Welcome back to the Path went Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
I'm Ashley. Hey Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
about the True Crime Podcast Festival you just attended, And I'm very jealous Jules
and I were not a part of. Oh yes, yeah, I definitely
have to get both of you to one of these festivals at some point because
there are people there who ask about you both this and Crime Con. But
that's another issue. But yeah, for the third time, I attended the
True Crime Podcast Festival just a few days before we recorded this. I went
to the first one in Chicago in twenty nineteen, I went to one in
Dallas last year, and this year it was held in Austin, Texas.
It is like crime Con, only it's more smaller scale and focused exclusively on
podcasters, where no matter who you are, if you apply, then you'll
be able to attend and get your own booth where you can greet listeners,
hang out with them, and you can also see a bunch of cool live
sessions with not just podcasters, but for victims, advocates and family members.
I know that Moura Murray's sister Julie was there for the second straight year and
gave a very interesting session. But I also did one with Gary from the
Truck Stop Murder. We talked about the topic of human trafficking at truck stops
because he's a truck driver, and I also talked about and identified serial killer
named Doctor No who was believed to have murdered a number of sex workers at
truck stops during the early late eighties and early nineties in Ohio. And also
did a lot of other fun things while I was there. I went to
see the original house where the Texas chainsaw massacre took place. It's been turned
into a restaurant slash tourist distraction, so I had lunch there, which was
very fun. I also went on a Haunted Hurst tour through Austin and saw
a bunch of haunted locations and I even went to the spot of the Austin
yogurt Shop murders, which is a case I covered in a two part series
on the trail went called Recently and it took place at a strip mall which
was only four miles away from the hotel, so I got to see the
location where the murders took place. And there's also a memorial plaque for the
four victims right there in the parking lot, so it was a pretty haunting
place to visit. Well, it sounds like you had a really good time,
and I'm super jealous that you got to meet all of these people in
person, and I'm also jealous that they got to meet you in person.
Yeah, that's the thing. We at the time of this recording, we
have still not officially met each other in person. So I'll have to get
you two to one of these get togethers so that you can meet everyone else
that you know, because there are whole bunch of great podcasters there. But
finally meet me for the first time, that's so crazy. I'm going to
give you a massive hug when I get there, and then watch your very
uncomfortable face because as we all know, I'm very shy and you're very outgoing,
so it's gonna be great. It's not the only big bear hug that
I've gotten from people who feel awkward about it at these events, so not
alone. Well with that, let's dive right into this week's case. November
twenty eight, nineteen eighty five, Tarrant County, Texas, the family of
forty four year old Joe Blount gathers together for Thanksgiving dinner in their trailer at
the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. After making a trip to a convenience store later
that night, they return home to discover a briefcase on their front doorstep.
When the briefcase is opened, a bomb goes off, claiming the lives of
Joe, his fifteen year old daughter Angela, and Joe's eighteen year old nephew,
Michael Columbus. Fourteen years later, a suspect named Michael roy Tony is
convicted of the bombing and sentenced to death, but it turns out the prosecution
withheld evidence supporting Tony's innocence at trial. As a result, Tony's conviction is
overturned and he is released from prison in two thousand nine. So no one
knows who actually committed the Blount family bombing. After that, the path went
chilly. So we've got a pretty unique unsolved mystery to cover today, the
Blount Family bombing. I originally covered this on the Trail Went Cold right before
American Thanksgiving in twenty twenty after coming to the realization that I had never done
a Thanksgiving themed cold case on this podcast. That's probably because we celebrate Thanksgiving
one month earlier here in Jules and I's home country of Canada. But that's
beside the point. The last article I ever published for list first dot com
back in twenty sixteen was titled ten Unsolved Thanksgiving Mysteries, and since I included
this case on that list, I thought it would be an interesting one to
cover. This is the tragic story of a family called the Blounts, who
got together for Thanksgiving dinner in nineteen eighty five before someone left a briefcase on
their front porch, which turned out to be a bomb. When it went
off, it claimed the lives of the family's patriarch, Joe Blount, as
well as his fourteen year old daughter and eighteen year old nephew. Since the
Blounts were just an average working class family who didn't seem to have any enemies,
the crime left everyone baffled and the respeculation that the bomb may have been
intended for someone else. It would be over fourteen years before a suspect named
Michael roy Tony was charged and senced to death for the murders, but since
his trial was fraught with prosecutorial misconduct, Tony's conviction would be overturned and he
was released from prison. So unfortunately, this meant the investigation went right back
to square one, which is why I thought it would be worth revisiting here.
Okay, so many things are frustrated about this case, but I've got
to start with the suspect, Michael Tony. So you said that he was
not only found guilty, but he was sentenced to death. Is it a
actual innocence wrongful conviction or were his rights violated? Both are incredibly awful,
But were his rights violated to a point where they had to overturn the conviction?
Like do you believe the elements that started to point towards him not being
the correct suspect? It was more, he wasn't actually proven innocent, Like
his conviction was overturned because of civil rights violation. And this isn't actually like
a case with DNA or anything to conclusively prove that he did not do it.
