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Welcome back to the Path went Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and

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I'm Ashley. Hey Robin, do
you want to tell us a little bit

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about the True Crime Podcast Festival you
just attended, And I'm very jealous Jules

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and I were not a part of. Oh yes, yeah, I definitely

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have to get both of you to
one of these festivals at some point because

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there are people there who ask about
you both this and Crime Con. But

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that's another issue. But yeah,
for the third time, I attended the

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True Crime Podcast Festival just a few
days before we recorded this. I went

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to the first one in Chicago in
twenty nineteen, I went to one in

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Dallas last year, and this year
it was held in Austin, Texas.

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It is like crime Con, only
it's more smaller scale and focused exclusively on

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podcasters, where no matter who you
are, if you apply, then you'll

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be able to attend and get your
own booth where you can greet listeners,

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hang out with them, and you
can also see a bunch of cool live

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sessions with not just podcasters, but
for victims, advocates and family members.

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I know that Moura Murray's sister Julie
was there for the second straight year and

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gave a very interesting session. But
I also did one with Gary from the

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Truck Stop Murder. We talked about
the topic of human trafficking at truck stops

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because he's a truck driver, and
I also talked about and identified serial killer

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named Doctor No who was believed to
have murdered a number of sex workers at

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truck stops during the early late eighties
and early nineties in Ohio. And also

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did a lot of other fun things
while I was there. I went to

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see the original house where the Texas
chainsaw massacre took place. It's been turned

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into a restaurant slash tourist distraction,
so I had lunch there, which was

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very fun. I also went on
a Haunted Hurst tour through Austin and saw

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a bunch of haunted locations and I
even went to the spot of the Austin

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yogurt Shop murders, which is a
case I covered in a two part series

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on the trail went called Recently and
it took place at a strip mall which

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was only four miles away from the
hotel, so I got to see the

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location where the murders took place.
And there's also a memorial plaque for the

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four victims right there in the parking
lot, so it was a pretty haunting

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place to visit. Well, it
sounds like you had a really good time,

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and I'm super jealous that you got
to meet all of these people in

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person, and I'm also jealous that
they got to meet you in person.

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Yeah, that's the thing. We
at the time of this recording, we

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have still not officially met each other
in person. So I'll have to get

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you two to one of these get
togethers so that you can meet everyone else

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that you know, because there are
whole bunch of great podcasters there. But

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finally meet me for the first time, that's so crazy. I'm going to

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give you a massive hug when I
get there, and then watch your very

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uncomfortable face because as we all know, I'm very shy and you're very outgoing,

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so it's gonna be great. It's
not the only big bear hug that

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I've gotten from people who feel awkward
about it at these events, so not

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alone. Well with that, let's
dive right into this week's case. November

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twenty eight, nineteen eighty five,
Tarrant County, Texas, the family of

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forty four year old Joe Blount gathers
together for Thanksgiving dinner in their trailer at

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the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. After
making a trip to a convenience store later

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that night, they return home to
discover a briefcase on their front doorstep.

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When the briefcase is opened, a
bomb goes off, claiming the lives of

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Joe, his fifteen year old daughter
Angela, and Joe's eighteen year old nephew,

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Michael Columbus. Fourteen years later,
a suspect named Michael roy Tony is

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convicted of the bombing and sentenced to
death, but it turns out the prosecution

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withheld evidence supporting Tony's innocence at trial. As a result, Tony's conviction is

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overturned and he is released from prison
in two thousand nine. So no one

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knows who actually committed the Blount family
bombing. After that, the path went

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chilly. So we've got a pretty
unique unsolved mystery to cover today, the

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Blount Family bombing. I originally covered
this on the Trail Went Cold right before

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American Thanksgiving in twenty twenty after coming
to the realization that I had never done

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a Thanksgiving themed cold case on this
podcast. That's probably because we celebrate Thanksgiving

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one month earlier here in Jules and
I's home country of Canada. But that's

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beside the point. The last article
I ever published for list first dot com

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back in twenty sixteen was titled ten
Unsolved Thanksgiving Mysteries, and since I included

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this case on that list, I
thought it would be an interesting one to

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cover. This is the tragic story
of a family called the Blounts, who

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got together for Thanksgiving dinner in nineteen
eighty five before someone left a briefcase on

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their front porch, which turned out
to be a bomb. When it went

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off, it claimed the lives of
the family's patriarch, Joe Blount, as

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well as his fourteen year old daughter
and eighteen year old nephew. Since the

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Blounts were just an average working class
family who didn't seem to have any enemies,

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the crime left everyone baffled and the
respeculation that the bomb may have been

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intended for someone else. It would
be over fourteen years before a suspect named

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Michael roy Tony was charged and senced
to death for the murders, but since

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his trial was fraught with prosecutorial misconduct, Tony's conviction would be overturned and he

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was released from prison. So unfortunately, this meant the investigation went right back

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to square one, which is why
I thought it would be worth revisiting here.

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Okay, so many things are frustrated
about this case, but I've got

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to start with the suspect, Michael
Tony. So you said that he was

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not only found guilty, but he
was sentenced to death. Is it a

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actual innocence wrongful conviction or were his
rights violated? Both are incredibly awful,

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But were his rights violated to a
point where they had to overturn the conviction?

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Like do you believe the elements that
started to point towards him not being

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the correct suspect? It was more, he wasn't actually proven innocent, Like

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his conviction was overturned because of civil
rights violation. And this isn't actually like

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a case with DNA or anything to
conclusively prove that he did not do it.

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But I'm sure as we go along
you'll find that the case against him

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was very problematic. Okay, So
both are wrong. Please don't get me,

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don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Both
are horribly wrong. We do have

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a right to have a defense and
all evidence presented in trial. What's really

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hard is that both come with such
huge consequences when you're actually wrongfully convicted and

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proven to be innocent who has been
in prison all that time, And in

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cases like this, there's a huge
question mark. Someone's rights were violated,

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and you still have the deceased individuals
who were murdered, and now there's really

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a huge hindrance on any chance of
justice because did you get it wrong and

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sentence the wrong person or did you
get it right. And because someone decided

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not to be professional and do what's
correct and ethical, someone actually walked out

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as a killer. So it's really
upsetting, and this case in general,

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it is just horrific. You have
a fourteen year old and an eighteen year

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old and the family patriarch who's murdered. In this case, our story begins

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in Tarren County, Texas on Thanksgiving
Day in nineteen eighty five, and one

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of our victims is forty four year
old Joe Blount, who lives with his

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wife, Susan Blount, and their
two children, fifteen year old Angela and

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thirteen year old Robert. The couple
have been married for eighteen years and in

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July of that year, they decided
to make the move to Texas from Seattle,

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Washington in order to help care for
Joe's elderly father after he suffered a

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stroke in September. The family moved
into a rented trailer on lot number eight

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of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park,
located on the Jacksboro Highway between the towns

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of Lakeworth and Azel. Joe works
as a mechanic, and while he was

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only able to secure a few temporary
gigs after the move to Texas, he

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has recently been offered a steady,
full time position at a new auto transmission

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shop, which is scheduled to open
the Monday after Thanksgiving. In the meantime,

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the Blounts would hold Thanksgiving dinner at
their trailer on November twenty eighth,

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and be joined by Joe's brother,
Carl Ray Blount, who goes by the

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name Ray. Also attending would be
Ray's eighteen year old son, Michael Columbus,

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who had lived with his mother in
Seattle and was now attending school in

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Oklahoma. Michael had been estranged from
his father for years, but in an

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attempt to rekindle their relationship, Ray
convinced his son to travel to Texas to

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spend Thanksgiving with him. After they
finished dinner, Ray left at around five

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pm, but Michael would remain at
the trailer to spend the evening with his

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cousins. At approximately nine o'clock,
while Susan was taking a nap in the

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master bedroom, Joe decided to drive
Robert, Angela, and Michael to a

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nearby convenience store in order to pick
up some beer and snacks. They returned

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about twenty minutes later, who were
surprise to discover that a briefcase was now

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on their doorstep. When they took
the briefcase inside the trailer, Angela decided

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to open it, but once she
flipped the latches, there was a sudden

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explosion. Susan was awakened by the
noise and instantly ran out of the bedroom,

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where she discovered that the living room
was on fire. Susan immediately ran

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out of the back door while her
neighbors called for help and started gathering around

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the trailer. By this point,
the flames were so strong that no one

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was able to enter the trailer just
save the rest of the family, until

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the fire department arrived. Unbelievable,
so who that actually was deceased didn't even

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live there. Oh, we don't
know that. I mean, it's kind

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of a thing where it's been speculated
that the person that they were targeting did

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not live at that trailer, that
it was a case of mistaken identity,

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but this has never been conclusively proven. So for all we know, maybe

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someone did have a vendetta against the
Blounts. Wow. So the people though,

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like Robert and Angela and Michael,
who's actually living in that place,

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Oh, they're living there. They've
only been there like for a couple of

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weeks. They're fairly new to the
area. But that is their trailer.

