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Blount Family Bombing Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:32
Welcome back to the Path went Chile for part two of our series about the
0:36
Blount family bombing this episode, we've had some technical difficulties and we were unable
0:42
to have Ashley joined us. But don't worry, she's just fine and she'll
0:46
be joining us for our next series. Robin, do you want to catch
0:50
everyone up on what we talked about in our previous episode. Well, this
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case took place in Thanksgiving Day on in nineteen eighty five in Tarrant County,
0:58
Texas, and involved a man named Joe Blount who was living in a trailer
1:02
park with his wife Susan and their two children, Angela and Robert. They
1:06
had just moved to the area about a month ago and they had Thanksgiving dinner
1:10
together and were joined by Joe's brother along with his nephew, Michael Columbus.
1:14
And then after Joe's brother left, Joe, the kids, and Michael all
1:17
decided to leave the trailer in order to go to a convenience store to buy
1:22
some stuff, and when they got back, they discovered a briefcase on the
1:25
front porch and when they opened up the briefcase, it went off wound up
1:29
injuring Susan and Robert, but Joe, Angela, and Michael wound up being
1:32
killed by the blast, and of course the whole crime left everyone baffled because
1:36
the Blounts did not have any criminal history, did not have any known enemies,
1:38
and they were fairly new to the area. So they even looked at
1:42
the possibility that it could have been a case of mistaken identity and that someone
1:46
may have left the briefcase on the doorstep of the wrong trailer at the park
1:49
because there were some other people there who were involved in criminal activity like drugs.
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One possible suspect was a fifteen year old named Mikey Huff who had gone
1:59
to school with Angela, and there were a lot of rumors circulating that he
2:04
may have set off the bomb because he had made advances towards Angela and she
2:07
turned him down, But they never found any evidence to implicate him, and
2:12
the case would remained cold until the late nineteen nineties, when a suspect named
2:15
Michael roy Tony was charged with the crime because he had apparently made a confession
2:21
to it while he was incarcerated in prison, There was no real physical evidence
2:24
against Tony. All they really had on him was some testimony from his ex
2:28
wife and his former best friend, saying that they had gone to the trailer
2:31
park and dropped off the briefcase containing the bomb. But it turned out that
2:37
they had withheld evidence at the trial and a lot of the witnesses who testified
2:39
against Tony were unreliable, So in two thousand and nine, his conviction was
2:44
finally overturned and he was released from prison. But an ironic turn of events,
2:47
it turned out that he would be killed in a car accident only one
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month after he was released, so the case the investigation has been at a
2:57
dead halt since then, and there's still some question about who was actually responsible
3:00
for the bombing. Anyway, cold cases involving wrongful convictions are always extra heartbreaking
3:06
because not only does an innocent person serve time in prison for a crime they
3:09
did not commit, but the experience also puts the victims family members through the
3:14
emotional ringer. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to think you have
3:16
found closure injustice for your loved one, but then find out that the wrong
3:21
person was convicted for the crime. So now you're going to have to go
3:23
right back to square one. I'm sure it must have been especially difficult for
3:28
Susan and Robert Blount because they were actually present when the bomb that killed their
3:31
family went off, and Robert is lucky to have survived. However, while
3:35
no one deserves to be convicted of a crime they did not commit, particularly
3:38
it involves them being sent to death row, what makes this story unique is
3:43
that, well, Michael roy Tony really has no one to blame but himself
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for winding up in that position. There are many wrongful conviction cases which came
3:52
about because of a false story from a jail house informant, but this is
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the only one I can think of where the accused flat out told the informant
3:59
to implicate hate them in the crime. I mean, yes, it is
4:01
ultimately the responsibility of the investigators to perform due diligence and weed out false confessions
4:06
like this, But if Tony had not done this, he probably never even
4:10
would have popped up on the radar as a suspect. Like we mentioned in
4:14
our previous episode, he seemed to be under the mistaken impression that he was
4:17
in jail on the night of the bombing and would have had an airtight alibi
4:20
to eliminate him as a suspect, but I think he underestimated the feelings of
4:25
desperation from the investigators to finally solve this thing. They had spent the past
4:30
decade chasing down a number of different leads and potential suspects, which never panned
4:33
out, so once they got word that a suspect had allegedly confessed to the
4:38
crime, they totally ran with it. I'm definitely not saying that Michael roy
4:42
Tony was a good guy, as he had an extensive criminal history and was
4:46
accused of being abusive to multiple spouses, but it's totally inexcusable that the state
4:50
fabricated and withheld evidence, especially since it could have led to an innocent man
4:56
being executed. I think it speaks volumes that the prosecut wouldn't even put Charles
5:00
Ferris, the informant who originally implicated Tony, on the stand during his trial.
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And I find it particularly egregious that they found this other jailhouse snitch,
5:11
Finness Blanketship, and got him to testify about a bogus confession during Tony's sensing
5:15
phase after he was already found guilty. They probably figured that if Blankenship shared
5:20
this story during the trial, the defense would have torn him apart, but
5:25
they hoped his additional last minute testimony might sway the jury into sensing Tony to
5:29
death, because if he's executed, he ceases to be anyone's problem. What
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really strikes me here is just how little evidence they have, Like it's such
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a tenuous connection, like he may or may not have confessed, and there's
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these jailhouse informants. We have no hard evidence to connect him, but yet
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they seem to be so overzealous that they need to put that square peg in
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that round hole and get it. Can fiction because it looks bad not to
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I mean, there were so many others more promising. Who is the neighbor
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that was like the jeweler, the gun seller, the meth cooker. There
6:12
were a whole bunch of them. There was a Tim Tortala who was a
6:15
jeweler, and that was also the gun runner and the drug dealer, and
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the other guy named Darren Irvin who was also manufacturing meth in his trailer at
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that time. Yeah, and wasn't there somebody else who was also selling guns?
