 1: been through this many many times in court trying murders
34:08
Speaker 1: and all sorts of felony cases. The defense will come
34:11
Speaker 1: up with a theory like, hey, it's not my guy.
34:14
Speaker 1: There have been other break ins and rapes in that neighborhood,
34:17
Speaker 1: that food did it. You can't just come up this
34:20
Speaker 1: is the law, it's not me pontificating. The law does
34:24
Speaker 1: not allow the defenst to just come up with a
34:26
Speaker 1: theory and bring it into court like this woman Maxine
34:29
Speaker 1: Adams claiming, you know, I had a PI on my
34:31
Speaker 1: husband and he knew Antonio Armstrong and I think they
34:36
Speaker 1: were seeing hookers and they were part of a prostitution
34:38
Speaker 1: ring and that's really what happened. No, you have to
34:42
Speaker 1: have credible evidence to bring that in as a defense.
34:46
Speaker 1: All this testimony occurred and preachfile hearings. We wait as
34:50
Speaker 1: justice unfolds. Nancy Grace crime story signing off, goodbye friend,