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Michael Columbus doesn't live there, he's
just visiting his father, Okay, okay,

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And everybody else lives in that residence. Yes, Joe and his wife

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and his two children. Okay.
So this is insane because really they go

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out and they return twenty minutes later, and that's when that briefcase is there.

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So it's a very short time framed
that somebody, it sounds like,

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was watching the house of when to
place the briefcase there. Yeah, exactly.

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But what is strange though, is
that they knocked on the door,

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and if Susan had answered it and
opened the briefcase herself. Then Joe,

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Angela and Michael would have been spared. So it makes you wonder did they

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actually see these people leave the trailer
or was it just blind luck that they

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happened to leave the briefcase there while
they were out. I really feel for

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Ray. In this scenario, Ray
has been a strange from his son.

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He convinces his son to come and
visit him for Thanksgiving. Then Ray leaves

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the trailer. So Ray is safe, but he leaves his son behind to

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visit with his cousins, and in
doing so, Michael Columbus is also present

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for this bombing. Like, I
can't imagine the amount of guilt that poor

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Ray felt after this happened, especially
since he was trying to rekindle their relationship,

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Like they've been a strange for a
while and apparently things were going good

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between them and then it just all
ends because of this bomb. It's so

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sad. Do you guys think that
Ray was ever a suspect of McCay's.

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We mentioned that later they did look
into him and they found no reason to

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believe that he was a suspect.
I mean, it does look convenient that

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he happened to leave a few hours
beforehand, But it sounds like he's been

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eliminated by law enforcement. Especially if
he'd put all this time and energy into

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rekindling this relationship with his son,
what would be his motivation to annihilate him

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along with the rest of his family
members. It just seems like, unless

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there was some kind of money motivation, why would he ever do that.

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So Susan was put into an ambulance
and received medical attention, and it turned

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out that the force of the blast
had blown Robert through the trailer's front door.

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He now had first and second to
reburns, and his clothes and shoes

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were melted into his skin, but
Robert was still alive, so he was

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immediately rushed to the hospital. While
he ultimately survived, Robert would be forced

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undergo two skin graft operate which left
scars all over his body. Unfortunately,

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once the flames were put out,
the bodies of Joe, Angela, and

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Michael were discovered inside the trailer.
They were burned beyond recognition and had been

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killed instantly by the explosion. It
turned out that the latches on the briefcase

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had been attached to a pair of
mouse traps, which triggered a homemade bomb

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when the case was opened. The
bomb consisted of a glass container filled with

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gasoline, two galvanized metal pipes filled
with smokeless gunpowder, a model rocket motor,

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and an nine volt battery. Susan
claimed that during the twenty minute window,

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when the rest of the family was
at the convenience store, she was

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awoken from her nap by a knock
at the front door, but after taking

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a brief look outside the window and
not seeing anyone, she went back to

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sleep in the bedroom. Since Susan
managed to escape the trailer unharmed, investigators

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started looking into her as a possible
suspect, but she had no discernible motive

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to commit the crime. While Susan
had taken out life insurance policies on both

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her husband and daughter, they were
only worth two thousand dollars and one thousand

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dollars respectively, and would not have
even covered the costs of their burials.

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After she passed a polygraph, Susan
was ruled out as a suspect and moved

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into an apartment with Robert, though
they eventually moved back to Seattle. Investigators

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also looked into Joe's brother Ray,
who had left the trail or hours before

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the bombing took place, but there
was nothing to suggest he was involved.

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That's the sad part of cases like
this is that you do have to start

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at the center of the family and
start saying, Okay, who was there,

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who's related who knew these individuals because
usually were hurt by people that we

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know and specifically are related to our
friends, with, our coworkers with and

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so it's not uncommon to really focus
on those closest to the case. And

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these are the people who were in
the midst of their own grieving, who

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actually have their own survivor's guilt,
that are sitting there going it could have

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been me, maybe it should have
been me, And so poor Ray and

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Susan. I feel really sad for
them that they're not only trying to help

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the police, but they're also trying
to say, like, gosh, if

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you only knew how horrific this situation
was, Like I'll do anything to help

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you, but we had nothing to
do with it. I imagine Susan goes

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to sleep, she has this nap
in the master bedroom or in the primary

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bedroom, and in doing so,
she wakes up when she hears this explosion,

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and when she wakes up, nothing
will ever be the same. Her

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husband is deceased and her daughter,
like, I can't even imagine how that

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would feel. And then also Michael
Columbus, who is the cousin or the

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son of Ray, who is Joe's
brother, So I can't even imagine how

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that would feel. And I can
only imagine the survivor's guilt that would go

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along with that. Yeah, I
can understand looking at Susan as a potential

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suspect since she wound up surviving,
But the big point in her innocence is

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the fact that she was still inside
the trailer when the bomb went off.

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So it's a huge risk she could
have been killed too. And you have

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to assume that if she was the
one who set this bomb, that she

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would have made sure that she was
far away from the trailer when it went

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off, and she would have got
life insurance that exceeded two thousand and one

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thousand dollars, like, not even
enough to have a funeral and to support

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a burial. That isn't somebody who
unless you know she'd been wronged by her

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husband. We could come up with
scenarios where that could be feasible as an

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explanation if say, he cheated or
he was abusive, but not your daughter,

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and not putting everybody else at risk
as well during or in the process,

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it just doesn't make any sense.
The crime left everyone baffled, as

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the Blounts did not seem to have
any known enemies or involvement in criminal activity.

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However, since there were other residents
of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park who

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did have ties to criminal activity,
the authorities began speculating that the bomb may

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have been left at the wrong trailer. One of these residents was Tim Tortella,

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who lived in the mobile home behind
the Blount residence and was there watching

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television when the bomb went off.
Even though Tortella was a jeweler by trade,

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he was known to be involved in
other illegal activities, which included operating

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a methamphetamine business from his trailer and
selling automatic weapons to drug dealers Skywards a

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lot of Halts. Another resident to
the park who was known for selling methamphetamine

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from his trailer was Darren Irvin,
who lived on Lot number two, six

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spaces away from the Blount residence.
In fact, on the afternoon of the

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bombing, Irvin had a fight with
his wife and left the trailer park,

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but when questioned about the crime,
Irvin passed to polygraph and investigators were unable

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to find anything to suggest that either
he or Tortella were linked to the bombing.

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Another interesting development would take place in
March of nineteen eighty six, when

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a man named Douglas Raymond Brown was
arrested for selling an explosive device to an

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undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms aka the ATF.

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Brown lived in Azel and owned a
company that manufactured business machinery, but was

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being investigated by the ATF because he
was reportedly using his business as a front

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to sell drugs and automatic weapons,
even though the undercover agent had not specifically

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requested this. The explosive device Brown
provided to him was in the form of

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a briefcase and very similar to the
bomb which was left at the Blount residence.

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While Brown ultimately wound up receiving a
four year prison sentence for selling the

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device, the authorities could not find
anything to link him to the Blount bombing

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and seemed to chalk the whole thing
up to a bizarre coincidence. Okay,

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so this whole mobile home park seems
to be filled with characters who are into

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questionable behaviors right there, Manu factoring
drugs or selling drugs. What extent do

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00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:07.640
you think that that bomb was placed
on the front doorstep and they had the

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wrong mobile home, Like I've seen
incredible cases where people go to great links

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over a very small amount of drugs
or drug money or being on the wrong

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turf. Is it possible that this
is not actually even meant for the Blount

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family whatsoever? I think there's a
decent chance of that because the Blounts had

255
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not been there all that long,
and they'd only been there for a few

256
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months since they were originally from Washington
State, And I can't imagine what they

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could have done during that short amount
of time that would merit someone placing a

258
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bomb on their doorstep to kill them
in such an intricate fashion. So I

259
00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:45.920
definitely do think it is possible because
there were so many criminals living in that

260
00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:51.160
trailer park that someone just left it
at the wrong place. But even though

261
00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:55.279
like Tortella and Urban were involved in
illegal activity, it's not like they were

262
00:19:55.319 --> 00:20:00.400
Heisenberg or Walter White for breaking batter
or anything like high profile criminals so it

263
00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:03.599
just makes you wonder, like a
briefcase bomb is such an intricate way to

264
00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:07.920
kill someone that what could anybody from
that park have done to prompt someone to

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try and murder them in that fashion. I like how it's like this kind

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of small criminal ecosystem that reminds me
of like a small town where somebody is,

267
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you know, the mayor, but
they're also a hairdresser and they're also

268
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the county coroner. We've got Tortella
who's a jeweler, but he also has

269
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a methambetamine business, and he also
sells automatic weapons to drug dealers, and

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he's not the only one. It's
like, these are very enterprising individuals.