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And it's like how many guns are being sold in this very small area.
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It just seems like there was a lot of sketchy individuals, but yet
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you don't have any concrete evidence here. And when we're talking about death row,
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you'd really think that there would be some kind of fail safe here where
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it's like you have to have a greater burden of proof because you're literally playing
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with somebody's life. So it's shocking how tenuous this evidence is. And we
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ranted about this in our last episode about this last jail house snitch, Finn
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his Blanketship. He was in jail for indecency towards a child, and he
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got released, he got an early he got a plea deal in exchange for
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giving this false testimony against Tony. So it's kind of like you're letting like
7:14
a child abuser out onto the streets just so that you can put an innocent
7:16
man on a death row and hopefully execute him before anyone finds out you got
7:20
the wrong guy. And nobody's going to look at that situation and be like,
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oh, yeah, that was totally worth it, Like this guy did
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these horrible things to children, and we're just going to forgive that because he's
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going to testify at this trial something that's clearly seems to be fabricated or bogus
7:41
and then we're just going to go ahead with that. Like, the lack
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of ethics and accountability on the part of the prosecutor on the investigators here is
7:48
really shocking. The big issue with the prosecution's case is that there was literally
7:55
no other evidence against Tony besides the testimony of Kim Tony Nium and Chris Meeks,
8:01
who both proved to be very unreliable eyewitnesses. I'm not sure if either
8:07
of them was intentionally lying, as they may have legitimately believed the stories they
8:11
shared at one point, but one of them had a history of memory loss
8:16
due to exposure from toxic chemicals during the Gulf War, and the others seemed
8:20
to be a functional alcoholic, so they both had to be fed information and
8:26
have their statements altered and manipulated and ordered a craptic coherent narrative which implicated Tony.
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But even so, there was still a ton of holes in their stories,
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such as the fact that they described Tony as having a truck, rifle,
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and toolbox, which he would not have even owned at the time the
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bombing took place. There's also never been anything to suggest that Tony even knew
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the Blount family, and the potential motive which has been presented is the implication
8:56
that Tony was hired to kill someone else but mistakenly the bomb at the wrong
9:01
location. Well, I don't believe Tony was a model citizen. I do
9:05
have to feel some sympathy for the fact that he was killed in a truck
9:09
crash only one month after he was released from jail. We've seen a few
9:15
sources speculate online that perhaps Tony was murdered as retribution by people who still believed
9:20
he was guilty of the bombing. But I've seen nothing to indicate that this
9:24
was anything more than an accident. Since this wasn't a case that hinged on
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anything conclusive like DNA evidence, I guess you can't say that Tony was one
9:35
hundred percent exonerated, as his conviction was overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct, and
9:41
the state still technically had the option to bring him to trial again if new
9:46
evidence surfaced. I know that when Tony's conviction was overturned, Susan Blount still
9:52
publicly expressed her belief that he was guilty, so perhaps she feels a justice
9:56
was ultimately served when Tony was killed the truck crash. Indeed, Tony's untimely
10:03
death does give the authorities a convenient excuse not to perform any further investigation into
10:09
this case. But the problem is that this only ensures that the real perpetrator
10:15
continues to get away with it. Anyway, given the complete lack of evidence
10:20
against him, I think we can safely rule out Michael Ray Tony as being
10:24
the guilty party. But if it wasn't him, who was responsible for this
10:30
crime and what could their motive have been? Yeah, it really doesn't surprise
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me that Susan Blatt would still believe that Tony was guilty even after his conviction
10:39
was overturned. I do see in this a lot in wrongful conviction cases where
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even if the evidence is overwhelming that they didn't do it, I mean,
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even if they're exonerated by DNA, the victims family still refuses to change their
10:52
original feeling and still believe that murderer got out of prison. And I guess
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this would be Susan's comfort zone because she can still can herself, well,
11:00
he got out of prison, he was killed in a truck crash only one
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month later, so I don't have anything to worry about I don't have to
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worry about the real killer still being out there, and that is pretty sad
11:09
because we talked about how victims, families, and wrongful conviction cases really get
11:15
re victimized when these convictions are overturned, and it can often take a lot
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for them to finally convince themselves that I've been lied to all these years by
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the authorities. They got the wrong person, and I didn't get justice from
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my loved one. And it also occupies such a huge space in the minds
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and the hearts of those individuals because I guess it depends upon the family,
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but a lot of people may feel hate in their heart for that person,
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and then all of a sudden, you have that hate and you don't have
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anywhere to place it. Whereas you had a boogeyman before you had somebody who
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you could blame, but now it's a big question mark. And I think
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that is really difficult to accept for family members, especially when it's this really
12:00
attracted timeline. Years and years and years have gone by, and maybe you
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come to a place of acceptance and it just drudges up all of those emotions
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again. Oh yeah, Like this was twenty four years after the bombing took
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place when Tony was released and killed, so Susan and Robert had to live
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for over a decade of the case being unsolved, and then they finally catch
12:20
someone who they're convinced as the guy, and then another ten years after that,
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lo and behold, they're like, well, they violated to civil rights.
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Now they've got to overturn his conviction and set them free. And it's
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just a terrible way to live your life, having to go through that trauma.
