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