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I gotta give it to Joe.
He was getting a legitimate job as a

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mechanic, so he made even the
only one living there who wasn't involved in

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neth and selling weapons. Is there
like a lot of people buying automatic weapons

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in this area. Yeah, it's
quite a rural area of Texas. It's

275
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not known for being like a high
crime area, So that is kind of

276
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crazy just how frequently this stuff seems
to be going on, so believe it

277
00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:07.640
or not, Investigators considered the most
promising suspect to be a fifteen year old

278
00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:11.640
named Mikey Huff, who was known
for being a violent drug user and had

279
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a history of criminal offenses such as
burglary. Mikey first popped up on the

280
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radar when the ATF received some anonymous
calls alleging that he had bragged about setting

281
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off a bomb. Mikey's stepfather also
claimed to have found pieces of a bomb

282
00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:30.160
in Mikey's bedroom, and that a
pair of Victor brand mousetraps the same brand

283
00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:33.319
of mousetraps which were attached to the
briefcases latches and used to trigger the bomb,

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had gone missing from their home.
It was rumored that Mikey had made

285
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advances towards Angela and became angry when
she rejected him, which could have given

286
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.880
Mikey a potential motive to leave a
bomb at her trailer, but once again

287
00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:51.480
the authorities could not find anything to
conclusively link him to the crime. The

288
00:21:51.559 --> 00:21:55.960
investigation remained at a standstill for a
decade, but would received new life after

289
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the infamous Oklahoma City terrorists bombing in
April of nineteen ninety five. The attack

290
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compelled the ATF to assemble a new
task force to investigate domestic bombings which were

291
00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:11.160
still unsolved, so the Blount case
was reopened. A grand jury investigation would

292
00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:14.359
be launched in order to take a
fresh look at Mikey Huff, who was

293
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now married and had children, but
they never indicted him. So now we

294
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have two people that are really linked
to bomb making in this small area too,

295
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:26.359
Like what kind of places are we
living in here? Yeah? I

296
00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:30.599
mean I can see like a fifteen
year old getting angry enough that a girl

297
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:34.839
rejected him that he would inflict violence
upon or as revenge, but doing so

298
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by building a briefcase bomb scenes a
bit sophisticated for a fifteen year old.

299
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Incredibly, Then there was the other
man that they confronted two I was Darren

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00:22:45.799 --> 00:22:49.000
Evan. No, Douglas Raymond Brown. Yeah, Douglas Raymond Brown. He's

301
00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:55.079
also sitting there making these intricate suitcase
bombs. So I don't know, this

302
00:22:55.160 --> 00:22:56.839
is just not the way I would
first think to get back at somebody.

303
00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:02.559
And I would think that Mikey at
the age of fifteen, he's this violent

304
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:07.519
drug user, does he have the
clarity to be able to figure out how

305
00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:11.079
to formulate this bomb? Like,
we're not looking at a time frame where

306
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:15.839
there was the advent of the internet. Now, any Tom Dick or Harry

307
00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:22.039
can stumble across instructions on how to
put together a myriad of bombs. But

308
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:26.279
back then, to be able to
figure that out someone who seems to be

309
00:23:26.359 --> 00:23:30.480
really emotionally unstable, which could lend
itself to the fact that he might not

310
00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:33.839
take rejection well, But like,
wouldn't you just pick up a gun and

311
00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:38.519
shoot somebody To actually put a bomb
on somebody's front door, it seems like

312
00:23:38.519 --> 00:23:42.880
you're sending a message, like a
broad message, not just like, hey,

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this girl rejected me and so I'm
going to place a bomb there,

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but like the message would be lost. Do you know what I mean?

315
00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.160
Oh, exactly, because nobody would
suspect like a fifteen year old to do

316
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something like that, and they hadn't
even known Angela for that long, So

317
00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:03.839
it just seems kind of weird that
she would be he would feel so like

318
00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:06.480
in rage that she turned him down, that he would not only try to

319
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kill her, but potentially wipe out
her entire family. And I do agree

320
00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:12.400
with your point. I don't know
how a fifteen year old in nineteen eighty

321
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five is going to find the instructions
about how to properly put together a suitcase

322
00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:22.839
bomb in the pre internet era of
nineteen eighty five. And just by the

323
00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:26.960
way he's described, he sounds like
a bit of a douche. So I'm

324
00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:30.000
sure that he's been rejected by many
women in the past. I'm sure that

325
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Angela was not the first woman to
reject him. So I think to have

326
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:41.680
this escalation to a point where somebody
would potentially leave a bomb on her trailer

327
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:45.400
right at Thanksgiving, that seems like
you wouldn't just start there. You would

328
00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:51.920
have escalated with behavior where if a
woman rejected you, you would behave violently.

329
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And do we know anything about that
with Mikey Haff Has he ever done

330
00:24:55.759 --> 00:24:59.480
that in the past? Your knowledge, not that I've heard. And as

331
00:24:59.480 --> 00:25:02.880
time goes on, it comes out
that maybe Mikey was a guy who liked

332
00:25:02.920 --> 00:25:06.359
to make himself look like more of
a tougher, more violent criminal than he

333
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:10.319
really was. So it seemed like
a facade where he had a history of

334
00:25:10.359 --> 00:25:12.400
probabling behavior, but he maybe was
just too much of a cow or to

335
00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:18.720
ever go through with killing anyone.
The case would take an unexpected turn in

336
00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:22.279
August of nineteen ninety seven, when
the Parker County Sheriff's Office in the town

337
00:25:22.279 --> 00:25:27.799
of Weatherford was contacted by a man
named Charles Ferris. At the time,

338
00:25:27.960 --> 00:25:33.279
Ferris was incarcerated in the Parker County
jail for driving without a valid license and

339
00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:38.680
cross paths with a thirty one year
old inmate named Michael roy Tony. According

340
00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:45.279
to Ferris, they started a conversation
about the Blount family bombing when Tony suddenly

341
00:25:45.319 --> 00:25:49.400
confessed that he was responsible for the
crime. Tony was a career criminal who

342
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:55.200
had multiple felony convictions on his record
and was in the county jail awaiting a

343
00:25:55.279 --> 00:26:00.400
hearing on a burglary charge. Tony
originally hailed from California, but when investigators

344
00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:04.519
looked into his history, they discovered
that he was living in Tarrant County in

345
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:10.039
November of nineteen eighty five when the
bombing took place. At the time,

346
00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:15.200
Michael had recently started dating his future
wife, Kim Tony Kim Tony Niehem,

347
00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:19.359
whom he married in March of nineteen
eighty six. The couple wound up divorcing

348
00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:25.400
three years later, but investigators decided
to track Kim down and question her about

349
00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:30.079
her ex husband's alleged confession. At
first, Kim completely rejected the idea of

350
00:26:30.119 --> 00:26:36.160
Michael being responsible for the bombing,
but after doing her own independent research into

351
00:26:36.200 --> 00:26:40.640
the case, she contacted the authorities
again and shared a brand new story.

352
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:45.599
Not only did Kim suspect that Michael
committed the crime, but she now believes

353
00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:49.720
she might have been present when he
planted the bomb. According to Kim,

354
00:26:49.839 --> 00:26:53.680
in nineteen eighty five, she spent
Thanksgiving Day hanging out with Michael and his

355
00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:59.680
best friend, Chris Meeks. They
all went out together and michael Chevrolet Silverado

356
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:04.279
pickup truck before he stopped at a
propane shop located on the Jacksboro Highway next

357
00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:08.799
to the Hilltop Mobile Home Park.
Kim claimed that she saw Michael climb out

358
00:27:08.839 --> 00:27:12.519
of the truck with a briefcase in
his hand before he walked away, but

359
00:27:12.599 --> 00:27:17.519
when he returned a few minutes later, Michael was no longer carrying it.

360
00:27:18.279 --> 00:27:22.240
They then left the area and drove
to the nearby Fort Worth Nature Center and

361
00:27:22.279 --> 00:27:26.359
refuge should go fishing. Kim maintained
that she never heard an explosion and had

362
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:32.680
no idea a bomblin off that night
until she started digging into old newspaper articles

363
00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:37.279
about the case and realized that Michael
had stopped at the same trailer park.