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And it's even more complex, or made more complex by the fact that
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they aren't just victims families. They were present during the bombing, and I
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think that adds a whole other layer because there's often survivor's guilt. Right when
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people are left behind or they survive, you can often ask the questions of
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why was it them and why not me? That can be particularly difficult to
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deal with for certain individuals. Yeah, I mean to talk about that right
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now, some of the trauma that Susan and Robert had to feel, because
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it definitely wasn't easy for them to move on after surviving such a horrible experience.
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So the thing that really sticks out about this crime is the unusual manner
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in which it was carried out. A briefcase rigged with a bomb as the
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type of weapon you would expect to find in a terrorist attack against a high
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profile target, But why would someone decide to use it to murder a working
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class family living in a trailer park in Texas. In addition, the Blounts
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had only moved to Texas from Washington State four months earlier and had been living
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in the Hilltop Mobile home Park for just over two months. What kind of
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enemies could this family have made during their short time there. Yes, it
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sounds like there was a lot of drug activity taking place in that area of
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Texas during this time period, but no one ever found any evidence to suggest
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that the Blounts were involved in that. But since it sounds like some of
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their neighbors were flat out selling methamphetamine from their trailers, the idea of the
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bomb being left on the wrong doorstep and the Blounts being the victims of mistaken
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identity is not that implausible. It's interesting how most of the family just happened
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to be out at a convenience store when the briefcase was dropped off. Susan
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has always claimed that she heard a knock on the front door while everyone else
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was away, but didn't see anyone when she looked at the window, which
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is why she decided to go back to bed. However, if Susan had
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opened the door, found the briefcase, and opened it before her family returned,
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she would have been the only casualty. This means that if Joe or
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any of the other victims were the intended target, the perpetrator got very lucky
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that the briefcase remained on the doorstep until they got back. Given the circumstances,
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you can see why investigators would have looked at Susan as a possible suspect,
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but she didn't seem to have any discernible motive for this crime. And
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I also have a hard time believing that she would elect to stay inside the
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bedroom when the bomb went off, because there would still be a risk of
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getting killed in the blast or being unable to escape the trailer when it caught
14:56
on fire. The incident clearly had a traumatic effect on Susan and Robert,
15:00
who not only had permanent scars on his body from surviving the blast, but
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was plagued by nightmares following his release from the hospital. In fact, Shortly
15:09
before Christmas that year, there was an incident where Susan and Robert discovered a
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box resting outside the front door of their new apartment. This frightened them so
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much that they decided to call the police, but it turned out the box
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contained nothing more than fudge, which had been sent to them from their church.
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Ah, that's so sad. Something is so innocuous as fudge, something
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that's supposed to be this benevolent and kind gift can really just set you off
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and can really trigger you. Just the idea of like a box being there
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and the unknown and the fear of what could be inside that box. And
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I can see why initially they would think maybe Susan could be a suspect,
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but what would be her motive? And I remember when I was really young
15:56
and seeing the case of like Tupac Tupac murder and thinking or like believing,
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you know, when I was a teenager, that oh, yeah, Sugar
16:04
Knight must have been involved. And then you know, as I'd become an
16:07
adult and think about it, it's like, why would he put himself in
16:11
the line of fire? This is a very large individual who got very lucky
16:15
that he didn't get hit with bullets and it would be the same thing for
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Susan. Why would she then go into a bedroom. Would she actually be
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so familiarized with how this bomb would behave Is she like a bomb expert that
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she knows that somehow she'd be able to survive if she was in this room.
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I think you would be taking a great risk your own personal safety that
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it just doesn't even make any sense, oh exactly. And you talk about
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her being a bomb expert, How would someone like Susan, who was just
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kind of a working class housewide even know how to build a briefcase bomb to
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begin with. And of course she really didn't have any motive because they had
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just moved there a few months ago, Joe had a new job that he
16:56
was planning to start the following week, and while there was a small ensure
17:00
policy on them, it was barely enough to cover the cost of their burials,
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so she didn't gain anything from this. And you have to feel bad
17:07
for the church though, like they probably thought they were doing something good leaving
17:10
this box in front of their apartment with the fudge, but it's like,
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well, with doing this only a month after they've survived a bombing where someone
17:18
left a box on the front porch. You can understand why that would be
17:21
terrible timing and how such an innocuous thing would be traumatic for them, since,
17:26
as far as they know, the real killers still out there and was
17:27
possibly looking to target them because they survived well. There's no indication that he
17:33
was ever considered to be a suspect. I've always wanted to hear more about
17:37
Joe Blount's brother Ray. By all accounts, Susan did not like Ray at
17:42
all, who was willing to allow him to attend Thanksgiving dinner because he was
17:48
attempting to reconnect with his estranged son, Michael Columbus. I don't know all
17:52
that much about Ray and Michael's relationship, but what adds an extra element of
17:57
tragedy to this story Michael actually called his mother after dinner to share how happy
18:03
he was that things were going well with his father, only for Michael to
18:07
wind up being killed within hours. It's not entirely clear to me why Ray
18:12
had to leave the trailer at five PM, and I'm sure it might have
18:17
looked convenient that he happened to be away before the bomb went off, But
18:21
I'm guessing that investigators verified his whereabouts and determined that he could not have been
18:26
responsible for what happened. But I can only imagine how Ray must have felt
18:30
losing his son and knowing that he likely would have been killed too if he'd
18:33
stayed there for a couple more hours. Oh yeah, a lot. Much
18:37
like Susan and Robert. Ray is just another victim in this whole scenario because
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he was trying to reconcile with his son because they had not barely spoken to
18:45
each other in years, because Ray did not get along with Michael's mother,
18:49
And here they're finally getting together for Thanksgiving and bonding well together. And Ray's
18:53
probably feeling good about himself because he leaves to go do whatever he's doing and
18:57
thinking, yes, this went very well. I'm finally forming a relationship with
19:02
my son. And then he just gets killed in a bombing like a couple
19:04
hours later, in a very unexpected way. It's not like a random car
19:07
accident. He was deliberately killed because someone left a briefcase bomb on his brother's
19:14
trailer's doorstep. And of course, the only reason Michael was there in the
19:17
first place was because he wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with his father, so
19:21
I'm sure Raif must have felt a bunch of survivor's guilt as well. Oh,
19:26
there's just something that really pulls on my heartstrings about Michael Columbus. Like,
19:30
here's this poor kid that's dad is out of the picture, Michael Columbus,
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who's obviously really excited that things are going well with his dad, and
19:41
here he is. He shows up. He's really trying to be that dad
19:45
that he hasn't been, and he brings Michael over to his brother and his
19:49
wife's house to hang out with the kids, get to know the cousins,
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and then just happens to leave for that little bit. Well, Michael wants
19:57
to stay and hang out with his cousin and the fact that he even calls
20:02
his mother and says that he's having a good time, just to know,
20:07
like for his poor mother to hear that and to like have it warm her
20:11
heart, and then to know that her son died shortly thereafter in a bombing.