364
00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:41.759
Kim's story finally gave investigators the evidence
they needed to make an arrest, so

365
00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:48.039
on December fourth, Michael was indicted
on three counts of capital murder. Okay,

366
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:52.119
so her case sounds incredibly convincing,
but I also am starting. I

367
00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:56.480
mean, she's starting the story after
breaking up or getting a divorce from this

368
00:27:56.519 --> 00:28:00.400
man, and clearly he's had a
little bit of trouble in his past too.

369
00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:03.799
So were the police at first skeptical
of her story because to me,

370
00:28:04.279 --> 00:28:08.440
you have an ex wife who all
of a sudden has a recollection that she

371
00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:15.039
might remember Michael getting out with this
suitcase and not coming back, and her

372
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:18.440
story is very scary, right to
think. Okay, wait, looking back,

373
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:22.599
I might have been president of my
husband our ex husband placed this suitcase

374
00:28:22.799 --> 00:28:27.039
on the trailer park doorstep, but
it's also her ex husband. So part

375
00:28:27.039 --> 00:28:30.759
of me I always start those kind
of relations, was like, Okay,

376
00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:33.480
how much did she learn from the
police and how much did she bring to

377
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:37.960
the police without information. Well,
the thing that's unique about this is that

378
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:41.720
you're right to be skeptical about her
because she is his ex wife. But

379
00:28:42.119 --> 00:28:45.200
she started off by saying, Nope, there's no way Michael would have ever

380
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:48.119
done something like that. I do
not believe it. And she only came

381
00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:52.039
back to them after reading through newspaper
articles and realizing, oh my god,

382
00:28:52.119 --> 00:28:55.759
I might have been at this trailer
park. I think Michael did it.

383
00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:59.519
So I can see why they wouldn't
be a skeptical since she tried to deny

384
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:03.640
the possibility that he did it at
first before changing her mind. But as

385
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:04.839
we go along, you're going to
find out that there are a lot of

386
00:29:04.920 --> 00:29:08.920
issues with this story she provided,
even though it sounds convincing on the surface,

387
00:29:10.839 --> 00:29:15.000
but when we have eyewitness testimony,
first she's saying no. Her first

388
00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:18.720
instinct is no, and then she
jumps to yes. And then we've got

389
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:23.559
to wonder is she like internalizing and
conflating these details that she's reading in this

390
00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:29.079
article and kind of taking it on
as her story, whether she's aware of

391
00:29:29.119 --> 00:29:32.880
it or not. I think that
we've seen in far too many cases people

392
00:29:32.920 --> 00:29:37.359
are very sure of what they've seen, especially when it's going back years and

393
00:29:37.400 --> 00:29:40.720
you're like, why do you have
this crystal clear memory right now? What

394
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:44.920
was so important, like how many
times have you stopped on a random day

395
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:47.880
it could be on a holiday or
not, and you're not going to remember

396
00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:49.759
little details like oh, yeah,
he had a briefcase and then he put

397
00:29:49.799 --> 00:29:52.880
it down and he came back and
he didn't have a briefcase. It just

398
00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:57.559
sounds entirely too specific and like she's
too sure of it for them to be

399
00:29:57.640 --> 00:30:03.240
able to get an arrest sworn or
an indictment on you know, capital murder.

400
00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:07.519
That sounds like you're taking a lot
from one person here. And also,

401
00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:11.400
even if she's being genuine and she
does, after reading newspaper articles come

402
00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.240
up with this information, how much
of that is information that then is transferred

403
00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:18.599
into her memory saying like, oh
god, I remember that one time,

404
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.680
Like I swear if I read a
newspaper article that rebel I don't know,

405
00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:26.640
did something, I'd be like,
there was one time that something close to

406
00:30:26.680 --> 00:30:30.319
that did happen and we were at
that one lumber shop, you know.

407
00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:34.359
And it's like how much of that
kind of convolutes your actual memory and you're

408
00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:40.079
not drawing from similar instances. I
mean, a briefcase on somebody's doorstep is

409
00:30:40.200 --> 00:30:45.240
bizarre, but could it be where
her memory is actually altered by observing that

410
00:30:45.279 --> 00:30:48.720
with the lens of saying could he
have done this and then going, oh

411
00:30:48.759 --> 00:30:52.000
my god, yes he did.
Like, can't your brain convince itself that

412
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:56.079
you actually picked up on some of
the things you saw in the newspaper?

413
00:30:56.519 --> 00:30:59.759
And that's what I was thinking.
It's conflating the details that she's read in

414
00:30:59.799 --> 00:31:04.880
the newspaper as her actual memories.
And they've done multiple different studies where participants

415
00:31:04.920 --> 00:31:11.119
have been shown this picture where say
they photoshop them in being on a hot

416
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:14.759
air balloon with their family, but
they've never actually been on a hot air

417
00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:18.079
balloon with their family. But then
when they go back and they ask questions,

418
00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:22.400
this person then is pulling these memories
and talking about it as if they

419
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.400
were there. So I don't think
that our memory is nearly as hard and

420
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:30.920
fast as we like to believe that
it is. It's incredibly malleable and so

421
00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:37.640
easily influenced by outside events or things
that we read or what people tell us.

422
00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:41.640
So the case would be prosecuted by
the Tarrant County District Attorney's office,

423
00:31:41.920 --> 00:31:47.640
But before Tony's trial began, they
hit a major snag when Charles Ferris,

424
00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:52.400
the man who implicated Tony in the
first place suddenly changed his story and claimed

425
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:56.119
that the whole confession was a scam. It turned out that Tony had a

426
00:31:56.160 --> 00:32:00.160
reputation for being a quote unquote jail
house lawyer who would cox schemes to help

427
00:32:00.200 --> 00:32:04.839
his fellow inmates get out of jail. As an example, there was one

428
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:08.079
prior incident in which Tony convinced an
inmate to fake a suicide attempt by hanging

429
00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:13.720
himself in order to secure his release. Ferris now said that after they struck

430
00:32:13.759 --> 00:32:17.000
up a conversation about the Blount bombing, Tony proposed a scheme in which Ferris

431
00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:22.200
could approach the authorities and feed them
a false story about Tony confessing to the

432
00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:27.319
crime in exchange for an early release
from jail. Tony was apparently under the

433
00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:30.599
impression that he had been in jail
for another crime on the night of the

434
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:35.799
bombing, so he figured that the
investigation would immediately eliminate him as a suspect.

435
00:32:36.119 --> 00:32:38.559
However, it turned out that Tony
was mistaken about the date and was

436
00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:44.440
not actually incarcerated when the bombing took
place, so this strategy wound up backfiring

437
00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:47.839
on him in a huge way,
Tony maintained that he never actually heard about

438
00:32:47.839 --> 00:32:52.480
the bombing until a short time before
his conversation with Ferris. He claimed that

439
00:32:52.519 --> 00:32:57.559
he first learned about the case from
another inmate named Benny Joe Toole, who

440
00:32:57.559 --> 00:33:00.200
had once been a friend of Mikey
Huff and even looked at as a potential

441
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:05.960
suspect at one point before he was
ruled out. Indeed, Tool would testify

442
00:33:05.960 --> 00:33:09.039
as a witness for the defense,
corroborating Tony's story that he told him about

443
00:33:09.079 --> 00:33:14.079
the bombing. Well, even though
Charles Ferris recanted his story, it would

444
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:16.960
not appear as a witness for the
prosecution at Tony's trial, it would still

445
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:22.359
go ahead as planned in May of
nineteen ninety nine. Oh goodness, yeah,

446
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:25.000
right there, you're already having issues. We know the jailhouse snitches and

447
00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:31.000
jailhouse informants and people who are used
by the police to be placed into certain

448
00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:37.920
jail cells and to communicate with suspects. We know that they have incredible problems

449
00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:42.079
being part of a case. And
here, not only do you have the

450
00:33:42.119 --> 00:33:45.640
person who's saying that they heard the
confession and they got the confession, but

451
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:49.480
do you even have other inmates saying
like, yeah, I was there.

452
00:33:49.960 --> 00:33:53.960
I was there when this guy was
told about the bombing. We weren't involved

453
00:33:53.960 --> 00:33:58.599
in that at all, and I
really think that he was shocked when he

454
00:33:58.680 --> 00:34:00.400
learned the details. And then all
of a sudden, he isn't going to

455
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:06.039
testify that person who's supporting the defendant
here, So you have that, and

456
00:34:06.039 --> 00:34:10.559
then you also have this guy who's
coming forward with the information also not testifying.

457
00:34:10.599 --> 00:34:16.480
Correct he's recanting what he was told
exactly. So that's not even really

458
00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:21.239
a strong case because they only have
the testimony from Tony's ex wife and his

459
00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:23.280
best friend. And now this person
who heard him confess is saying, Nope,

460
00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:27.159
this was just a scam. He
told me to say this. So

461
00:34:27.559 --> 00:34:30.239
as they're going to trial, you
realize that really isn't much in the way

462
00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:35.079
of evidence at all. No,
So you have the friend who's vouching for

463
00:34:35.119 --> 00:34:37.280
him who won't testify. You have
the man who says that he got a

464
00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:42.519
confession in jail. He's not testifying, he's recanting what he said. And

465
00:34:42.519 --> 00:34:45.840
then the poor ex wife like either
vindictively, which I don't necessarily think is

466
00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:50.519
a case, or because her memories
altered, she's going to be the only

467
00:34:50.559 --> 00:34:54.559
story that they actually have to go
forward with. There's another one from his

468
00:34:54.599 --> 00:34:59.039
former friend Chris Meeks, who was
supposedly with him on the night of the

469
00:34:59.039 --> 00:35:00.440
bombing, that, as we're going
to find out, Chris Meeks is not

470
00:35:00.519 --> 00:35:04.320
a reliable witness either. Oh my
lord, we'll bring it on. This

471
00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:07.719
sounds about as weak as I don't
know, a house built on sand.

472
00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:13.719
Let's go. Since there was no
physical evidence against Tony, the state's entire

473
00:35:13.800 --> 00:35:17.719
case would hinge on the testimony of
his ex wife Kim and Tony's former best

474
00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:22.199
friend Chris Meeks. The two men
had not seen each other since the spring

475
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:27.920
of nineteen eighty six. The Meeks
backed up Kim's story, claiming that he

476
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:30.880
was with Michael in his pickup truck
when they stopped at the propane shop and

477
00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:37.400
Michael carried a briefcase into the Hilltop
Mobile Home Park. Meeks also testified that

478
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:40.360
a few days prior to the bombing, Tony had opened up the briefcase in

479
00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:45.000
his presence and showed him the bomb
inside. Tony apparently told him that he

480
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:50.159
needed to blow something up, and
Meeks would even describe the colors of the

481
00:35:50.199 --> 00:35:54.159
bomb's wires. In addition, When
Tony returned to the truck without the briefcase

482
00:35:54.199 --> 00:35:59.880
in his hand, he allegedly told
Meeks that he had fulfilled the contract.

483
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:04.760
However, Tony claimed that the testimony
from both Meeks and his ex wife was

484
00:36:04.840 --> 00:36:09.280
completely false. He continued to maintain
that he'd never been to the Hilltop Mobile

485
00:36:09.320 --> 00:36:14.920
home Park or even heard about the
bombing until Benny Joe Toole told him about

486
00:36:14.960 --> 00:36:20.559
it in nineteen ninety seven. Tony's
alibi for Thanksgiving Night in nineteen eighty five

487
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:23.760
was that he visited Meeks at his
home in the town of Keller, where

488
00:36:23.840 --> 00:36:29.400
three other witnesses, including Meeks's mother, stepfather, and girlfriend, were present.

489
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:32.679
Afterward, Tony said that he met
up with Kim at her apartment,

490
00:36:34.119 --> 00:36:38.199
which was located about twenty five miles
away from the trailer park. Tony also

491
00:36:38.280 --> 00:36:44.199
debunked the claim that he'd been driving
a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, claiming that

492
00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:49.079
he did not even purchase this truck
until December thirteenth, two weeks after the

493
00:36:49.119 --> 00:36:53.760
bombing occurred. While the defense was
unable to turn up any official documentation to

494
00:36:53.880 --> 00:36:59.559
verify this, they did turn up
some other paperwork which poked holes in the

495
00:36:59.599 --> 00:37:06.480
proseguian scenario. Kim specifically said that
she saw Michael take the briefcase out from

496
00:37:06.559 --> 00:37:12.719
underneath the toolbox in his truck,
but documentations showed that this toolbox was purchased

497
00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:15.679
as a birthday present for Michael one
month later, on December twenty ninth.

498
00:37:16.280 --> 00:37:22.400
Kim also testified that when they traveled
to the Worth Nature Center and Refuge that

499
00:37:22.519 --> 00:37:25.800
night, she saw Michael shoot a
beaver with a twenty two caliber Rugal model

500
00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:31.119
rifle, but atf Gun Register records
showed that he did not purchase this rifle

501
00:37:31.239 --> 00:37:37.760
until December nineteenth. Furthermore, records
from the National Weather Service showed that the

502
00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:43.159
temperatures on the evening of November twenty
eight was between thirty and forty degrees fahrenheit,

503
00:37:43.639 --> 00:37:46.679
making it the coldest date of the
month that year and a very unusual

504
00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:52.760
night to go fishing at the nature
center. So this is insane. Whether

505
00:37:52.920 --> 00:37:59.199
Michael did it or not, you
have not Michael, so sorry, no,

506
00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:00.599
it is Michael. Yeah that's his
name. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,

507
00:38:00.679 --> 00:38:02.920
then I got Chris. I saw
Chris, and I panicked. Okay,

508
00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:07.840
Okay. Whether or not Michael is
guilty of this or not, the

509
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:14.400
fact that you're telling me we're going
to trial for capital murder against this individual

510
00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:16.880
with a story that at this point
Kim's the only one telling, right,

511
00:38:17.440 --> 00:38:22.440
and we know that there's holes in
this story. He has an alibi where

512
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:28.320
he was spending time with his family, three family members. Now, again,

513
00:38:29.079 --> 00:38:31.719
when you have a murder case and
someone has an alibi that they're with

514
00:38:31.800 --> 00:38:37.039
family members, the truth is,
your family is most likely to know where

515
00:38:37.039 --> 00:38:40.360
you were. They're most likely going
to be the people who truly do know

516
00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:45.559
what you were doing that night or
that afternoon. But they're also the most

517
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:47.000
suspicious and the ones that we say, oh, well, they would cover

518
00:38:47.119 --> 00:38:51.480
anyway for this person, right,
They're they're family, they're protecting them.

519
00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:54.559
So it's almost like when families your
alibi witness, you're in big trouble.

520
00:38:54.960 --> 00:39:00.760
And then added an next wife who
is either purposefully or just misconstruming facts that

521
00:39:00.840 --> 00:39:07.480
she's read and placing them into this
day with Michael, that's all we have.

522
00:39:07.760 --> 00:39:09.920
How did they get to this place
where not only are we going for

523
00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:15.320
a murder charge, they're going for
capital murder with the risk of the death

524
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:22.000
penalty. How I mean, we
were talking about Kim's unreliable memory and how

525
00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:25.800
she could have read these newspaper articles
and had something like confirmation bias. I

526
00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:30.360
mean, I do believe parts of
her story are probably accurate. That one

527
00:39:30.400 --> 00:39:34.039
time she went out with Michael and
Chris to this nature center and shot a

528
00:39:34.079 --> 00:39:37.199
Biber and they went into Chevrolet Silverado
pickup truck. But that's a memory of

529
00:39:37.239 --> 00:39:42.639
a completely unrelated incident that she probably
they probably did like maybe a month or

530
00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:45.239
two after the bombing took place.
But she's looking back and her memory is

531
00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:47.840
playing tricks on her and thinking,
oh my god, I think this happened

532
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:51.639
the same night of the crime,
and that my husband did it. And

533
00:39:51.679 --> 00:39:57.360
it's just very unreliable testimony. And
I do commend Michael's defense team because they

534
00:39:57.400 --> 00:40:00.920
really did their homework and their due
diligence in order to poke holes in her

535
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:05.719
story. So the defense attempted to
direct suspicion towards Mikey Huff, who was

536
00:40:05.719 --> 00:40:08.480
called upon to testify at the trial
and denied any involvement in the crime,

537
00:40:08.920 --> 00:40:12.760
though he did admit that he had
once built a bomb during his youth,

538
00:40:13.679 --> 00:40:17.559
While other witnesses testified about having heard
Mikey Bragg about being responsible for the bombing

539
00:40:17.639 --> 00:40:22.159
during the nineteen eighties. He claimed
this wasn't true. However, Mikey did

540
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:27.679
concede that he enjoyed the attention he
received during this time period because it enhanced

541
00:40:27.719 --> 00:40:31.880
his reputation as a quote unquote tough
guy. He testified, quote it was

542
00:40:31.920 --> 00:40:35.920
a thing with me. I never
alluded to being a tough guy. I

543
00:40:36.079 --> 00:40:40.119
just let people believe end quote.
Unfortunately for Michael Ray Tony, he was

544
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:45.440
not painted in a very flattering light
during his trial, as the prosecution brought

545
00:40:45.519 --> 00:40:49.920
up previous criminal convictions and a history
of drug usage, and his ex wife

546
00:40:49.960 --> 00:40:53.800
and some other former girlfriends testified that
he was abusive towards them. In the

547
00:40:53.920 --> 00:40:59.760
end, the jury ultimately believed the
prosecution's version of events, and after deliberating

548
00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:04.760
only four hours, they found Tony
guilty on all three counts of capital murder.