20:17
Like I just have such a hard time wrapping my head around that element
20:19
to the story. Oh yeah, Like Michael is definitely the ultimate example of
20:23
being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's possible that's all
20:27
the other members of the Blount family were in the wrong place at the wrong
20:30
time if it was a mistaken identity bombing, but you feel particularly tragic for
20:34
Michael anyway. It sounds like we have at least two other individuals living in
20:40
the Hilltop Mobile home park at that time who were involved in criminal activity,
20:44
Darren Urban and Tim Tortella. Well, it doesn't sound like there was much
20:48
to suggest that either of them might have been the perpetrator. It's certainly possible
20:52
they were the intended targets, given that they were both involved in dealing met
20:56
out of their trailers. I'm sure some of you might be having breaking a
21:00
flashbacks, especially since there's a major scene in that show where Walter White disposes
21:04
of one of his rivals with a homemade bomb. There isn't that much information
21:08
out there about Urban, but he was absent from the trailer park that day
21:12
after getting into a fight with his wife. Apparently, when Urban stormed out
21:17
of there, he grabbed a couple of pistols and a box of bullets,
21:19
which caused him to spill a bunch of them onto the ground. So by
21:23
the time police arrived there were bullets lying all over the front yard, and
21:26
since the trailer had been ransacked during the fight between the Urbans, the scene
21:30
instantly aroused suspicion, but Urvin claimed that his drug dealing operation was pretty small
21:37
and that he only had one contact in Arkansas whom he did business with.
21:41
Since Urvan didn't owe any money to this person at that time, he never
21:45
believed anyone would have had a motive to kill him. This does paint quite
21:48
the picture, doesn't it. This guy was just all these bullets around.
21:53
I really liked Tortella. I mean, Irvin sounds pretty decent too, because
21:59
it just seems like there's a lot of criminality within this trailer park, and
22:03
so you don't always have everybody who's on the up and up. But it
22:07
just it's quite the picture you've painted. And also the breaking bad one is
22:11
that when he does that, he throws I can't remember what chemical it is
22:15
at Tucco. I know this is the one with Gus Spring where he attaches
22:19
the bomb to hextra spector clamonk his wheels the bellet will go off the chicken
22:26
guy. Yeah. While Irvin's trailer was six spaces down from the Blount residents,
22:32
Tim Tortella lived directly behind them, so the idea of someone mistaking the
22:37
Blount's trailer for Tortella's is a bit more plausible, and since Tortella also apparently
22:42
sold automatic weapons to drug dealers, you can see why he might be a
22:48
more compelling target. It's interesting to read the original newspaper articles about this case,
22:53
since Tortella is actually interviewed mentioning that he was inside his mobile home watching
23:00
television with his brother when the explosion caused the whole thing to shake. When
23:04
Tortella and his brother ran to the scene, they also helped tend to Robert
23:08
before the paramedics arrived, and even tried to enter the trailer to rescue the
23:12
rest of the family, but the smoke and flames were just too high.