549
00:41:05.559 --> 00:41:08.760
During the sensing phase, the state
suddenly produced a new eye witness named

550
00:41:08.800 --> 00:41:14.119
Finnis Blanketship, a career criminal who
had been a cellmate of Tony's while he

551
00:41:14.159 --> 00:41:17.719
was in jail awaiting trial. According
to Blanketship, Tony had confessed to him

552
00:41:17.719 --> 00:41:22.119
that he was paid five thousand dollars
to commit a drug related murder with a

553
00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:24.800
briefcase bomb, but he wound up
leaving the bomb on the doorstep of the

554
00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:30.320
wrong trailer. The jury subsequently voted
to sentence Tony to death for his crimes,

555
00:41:30.559 --> 00:41:32.519
and he would be sent to death
row at the Alan B. Polunsky

556
00:41:32.679 --> 00:41:37.840
unit in West Livingstone. That's insane, Okay, So again the only person

557
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:44.079
coming forward is the ex wife and
this career criminal. Again, Michael might

558
00:41:44.440 --> 00:41:46.519
be involved in this. I'm not
saying he's innocent. I'm saying the case

559
00:41:46.639 --> 00:41:52.559
is incredibly weak. When we're talking
about someone's life and actually ending their life

560
00:41:52.719 --> 00:42:00.000
via the death penalty. It's interesting
here because the idea that he's a bad

561
00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:05.599
spouse, he's a bad friend,
he has poor moral decisions, right,

562
00:42:05.639 --> 00:42:08.920
he's a criminal, doesn't make him
a murderer. Those are very very different

563
00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:12.480
things, and so I always find
it very interesting when people are like,

564
00:42:12.559 --> 00:42:15.880
let's go and talk about his character. There's a lot of bad people where

565
00:42:16.039 --> 00:42:20.920
are around them every day. There's
a lot of people I wouldn't want my

566
00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:23.400
poor dog to be left with,
you know. But I don't think that

567
00:42:23.480 --> 00:42:28.199
automatically comes into play when you're saying
did they kill people or not. It's

568
00:42:28.239 --> 00:42:31.719
like abusive husband doesn't mean murder of
strangers or a pipe bomb, you know,

569
00:42:34.039 --> 00:42:36.400
I think that's I don't know,
I just think that's a big stretch.

570
00:42:36.440 --> 00:42:39.000
And it seems like they just attacked
his character and he wasn't worthy of

571
00:42:39.039 --> 00:42:44.719
really digging much deeper according to the
people who were judging him. Yeah,

572
00:42:44.760 --> 00:42:46.960
I think it really influenced the jury, because it does seem surprising that they

573
00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:52.039
would only deliberate for four hours because
it was a pretty weak case and they're

574
00:42:52.079 --> 00:42:54.800
sensing him to three counts of murder
for which he could receive the death penalty.

575
00:42:55.159 --> 00:42:59.440
So I have a feeling they probably
heard all this testimony about his abusive

576
00:42:59.480 --> 00:43:01.920
relationship ships in his criminal history and
just thought, well, he sounds like

577
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:06.320
a bad guy. He probably committed
these murders, even though there really isn't

578
00:43:06.360 --> 00:43:09.960
much evidence placing him at the scene. And do either of you think that

579
00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:16.559
it's strange that when Meeks was describing
what he had done that he had said

580
00:43:16.599 --> 00:43:20.280
like that, Tony had said,
Okay, well yeah, I really want

581
00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:24.920
to blow something up with regards to
the bomb, and then later he said,

582
00:43:25.119 --> 00:43:29.920
oh, I fulfilled that contract.
Those are two very different things.

583
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:35.079
Whether you're saying Okay, I'm just
building a bomb because like I'm impulsive and

584
00:43:35.119 --> 00:43:39.039
I really just want to commit like
a faithless murder or whatever. And then

585
00:43:39.079 --> 00:43:44.840
the second one implies that somebody hired
you to do so they seem to be

586
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:49.159
two different stories. Yeah, that
is true that the first time he just

587
00:43:49.199 --> 00:43:52.079
sounds like he did it as like
a thrill, and the second time he

588
00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:54.719
did it because someone hired him.
And also makes me wonder why did the

589
00:43:54.800 --> 00:43:59.920
authorities, if this was true,
try to find out who hired Tony two

590
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:02.239
plant this bomb, because that means
there's a murderer still out there, but

591
00:44:02.360 --> 00:44:08.599
you don't seem all that concerned with
finding out who it is. Well over

592
00:44:08.639 --> 00:44:14.840
the next few years, Tony's defense
team would find serious issues in the testimony

593
00:44:14.880 --> 00:44:20.400
from Chris Meeks and Finished Blankinship.
Meeks was known for being a heavy drinker

594
00:44:20.679 --> 00:44:24.000
who would sometimes drink between eighteen to
twenty four cans of beer per day,

595
00:44:24.559 --> 00:44:30.440
and when originally questioned by investigators,
he claimed to have no knowledge of the

596
00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:35.920
bombing or any memory at all a
Thanksgiving Day in nineteen eighty five. Even

597
00:44:35.960 --> 00:44:39.880
though Meeks ultimately changed his story after
further questioning, it turned out that he

598
00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:45.239
failed a polygraph prior to the trial, and his testimony on the witness stand

599
00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:49.440
proved to be shaky, as he
even provided a few details which seemed to

600
00:44:49.480 --> 00:44:53.559
contradict the testimony of Kim Tony Niehem. In two thousand one, Meeks signed

601
00:44:53.559 --> 00:44:59.880
an affidavit for a defense investigator in
which he acknowledged that the events which took

602
00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:02.440
place on the night of the bombing
may not have happened the way that he

603
00:45:02.519 --> 00:45:07.559
testified as for Finnish Blanketship. At
the time of the trial, he happened

604
00:45:07.559 --> 00:45:13.400
to be facing two counts of indecency
with a child, which was subsequently dropped

605
00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:17.360
in exchange for his testimony. During
the sentencing phase, he eventually admitted that

606
00:45:17.400 --> 00:45:22.639
this story about having heard Tony confessed
to the bombing was a complete lie.

607
00:45:23.159 --> 00:45:30.119
The controversy surrounding Tony's conviction attracted the
attention of the Texas Innocence Network at the

608
00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:35.239
University of Houston, who agreed to
take on his case. While Tony's initial

609
00:45:35.280 --> 00:45:38.239
appeal, as well as his first
state law petition for a writ of habeas

610
00:45:38.239 --> 00:45:44.880
corpus were denied, his second habeas
petition was a lot more successful after his

611
00:45:44.960 --> 00:45:51.320
defense team uncovered evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. You already need more stuff. This

612
00:45:51.360 --> 00:45:54.920
poor guy is sitting there, and
it's person after person after person coming forward

613
00:45:54.920 --> 00:46:00.440
and making up stories that don't fit
the facts, and they keep recane their

614
00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:02.719
stories. They keep saying, Okay, listen, that was a lie.

615
00:46:02.840 --> 00:46:07.960
That was a lie. At some
point it gets the I feel like the

616
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:09.960
prosecutors in so deep that they've already
said, Hey, this is the guy

617
00:46:09.960 --> 00:46:13.639
who did it. We're going with
this story. We've made deals with the

618
00:46:13.639 --> 00:46:16.239
devil multiple times to try to get
him for this case. And so they

619
00:46:16.400 --> 00:46:22.159
almost turned a blind eye to the
case they're pursuing, because again, you

620
00:46:22.199 --> 00:46:25.199
can drop charges and bring them back
later. At this point, I just

621
00:46:25.199 --> 00:46:30.119
feel like they're so set on it
being Michael that they just looked away.

622
00:46:30.199 --> 00:46:34.480
They didn't pay attention to any of
the details. No wonder the Texas Innocence

623
00:46:34.559 --> 00:46:37.599
Network is saying, hey, we're
going to jump home board and help advocate

624
00:46:37.639 --> 00:46:42.639
for this person. Because again,
if you're going to say we're going to

625
00:46:42.679 --> 00:46:46.960
put somebody into a trial where their
life is physically at risk, we're going

626
00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:51.960
to sentence them to death, you
better proved to me one hundred and ten

627
00:46:52.039 --> 00:46:54.239
percent that they did this, I'll
tell y'all. I used to be a

628
00:46:54.360 --> 00:46:59.679
very strong proponent of the deathfenality growing
up, and then as I worked through

629
00:46:59.679 --> 00:47:06.519
mythters in PhD, I became a
massive advocate for people in the courtroom for

630
00:47:06.559 --> 00:47:10.079
our rights to be protected and for
wrongful convictions. We looked at more seriously

631
00:47:10.199 --> 00:47:15.599
both actual innocence cases and cases where
people's rights were taken away from them,

632
00:47:15.679 --> 00:47:22.039
because I've met humans who sat on
death row for years and years and even

633
00:47:22.119 --> 00:47:25.360
had their execution scheduled, and later
we're proven to be innocent. So it's

634
00:47:25.400 --> 00:47:30.280
like, what are we doing this
case? Specifically, you're talking about the

635
00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:32.639
death penalty, not life in prison, not life in prison with the chance

636
00:47:32.639 --> 00:47:37.199
of parole. This is someone's life. And I still have yet to hear

637
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:42.480
anything that I go, I don't
know. I'm I'm ninety nine point nine

638
00:47:42.519 --> 00:47:46.599
percent sure and almost one hundred percent
to sentence this man to death. Yeah.

639
00:47:46.599 --> 00:47:52.360
I think the finnest Blanketship testimony is
particularly despicable because he was not brought

640
00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:54.239
in as a witness at the trial. He was only brought in for the

641
00:47:54.280 --> 00:47:59.719
sentencing phase because I'm sure the prosecution
would realize that, well, this is

642
00:47:59.719 --> 00:48:02.719
a guy who's facing two counts of
indecency with a child. His credibility will

643
00:48:02.760 --> 00:48:06.679
be torn apart on the witness stand
if we try to make him as evidence.

644
00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:09.039
So they put him there for the
express purpose of trying to make Tony

645
00:48:09.119 --> 00:48:13.360
look even worse to the jury so
that they would vote to send him to

646
00:48:13.400 --> 00:48:15.320
death because they figured, well,
it's a weak case, but if we

647
00:48:15.400 --> 00:48:19.760
give them death penalty, someday he'll
be executed and he'll cease to be our

648
00:48:19.800 --> 00:48:22.880
problems. And they're willing to drop
the charges against a guy who is indecent

649
00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:27.840
with children just to get their conviction. So it turned out that the Tarrant

650
00:48:27.880 --> 00:48:34.599
County District Attorney's office had withheld fourteen
documents from the defense containing potentially exculpatory evidence,

651
00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:37.960
as they showcased a number of credibility
issues with the testimony of Kim,

652
00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:44.320
Tony Niham, and Chris Meeks.
The documents suggested that investigators and prosecutors had

653
00:48:44.360 --> 00:48:49.039
fed them both information about the crime
and kept pressuring them to revise their stories

654
00:48:49.119 --> 00:48:53.239
until they fit the prosecution's narrative.
For example, one document showed that Kim

655
00:48:53.280 --> 00:48:58.400
had originally stated that she did not
recall her ex's husband carrying a briefcase on

656
00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:01.760
the night of the bombing, but
after the ATF called in a cognitive interviewing

657
00:49:01.800 --> 00:49:07.079
technique specialists to perform hypnosis on Kim, she suddenly changed her story and remembered

658
00:49:07.079 --> 00:49:12.199
seeing the briefcase. Another key issue, which was not shared with the defense,

659
00:49:12.599 --> 00:49:15.320
is that Kim had been exposed to
toxic chemicals while serving in the military

660
00:49:15.400 --> 00:49:20.599
during the Gulf War, which caused
her to suffer from memory loss and potentially

661
00:49:20.599 --> 00:49:25.719
made her suggestible to remembering events which
never actually happened. These allegations of prosecutorial

662
00:49:25.760 --> 00:49:30.000
misconduct were presented to the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals, and on December the

663
00:49:30.039 --> 00:49:35.079
seventeenth, two thousand and eight,
they ruled that Tony's constitutional rights have been

664
00:49:35.159 --> 00:49:40.360
violated and overturned his conviction. Wow, okay, So now that means that

665
00:49:40.840 --> 00:49:45.119
the Texas courts have the ability to
retry him correct if they have enough evidence

666
00:49:45.119 --> 00:49:49.440
they believe, I can go forward
and do the trial again. Exactly.

667
00:49:49.519 --> 00:49:52.559
Yeah, So they could have said
that if we found new evidence, we

668
00:49:52.559 --> 00:49:57.360
could bring him back to courts,
so he was not officially exonerated. Fascinating,

669
00:49:57.400 --> 00:49:59.760
But I mean, honestly, guys, if you've ever paid attention to

670
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:05.639
any of these wrongful conviction cases.
It takes so much to get a conviction

671
00:50:05.719 --> 00:50:10.000
overturned, like you will see cases
where it is so clear that this person

672
00:50:10.199 --> 00:50:14.519
is actually innocent, right, did
not do the crime, and yet they

673
00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:20.199
raise the antie right, they just
keep raising the cost and say no,

674
00:50:20.800 --> 00:50:22.920
this has to be what happened,
like just to cover their own rear ends

675
00:50:22.960 --> 00:50:28.280
like the Norfolk four is. I
think my favorite example of that when I

676
00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:32.280
teach my students, it's the military
guys in the Navy who were charged with

677
00:50:32.440 --> 00:50:37.679
raping and killing this poor young girl, and they all falsely confessed to it

678
00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:39.719
over and over again. In fact, they get i think seven or eight

679
00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:44.960
individuals involved in this case. They
keep naming someone else because none of their

680
00:50:45.039 --> 00:50:50.039
DNA matches, and by the end
they find out it's an unrelated man who

681
00:50:50.280 --> 00:50:53.800
admits and says that I'm the one
who killed her. And what they do

682
00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:59.000
instead of letting these people go none
of their DNA matches. It's very clear

683
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:00.920
they falsely confess. It's very clear
they've made up these stories that do not

684
00:51:00.960 --> 00:51:05.519
match the physical evidence. And someone
comes forward in his DNA matches and he

685
00:51:05.559 --> 00:51:07.960
did it alone. They said,
oh, they all did it together,

686
00:51:08.320 --> 00:51:13.199
like they just keep uping the story. So the fact that he did get

687
00:51:13.239 --> 00:51:19.199
his conviction overturned with the help of
the Innocence Project here is fascinating because it

688
00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:23.280
usually takes decades, and even then
they will continue to double down, trying

689
00:51:23.320 --> 00:51:29.000
to deny and not allow that to
happen. It's almost like you need to

690
00:51:29.039 --> 00:51:32.599
solve your own crime in order to
get them to pay attention. And even

691
00:51:32.639 --> 00:51:37.320
then they still might not because everyone
wants to cover their own butts and they

692
00:51:37.360 --> 00:51:42.559
want to avoid having to pay any
money which that person would be entitled to

693
00:51:42.639 --> 00:51:47.119
restitution if they are factually innocent.
But that's why I think they often get

694
00:51:47.119 --> 00:51:51.280
them to plead out with Alfred please
and stuff, because it's like, Okay,

695
00:51:51.400 --> 00:51:53.920
we're gonna let you out, which
like you know in the West Memphis

696
00:51:54.039 --> 00:51:57.960
three they did. But it's like, why would you make deals with child

697
00:51:58.039 --> 00:52:01.159
killers if you did indeed believe that
they killed these children. You're only doing

698
00:52:01.199 --> 00:52:06.480
it because you know that you know
they likely did not do this, and

699
00:52:06.760 --> 00:52:09.360
you're trying to kind of cover your
butts and relieve some of the pressure here,

700
00:52:09.559 --> 00:52:15.079
which you don't want them to come
after you for damages and so they

701
00:52:15.159 --> 00:52:19.599
end up kind of getting their way, which just seems so unfair. Exactly.

702
00:52:20.199 --> 00:52:23.280
I mentioned how I recently did a
case about the Austin yogurt shop murders.

703
00:52:23.320 --> 00:52:28.239
That's another one where you had multiple
perpetrators, two of whom had confessed

704
00:52:28.599 --> 00:52:31.039
and then recanted their confessions, and
then they found DNA evidence which did not

705
00:52:31.159 --> 00:52:35.079
match any of the suspects. So
of course they come up with a new

706
00:52:35.159 --> 00:52:37.079
theory that, oh, they must
have had a fifth accomplice we don't know

707
00:52:37.119 --> 00:52:40.960
about, and that's the person who
left their DNA but find So sometimes even

708
00:52:40.960 --> 00:52:45.679
with DNA evidence which exonerates the defendants, they will still try ways to keep

709
00:52:45.719 --> 00:52:50.800
them in jail by any means necessary, don't They call that like the unknown

710
00:52:50.840 --> 00:52:59.559
co conspirator or the unindicted coejaculate.
They said, there's someone else around who

711
00:52:59.639 --> 00:53:01.920
left their even behind, but they're
still guilty. Don't worry. None of

712
00:53:01.960 --> 00:53:05.599
the people in prison though, yeah, not the three to four people in

713
00:53:05.679 --> 00:53:09.760
prison. Just the random one missing
is the one who's actually the ejaculator.