23:17
Well, Irvin had expressed his skepticism over the bomb being intended for him,
23:22
Tortella actually thinks that possibility might be true, and is even expressed remorse about
23:27
it. Around the time of Tony's trial, Tortella wrote in a letter quote
23:33
for fourteen years, I felt that it was my fault that those three people
23:37
died. There is a possibility that if I wasn't doing what I was doing
23:41
back then, they would still be alive. End quote. In addition,
23:45
it's also been reported that Tortella was carrying on an affair with a married woman
23:49
at that time, opening up the possibility that the motive for the bombing was
23:55
personal and had nothing to do with his criminal activities. Well, Georgella genuinely
24:00
believed he was the real target. I'd like to think he provided the authorities
24:04
with the names of any promising suspects who might have had a motive to harm
24:08
him. Otherwise, it sounds like the investigation into the angle hit a dead
24:14
end. Well, it's good to know that Tortella does have some sort of
24:18
redemption story and that he felt legitimately bad that the Blounts were killed, and
24:22
that it may have been because of his criminal activities, because we talked on
24:25
the last episode that he was pretty much a jack of all trades because he
24:27
worked as a jeweler by day and then by night he was dealing meth out
24:32
of his trailer and also selling arms to drug dealers. So this is a
24:34
guy who got around and seems like a plausible person who have been the real
24:40
target for this bombing, But they just didn't find any evidence. And I'm
24:45
hoping that Tortella did turn his life around after this, and that by the
24:48
time he wrote that letter at Tony's trial, that maybe he was out of
24:52
being involved in criminal activity. But now that we know that Tony was likely
24:56
not the real perpetrator, I do have to wonder if the angle what's Hortella
25:00
was explored again and people are thinking, oh, maybe the bomb was intended
25:03
for him after all. He's really got to wonder if he's having this redemption
25:08
arc because he's looking back and he's feeling that remorse and he's saying the things
25:15
that I was into back then, which would lead one to believe that he's
25:18
made some kind of changes in his life. And you've got a wonder if
25:22
the Blount family bombing was a catalyst for change in his life, because I
25:29
can't think of anything else it would be more impactful then thinking that your actions
25:34
could have led to I guess the indirect killing because it was meant for you
25:41
of these three individuals, and the traumatizing of so many other people like Susan,
25:47
Robert, and Ray who were all there that day and survived at Ray
25:52
had left. But you've got a lot of survivors with a lot of trauma,
25:55
and then three people who were deceased. So the fact that he is
25:59
able to take stock and look at his life and say, hey, maybe
26:03
it was because of me, and he's carrying that guilt at least, that
26:07
shows us that he has the ability to feel that empathy and sympathy for the
26:14
family members. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, because he was personally there
26:18
and he had to help Robert when he was injured, so I think it
26:21
maybe caused him to face the reality of what he was doing. So I
26:23
think he probably did suspect that maybe the bomb was intended for him, but
26:27
he just didn't know who it was. Like maybe he felt that my criminal
26:32
activities have pissed off someone, but he just didn't have the names of any
26:34
specific suspects to give to the authorities. But I do think that angle is
26:38
worth revisiting all these years later, that maybe he did piss off someone and
26:42
that's why the briefcase wound up there, but they just left it at the
26:45
wrong trailer. And he doesn't really sound like a bad guy aside from selling,
26:51
you know, automatic weapons to drug dealers and you know, dealing meth
26:55
anthetamine and all that part. But the fact that he wanted to run into
27:00
a burning building to try to rescue people. I think that tells you that
27:03
there's more than just you know, one side. There's a bit of a
27:07
dichotomy to him to Tortella, because yeah, on one hand, he's this
27:12
criminal, but on the other hand, he's willing to risk life and limb
27:17
to help these family members. And at least he doesn't spilled bullets all over
27:21
his front yard. Yeah, he's not like Irvin. So now we're going
27:26
to talk about a couple of other potential suspects, including Douglas Raymond Brown,
27:30
who was arrested for attempting to sell a briefcase bomb to an undercover ATF agent
27:34
only four months after this crime. Brown lived in Azel, which is only
27:38
a couple of miles away from the trailer park. And given how unique these
27:42
types of explosive devices are, why are the odds that two of them would
27:47
show up within months of each other in the same area of Texas and not
27:51
be connected in some way. During my original research, it was tough to
27:55
get a read on how the authorities viewed Brown, as none of the sources
27:57
I could find confirmed that he was officially ruled out as a suspect, but
28:02
he apparently did pass a polygraph, and it seems like the authorities leaned towards
28:06
the whole thing being an astonishing coincidence. As far as I can tell,
28:11
no real connection was ever found between Brown and the Blount family, so I'm
28:15
not sure what motive you would have had to murder them, But I do
28:18
find it interesting that the undercover ATF agent Brown dealt with only asked for an
28:22
explosive device, but never specifically requested that it be delivered in the form of
28:27
a briefcase bomb. This suggests that Brown had already manufactured devices like that before,
28:33
so you have to wonder if he might have unknowingly provided one to the
28:37
person who did commit the murders. Of course, I'd like to think that
28:40
investigators already looked into this angle and came up empty. But really, how
28:45
many briefcase bombs were floating around in Tarrett County during that time period. I
28:49
mean, we have multiple people in this trailer park selling automatic weapons, so
28:56
I would like to suspend disbelief here and think potentially there's more than one.
29:00
It sounds completely implausible like there has to be only one person that would be
29:06
specializing in briefcase bombs in this area. Don't you think? That's what I'm
29:11
thinking. So it does make me surprise that, even if Brown was not
29:15
responsible for the bombing, that he didn't provide the briefcase bomb to the person
29:18
who really did this. So I'm just surprised he wouldn't tell the authorities.
29:22
Oh yeah, four months earlier someone came in here and asked for a briefcase
29:26
bomb. That person is probably who killed the Blounts, So it is just
29:30
kind of astonishing. Maybe they did press him on this and he just couldn't
29:33
recall anything, or he just refused to talk. But even if he is
29:37
not the perpetrator, I have to think that Brown is linked to this somehow.
29:41
It sounds like it. And when they are putting so much time and
29:45
energy into railroading Tony, it seems like maybe they didn't explore all avenues or
29:53
angles with the veracity that they should have, and they may have just let
29:59
the fall by the wayside because they wanted so badly to make that square peg
30:06
fit in that round hole. They wanted him to be guilty, and they
30:08
wanted him to go on death row for this. So I think sometimes when
30:11
you want something so badly you get tunnel vision, and I think clearly that's
30:17
what happened with investigators here, which is kind of weird because Tony did not
30:21
even pop up on the radar as a suspect until the late nineteen nineties,
30:25
so they had over a decade to explore all these different angles with like Brown
30:29
and Tortala and urban. So it makes me think that they just hit a
30:32
dead end and just decided to railroad Tony because they were just so desperate to
30:36
solve this thing, because none of the other leads went anywhere. That is
30:41
a bizarre thing that they had a whole decade. You would think that like
30:45
that fervor behind needing to railroad, somebody usually presents itself early on, right,
30:52
because there's like political pressure or outside pressure from like constituents. People are
30:57
going to get voted in you to be district attorney or mayor or whomever,
31:02
and when people are expecting a result, you need to give them a result.
31:07
But this is ten years later, so I wouldn't think that the public
31:10
pressure would be nearly as great as it would have been years prior, don't
31:15
you think I think so. I think they just got over zealous because they
31:19
heard Tony had confessed to the crime in prison, and of course it turned
31:22
out to be a false confession, but I think they had this mindset,
31:26
Well, he said he did it, and we're going to make sure that
31:27
the sticks, even if this confession wasn't exactly true. Well, because back
31:33
then everybody believed that you don't confess to a crime that you didn't commit.
31:37
We've now learned that lots of people confess to crimes that they didn't commit exactly.
31:42
So it seems like the most promising suspect in the investigation was Mikey Huff,
31:48
and his alleged motive for the crime was getting revenge on Angela for spurning
31:52
his advances. It does sound like Mike he was a pretty troubled kid,
31:56
and there is some circumstantial evidence to suggest he could have been responsible for this,
32:02
such is the fact that two mouse traps matching the traps that were used
32:07
to rig the bomb supposedly went missing from his home. But we're talking about
32:10
a fifteen year old, and while people that young are capable of inflicting horrible
32:16
acts of violence, assembling together a bomb which goes off when you open a
32:22
briefcase, does sound pretty sophisticated. I mean, these days, a fifteen
32:27
year old could probably figure out how to construct a device like that after doing
32:31
enough research on the Internet. But this was back in nineteen eighty five.
32:36
Your eyes are probably going to roll when you hear this. But when one
32:39
of Michael roy Tony's defense attorneys attempted to point the finger at Mikey as an
32:44
alternate suspect at his trial, he flat outstated that Mikey worshiped Satan. Indeed,
32:51
Mikey did apparently brag about being a Satan worshipper during his teen years,
32:55
which is one of the reasons many people were afraid of him. But I'm
33:00
not going to take that as evidence that he was responsible for the bombing.
33:04
I'm sure all of you know that the nineteen eighties was the height of Satanic
33:07
panic, so I have to wonder if this made people think Mikey was more
33:12
capable of evil than he really was. Satanic panic, and ironically, this
33:16
time it was being used by the good guys Tony's defense team, But I
33:21
think it was just an act of desperation to point the finger at him.
33:24
But I've covered a lot of cases from Texas from the nineteen eighties and nineteen
33:29
nineties, and it seems in virtually all of them, satanic panic comes up
33:32
at some point, I mean, on the trail went cold. I recently
33:36
covered the Austin yoger shop murders, which took place in nineteen ninety one,
33:38
and at one point they went after a woman who they thought was a saintan
33:43
worshiper, even though that lead turned out to be a dead end. So
33:46
yeah, I mean, I can understand why they would point at Mikey as
33:49
an alternate suspect, but the Satan stuff is just for red herring. It
33:52
always is. It's so crazy just to think that, like all of these
33:59
people got pated of crimes based on this idea of these satanic cult murdering people.
34:05
And it was just like this shared panic and delusion all you sweetly across
34:10
North America, particularly the US. But it is so crazy, all these
34:15
experts popping up that there's all these cult murders, and then it just eventually
34:20
it ramps down and people realize like, oh WHOA, Like we got a
34:24
little crazy here, Like this was a bit much. People were accused of
34:29
murder and convicted of murder based on these ridiculous experts and these ridiculous ideas that
34:36
there's all these Satanic cults committing like child murderers and molestations and things along those
34:42
lines. I remember in one of the West Memphis three documentaries, they actually
34:45
played footage of a literal instruction video that they sent out to law enforcement during
34:50
the nineteen eighties and nineties about how to deal with Satanic cults, where they
34:53
had the so called expert on screen giving like instructions on how to handle them
34:59
if it ever comes up. And I remember Damie Nichols brings up the valid
35:01
point, has there ever been a documented case of a Satanic cult being responsible
35:07
for a murder while performing a Satanic ritual? And no, there isn't.
35:10
It's just like all that stuff is all rumors and hearsay, and it actually
35:14
did lead to innocent people being convicted. I actually remember that because I watched
35:20
the documentaries. I can't remember how many years ago, maybe like five years
35:23
ago or something, and that stuck with me because it was just like,
35:28
really, we're basing this on so little evidence, and this is something that
35:32
is meant to instruct law enforcements, so they're all being indoctrinated by this idea
35:38
that there's all of these cults out here murdering people for Satan and it just
35:44
was never happening. It is so mind blowing. There were witnesses who testified
35:50
at Tony's trial that they had heard Mikey openly brag about the bombing, but
35:53
his explanation was that he did so much as brag, but rather made no
35:58
attempt to quell the gossip, as he got off on the idea that it
36:00
was helping him develop a reputation. During his testimony, Mikey admitted that he
36:06
was once arrested for burglary and sentenced to a juvenile corrections facility by the Texas
36:10
Youth Commission, and this only caused the rumors to escalate because people mistakenly assumed
36:15
he had been arrested for the bombing. While I don't know many specific details
36:20
about Mikey Huff's criminal history, I am willing to believe that a lot of
36:23
the stuff which made people believe he was the guilty party may have simply been
36:27
the result of him acting like an edgy teenager. When the ATF Task Force
36:31
reopened the case in the mid nineteen nineties, they also offered a twenty five
36:36
thousand dollars reward for information, which brought in a lot of tips from people
36:39
who advised them to take a second look at Mikey huff. But how many
36:44
of these tips were based on nothing more than hearsay and rumors. It doesn't
36:47
sound like the investigations slacked off when it came to exploring Mikey as a possible
36:52
suspect, and the even attempt to present a case to a grand jury.