714
00:53:09.800 --> 00:53:15.559
We got it. After his conviction
was overturned, Tony was taken off death

715
00:53:15.639 --> 00:53:21.679
row and transferred to the Tarrant County
Jail. While the Tarrant County District Attorney's

716
00:53:21.679 --> 00:53:25.119
office withdrew from the case and turned
it over to the office of the Attorney

717
00:53:25.159 --> 00:53:30.000
General for the State of Texas.
On September two, two thousand and nine,

718
00:53:30.199 --> 00:53:35.360
after several months of legal wrangling,
the state finally announced that they were

719
00:53:35.440 --> 00:53:40.280
dropping all charges against Tony and he
was finally released from custody. One asked

720
00:53:40.360 --> 00:53:46.039
if the investigation would now pursue other
suspects. A spokesman for the Attorney General

721
00:53:46.119 --> 00:53:52.199
stated, quote, evidence will dictate
the direction in this case and possible suspects

722
00:53:52.719 --> 00:53:57.760
end quote. While in a tragic
PostScript to this story, Michael Roy Tony

723
00:53:58.199 --> 00:54:01.440
would not get to enjoy his new
found freedom for very long. On the

724
00:54:01.480 --> 00:54:07.039
foggy morning of October third, just
one month after his release, Tony was

725
00:54:07.119 --> 00:54:13.840
driving his pickup truck on a remote
road in Cherokee County when he suddenly veered

726
00:54:13.840 --> 00:54:17.880
off the road and the truck overturned. Since Tony was not wearing his seatbelt,

727
00:54:19.119 --> 00:54:22.840
he was ejected from the truck and
wound up losing his life at the

728
00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:25.760
age of forty three. To date, no one has ever been charged with

729
00:54:25.760 --> 00:54:30.760
the murders of Joe Blount Angela Blount, and Michael Columbus. So the truth

730
00:54:30.800 --> 00:54:37.480
about who was actually responsible for the
Blount family bombings remains unknown. So I

731
00:54:37.480 --> 00:54:43.519
guess you could say the path went
chilly. Oh, this case is tragic.

732
00:54:43.599 --> 00:54:45.800
I mean, just the idea that
this man is in prison for how

733
00:54:45.800 --> 00:54:51.039
many years? How many years?
Ten? Ten? Yeah, he's in

734
00:54:51.079 --> 00:54:54.039
prison for ten years on death row, correct, pretty much like he spent

735
00:54:54.079 --> 00:54:57.840
the last year in the county jail, but the majority of it on death

736
00:54:57.960 --> 00:55:00.639
row. My god. And then
they say, listen, clearly you were

737
00:55:00.639 --> 00:55:06.159
not granted your constitutional rights. Clearly
we did not have a beyond a reasonable

738
00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:10.280
doubt case built against you, and
so we're going to drop all charges,

739
00:55:10.320 --> 00:55:16.000
which also is massively huge. And
then this man is out for a short

740
00:55:16.039 --> 00:55:23.199
while and dies in a car accident. So it's pitiful for all reasons,

741
00:55:23.280 --> 00:55:28.199
right, this man who wasn't able
to really live a life with his name

742
00:55:28.360 --> 00:55:31.920
cleared. Even though he had been
released, there was no ability to follow

743
00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:36.360
up and get any more information that
might have helped the family have some kind

744
00:55:36.400 --> 00:55:40.920
of justice for Joe, Angela and
Michael. And so it's frustrating because again,

745
00:55:42.039 --> 00:55:45.800
I in my gut feel like it's
very possible that that briefcase was left

746
00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:51.519
with the intent to hurt somebody,
but it's very possible it was not the

747
00:55:51.519 --> 00:55:55.719
Blount family. It's very possible they
had moved into that area, they were

748
00:55:55.840 --> 00:55:59.920
newer there, and that someone came
back for revenge against someone who used to

749
00:56:00.159 --> 00:56:04.679
live in that trailer, or they
came to maybe get revenge on someone who

750
00:56:04.679 --> 00:56:07.320
lived a door or two down and
they got the wrong place. So I'm

751
00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:12.599
just hurtsick. I want to know
more about what it has been done in

752
00:56:12.639 --> 00:56:17.039
this case. And I know earlier
you were asking after Tony's conviction was overturned,

753
00:56:17.039 --> 00:56:20.639
did they drop the charges completely?
Can they bring him back to trial?

754
00:56:20.760 --> 00:56:23.400
But now they've got a convenient out
because he dies in an accident just

755
00:56:23.440 --> 00:56:27.199
one month after his relief, so
they don't have to make that decision.

756
00:56:27.239 --> 00:56:29.599
They could just say, well,
he was the right guy all along,

757
00:56:29.679 --> 00:56:31.519
but he was killed in this accident, so there's nothing else we can do.

758
00:56:31.800 --> 00:56:36.559
So they now have no motivation to
make finding out what really happened and

759
00:56:36.599 --> 00:56:39.599
who the real perpetrator was. So
I think this would be a good time

760
00:56:39.639 --> 00:56:43.360
to bring an in to part one. But join us next week as we

761
00:56:43.480 --> 00:56:47.320
present part two of our series about
the Blount family bombing Robin. Do you

762
00:56:47.320 --> 00:56:51.760
want to tell us a little bit
about the trailment Cold Patreon? Yes,

763
00:56:51.840 --> 00:56:54.199
The Trail Cold Patreon has been around
for three years now, and we offer

764
00:56:54.280 --> 00:57:00.440
these standard bonus features like early ad
free episodes, and I also send out

765
00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:05.039
stickers and sign thank you cards to
anyone who signs up with us on Patreon.

766
00:57:05.320 --> 00:57:08.679
If you join our five dollar tier
tier two, we also offer monthly

767
00:57:08.760 --> 00:57:14.480
bonus episodes in which I talk about
cases which are not featured on the Trail

768
00:57:14.480 --> 00:57:17.519
Went Cold's original feeds, so they're
exclusive to Patreon and if you join our

769
00:57:17.679 --> 00:57:22.400
highest tier tier three, the ten
dollar tier. One of the features we

770
00:57:22.440 --> 00:57:28.000
offer is a audio commentary track over
classic episodes of Unsaw Mysteries, where you

771
00:57:28.039 --> 00:57:31.920
can download an audio file and then
boot up the original Unsaw Mysteries episode on

772
00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:37.039
Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it
with my audio commentary playing in the background,

773
00:57:37.079 --> 00:57:42.719
where I just provide trivia and factoids
about the cases featured in this episode.

774
00:57:42.800 --> 00:57:45.559
And incidentally, the very first episode
that I did a commentary track over

775
00:57:45.800 --> 00:57:50.840
was the episode featuring this case.
So if you want to download a commentary

776
00:57:50.920 --> 00:57:54.159
track in which I make more smartass
remarks about Jewel kaylor than be sure to

777
00:57:54.239 --> 00:57:58.239
join Tier three. So I want
to let you know a little bit about

778
00:57:58.239 --> 00:58:01.559
the Jewels and Ashley Patreons. There's
early ad free episodes of The Path Went

779
00:58:01.719 --> 00:58:06.480
Chili. We've got our Path Went
Chili minis, which are always over an

780
00:58:06.519 --> 00:58:08.320
hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn

781
00:58:08.360 --> 00:58:13.199
into a series and we're really enjoying
doing those, so we hope you'll check

782
00:58:13.239 --> 00:58:15.840
out those. Patreons will link them
in the show notes. So I want

783
00:58:15.880 --> 00:58:19.760
to thank you all for listening,
and any chance you have to share us

784
00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:22.719
on social media with a friend or
to rate and review is greatly appreciate it.

785
00:58:22.800 --> 00:58:27.039
You can email us at The Path
Went Chili at gmail dot com.

786
00:58:27.119 --> 00:58:30.599
You can reach us on Twitter at
the Pathwin. So until next time,

787
00:58:30.679 --> 00:58:35.000
be sure to bundle up because cold
trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing.

788
00:58:35.199 --> 00:58:37.360
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast
Cold Callers Comedy