36:55
But in the end there was just not enough evidence to implicate him. I'm
37:00
not saying I completely one rule out Mikey as a suspect, but could a
37:04
fifteen year old have been capable of getting away with something like this for so
37:07
long? I don't like Mikey half as a suspect. I mean, I
37:13
can't rule him out one hundred percent either. We don't know who did this.
37:15
I just think the probability is low. I don't think he would have
37:19
been able to get away with it for so long, Nor do I think
37:22
that he demonstrated any type of genius, which I also think you would need.
37:27
Like he's not Ted Kazinski here, you know what I mean? In
37:30
its nineteen eighty five, So he doesn't have access to the internet unless somebody
37:35
has taught him how to make this bomb. And I'm sorry Angelus burned his
37:38
advances so he decided to bomb her home. It just sounds a little odd.
37:44
I'm sure, like I said in part one, that he's been rejected
37:47
by multiple other women, so or young women. So the idea that like,
37:52
she rejects him, so he's going to commit multiple murders in a way
37:57
that takes a lot of forethought, right, It's not just like, oh,
38:00
he grabs a gun and he shoots her, because it's impulsive and driven
38:05
by emotions. But this is really methodical and it doesn't speak to a fifteen
38:08
year old for me personally, yeah, exactly. Like if this had been
38:13
like a mass shooting or something like that, or they were attacked in a
38:15
home invasion, then yes, I could think that a fifteen year old could
38:19
have been capable of that. But to build a briefcase bomb with the limited
38:22
information out there, I don't think someone that young would have been able to
38:27
do it, And if they did, I'm not sure it would have been
38:29
carried out so successfully. And all this stuff about about Angela rejecting his advances,
38:35
I'm not even sure if that's one hundred percent true or if it might
38:37
just be like rumors and hearsay that's circulated throughout the area after the bombing took
38:42
place. I mean, I don't even know if Mikey and Angela even met
38:45
each other or knew each other, So he really did have a motive for
38:49
a crime of this extent. The thing with Mikey is that while the theory
38:53
about him planting the bomb as revenge against Angela does seem a bit over the
38:59
top, as we mentioned, it is the only real motive which has ever
39:02
been presented for why someone would deliberately target the Blount family. Most of the
39:08
other theories seemed to be based on them being the unfortunate victims of mistaken identity,
39:14
which would make the crime a lot more difficult to solve. We've done
39:17
a couple other podcast episodes on unsolved murders where it's been theorized that a botch
39:22
contract hit took place and the perpetrator killed the wrong person, but those victims
39:29
were targeted individually, Whereas this particular crime may have involved leaving a bomb on
39:35
the doorstep of the wrong residence in a trailer park, which is a much
39:38
easier mistake to make. Hell, since the Blounts had only lived there for
39:43
two months, perhaps the intended target was a previous occupant of the trailer located
39:47
on not number eight. Though I'm sure the authorities probably looked into this angle.
39:52
I know that investigators delved into the backgrounds of the other residents of the
39:57
trailer park and came up with a couple of promising candidates who may have been
40:01
the real target. But here's one more alternate theory. What if the bomb
40:07
was not only left at the wrong trailer, but the wrong trailer park.
40:13
I don't know how many other trailer parks were located in that particular section of
40:16
Texas at that time, But if the real target was not actually a resident
40:21
of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park, perhaps that's why the authorities have been unable
40:25
to put two and two together. This is actually the theory I think I
40:30
leaned the most towards that not only did they go to the wrong trailer,
40:34
but they went to the wrong trailer park. Do you remember the Minnesota we
40:37
did a while back about the murder of Matt Flores. Yes, yes,
40:40
As you recall, like he was the guy who started a new job at
40:44
a software company in engineering company in Silicon Valley and was shot in the back
40:49
of the head as he was getting out of his car in the parking lot
40:52
in broad daylight. And they were never able to find any other people who
40:54
worked at that building who seemed like they could have been mistaken for Matt.
40:58
But because Silicon Alley has so many similar looking buildings in the same area,
41:02
I've always speculated that perhaps the killer went to the wrong building and the wrong
41:07
parking lot, and that's why they shot Matt and why the authorities have never
41:10
been able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. And I think that
41:14
is a possibility in this case that they spent all this time investigating all the
41:19
other residents in the Hilltop Mobile home Park and never found anyone who could have
41:22
been the real target. But if the perpetrator went to the wrong trailer park
41:28
to begin with, that might be why they've never been able to figure it
41:30
out. That totally makes sense to me. I mean, I could be
41:35
like, fifty fifty it was meant for Tortella and fifty percent it was a
41:40
wrong entire trailer park where there is a motive for what happened. But they
41:45
just got the wrong person and they've never been able to tie who it was
41:50
meant for. Therefore, they can't uncover the motive and figure out who was
41:53
the one that planted the bomb. That would make sense too, because then
41:58
you're looking at all these directions and you're just not finding anything. Yeah,
42:04
it's not like they would have the resources to check like every single trailer park
42:07
in that area of Texas during that time period. So for all we know,
42:10
it just slipped through their fingers and they just went to the wrong park.
42:15
However, it's also possible that some people have a pretty good idea who
42:17
did this bombing, but there's just not enough evidence to implicate them. While
42:22
he was still incarcerated on death row, Michael roy Tony wrote a statement which
42:27
was published in a magazine called Justice Denied, and it contained this very interesting
42:30
passage quote. Since the trial, my family and I have received numerous phone
42:36
calls and letters from people saying that they know I'm innocent because they know who
42:40
did the bombing and why it was done. I believe the fact that no
42:44
one could ever determine the motive is the reason they couldn't solve the crime.
42:47
I've been in contact with these people who wrote and called my family. They
42:52
have told me what the motive was, who did it, and why the
42:53
motive was never determined. Yes, I have learned who the real murderers are,
42:58
but they will remain free to more murders unless the investigation is reopened.
43:02
No one will listen to me because the case has been closed. End.
43:07
Tony then went on to mention that the people who committed the crime live in
43:09
the Fort Worth area, and I find it interesting how he specifically used the
43:14
word people to imply there was more than one person involved. Now, as
43:17
far as I can tell, Tony never publicly revealed the identities of these people
43:22
who were supposedly implicated in the bombing. If he had not been killed in
43:25
the truck crash only one month after his release, perhaps Tony might have been
43:30
able to spread more awareness about the real perpetrators. But I think his death
43:35
gave the authorities a convenient out because they could just keep saying that Tony was
43:38
the right man all along and have no obligation to reopen the investigation. And
43:44
that's a real shame because there are three deceased victims out there who have still
43:47
never received justice. However, if a number of people really did contact Tony
43:52
in his family about the identities of the real killers. Then this implies there
43:58
are still quite a few individuals who know the truth and could break the case
44:01
why open. So if you happen to have any information about the Blount family
44:06
bombing, please contact the appropriate authorities. Jewels any final thoughts on this case.
44:13
My heart goes out to Susan Ray and Robert, who are the survivors
44:17
here, and they clearly lost so much, and also Michael Columbus's mother because
44:23
they lost everything, and it truly breaks my heart. I don't like Mikey
44:30
Huff for a suspect. I think it's far too methodical and sophisticated for a
44:35
fifteen year old in nineteen eighty five. I think there's a possibility that it
44:38
could have been intended for Irvin, but I think it's less likely than it
44:43
would have been intended for Tortella. I like that Tortella was somebody was right
44:49
there trying to get in and help everybody, risking life and limb. He
44:53
later expressed remorse, saying that the things that I was doing may have contributed
44:59
to the and you know, I think about it all the time. He
45:01
sounds like he did have a redemption arc, and it sounds like he spent
45:07
a great deal of time thinking about it. There's just and I mean,
45:10
maybe it had nothing to do with him, And if it didn't, then
45:13
he spent a lot of time feeling this guilt over something that had absolutely easier
45:16
to do with him. And that would be a scenario like Robin brought up
45:20
that I think is completely plausible that it could have been intended for another trailer
45:24
park. If it's intended for another trailer park and they didn't investigate that,
45:30
then they're never going to be able to make the connection, uncover who did
45:32
this, or find out what the motive was. But I truly believe that
45:37
this was a mistaken identity on some part, right like whether it was the
45:43
wrong unit, the wrong people, the wrong trailer park. I don't believe
45:47
that the bomb was intended for the Blounts. Yeah, I totally agree,
45:52
And I have never seen another case like that. Offhand, I cannot think
45:55
of any many other cold cases involving a briefcase bomb used as a method for
46:00
a murder. And that's what makes it so unusual, is that you'd expect
46:05
to see something like this and a spy thriller or a terrorist attack, and
46:08
you would not expect like a working class family like the Blounts, who have
46:12
never committed any crimes, have no known enemies to have like a briefcase found
46:16
on their trailer park doorstep on Thanksgiving. And yeah, there are a lot
46:21
of victims in this story because we three people lost their lives, and we
46:24
had Ray and his ex wife lost, Michael and Susan and Robert wound up
46:29
surviving the blast with injuries and having to deal with the loss of Joe and
46:34
Angela, and they had to go through the ordeal of thinking that they had
46:37
finally achieved justice and seen the perpetrator go to prison, only for him to
46:40
be released about a decade later, and the case wind up going right back
46:45
to square one. So, as far as you know, I do believe
46:49
that Michael roy Tony was completely innocent here. He definitely was not an angel.
46:53
He got himself into this situation and he had a troubled history. But
46:58
you do not deserve to go to prison for a time you did not commit,
47:00
particularly if it means you could be executed for it. And it is
47:05
a tragedy that he died in a truck accident only a month after he was
47:07
released from prison, and I think if he had been still around and working
47:12
to clear his name and spreading awareness about the case and also trying to find
47:16
out who the real perpetrators are, I think the investigation might still be ongoing,
47:21
and for all we know, maybe they would have found out the truth
47:23
about what happened. And I really would like to find out more information from
47:28
Tony about who these people are that he was supposedly told were the real killers,
47:34
and what their motive could have been. But whoever it was, I
47:37
do believe it was a mistaken identity and that they either left the briefcase at
47:40
the wrong trailer or the wrong trailer park altogether. And unfortunately, three innocent
47:45
people had to lose their lives and two families had to suffer a lot of
47:50
trauma and have their lives ruined forever. And because Michael roy Tony is dead,
47:54
the authorities don't have a lot of motivation to reopen the investigation because they
47:59
could just keep paying the crime on a dead guy, which is a real
48:01
shame because this is an horrific crime where justice has been delayed, and I
48:06
do hope one of these days we actually get to find out the full truth
48:08
about what actually happened. Robin, do you want to tell us a little
48:13
bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has
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early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you
48:25
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48:36
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48:39
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