But I'm sure as we go along you'll find that the case against him
was very problematic. Okay, So both are wrong. Please don't get me,
don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Both are horribly wrong. We do have
a right to have a defense and all evidence presented in trial. What's really
hard is that both come with such huge consequences when you're actually wrongfully convicted and
proven to be innocent who has been in prison all that time, And in
cases like this, there's a huge question mark. Someone's rights were violated,
and you still have the deceased individuals who were murdered, and now there's really
a huge hindrance on any chance of justice because did you get it wrong and
sentence the wrong person or did you get it right. And because someone decided
not to be professional and do what's correct and ethical, someone actually walked out
as a killer. So it's really upsetting, and this case in general,
it is just horrific. You have a fourteen year old and an eighteen year
old and the family patriarch who's murdered. In this case, our story begins
in Tarren County, Texas on Thanksgiving Day in nineteen eighty five, and one
of our victims is forty four year old Joe Blount, who lives with his
wife, Susan Blount, and their two children, fifteen year old Angela and
thirteen year old Robert. The couple have been married for eighteen years and in
July of that year, they decided to make the move to Texas from Seattle,
Washington in order to help care for Joe's elderly father after he suffered a
stroke in September. The family moved into a rented trailer on lot number eight
of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park, located on the Jacksboro Highway between the towns
of Lakeworth and Azel. Joe works as a mechanic, and while he was
only able to secure a few temporary gigs after the move to Texas, he
has recently been offered a steady, full time position at a new auto transmission
shop, which is scheduled to open the Monday after Thanksgiving. In the meantime,
the Blounts would hold Thanksgiving dinner at their trailer on November twenty eighth,
and be joined by Joe's brother, Carl Ray Blount, who goes by the
name Ray. Also attending would be Ray's eighteen year old son, Michael Columbus,
who had lived with his mother in Seattle and was now attending school in
Oklahoma. Michael had been estranged from his father for years, but in an
attempt to rekindle their relationship, Ray convinced his son to travel to Texas to
spend Thanksgiving with him. After they finished dinner, Ray left at around five
pm, but Michael would remain at the trailer to spend the evening with his
cousins. At approximately nine o'clock, while Susan was taking a nap in the
master bedroom, Joe decided to drive Robert, Angela, and Michael to a
nearby convenience store in order to pick up some beer and snacks. They returned
about twenty minutes later, who were surprise to discover that a briefcase was now
on their doorstep. When they took the briefcase inside the trailer, Angela decided
to open it, but once she flipped the latches, there was a sudden
explosion. Susan was awakened by the noise and instantly ran out of the bedroom,
where she discovered that the living room was on fire. Susan immediately ran
out of the back door while her neighbors called for help and started gathering around
the trailer. By this point, the flames were so strong that no one
was able to enter the trailer just save the rest of the family, until
the fire department arrived. Unbelievable, so who that actually was deceased didn't even
live there. Oh, we don't know that. I mean, it's kind
of a thing where it's been speculated that the person that they were targeting did
not live at that trailer, that it was a case of mistaken identity,
but this has never been conclusively proven. So for all we know, maybe
someone did have a vendetta against the Blounts. Wow. So the people though,
like Robert and Angela and Michael, who's actually living in that place,
Oh, they're living there. They've only been there like for a couple of
weeks. They're fairly new to the area. But that is their trailer.
Michael Columbus doesn't live there, he's just visiting his father, Okay, okay,
And everybody else lives in that residence. Yes, Joe and his wife
and his two children. Okay. So this is insane because really they go
out and they return twenty minutes later, and that's when that briefcase is there.
So it's a very short time framed that somebody, it sounds like,
was watching the house of when to place the briefcase there. Yeah, exactly.
But what is strange though, is that they knocked on the door,
and if Susan had answered it and opened the briefcase herself. Then Joe,
Angela and Michael would have been spared. So it makes you wonder did they
actually see these people leave the trailer or was it just blind luck that they
happened to leave the briefcase there while they were out. I really feel for
Ray. In this scenario, Ray has been a strange from his son.
He convinces his son to come and visit him for Thanksgiving. Then Ray leaves
the trailer. So Ray is safe, but he leaves his son behind to
visit with his cousins, and in doing so, Michael Columbus is also present
for this bombing. Like, I can't imagine the amount of guilt that poor
Ray felt after this happened, especially since he was trying to rekindle their relationship,
Like they've been a strange for a while and apparently things were going good
between them and then it just all ends because of this bomb. It's so
sad. Do you guys think that Ray was ever a suspect of McCay's.
We mentioned that later they did look into him and they found no reason to
believe that he was a suspect. I mean, it does look convenient that
he happened to leave a few hours beforehand, But it sounds like he's been
eliminated by law enforcement. Especially if he'd put all this time and energy into
rekindling this relationship with his son, what would be his motivation to annihilate him
along with the rest of his family members. It just seems like, unless
there was some kind of money motivation, why would he ever do that.
So Susan was put into an ambulance and received medical attention, and it turned
out that the force of the blast had blown Robert through the trailer's front door.
He now had first and second to reburns, and his clothes and shoes
were melted into his skin, but Robert was still alive, so he was
immediately rushed to the hospital. While he ultimately survived, Robert would be forced
undergo two skin graft operate which left scars all over his body. Unfortunately,
once the flames were put out, the bodies of Joe, Angela, and
Michael were discovered inside the trailer. They were burned beyond recognition and had been
killed instantly by the explosion. It turned out that the latches on the briefcase
had been attached to a pair of mouse traps, which triggered a homemade bomb
when the case was opened. The bomb consisted of a glass container filled with
gasoline, two galvanized metal pipes filled with smokeless gunpowder, a model rocket motor,
and an nine volt battery. Susan claimed that during the twenty minute window,
when the rest of the family was at the convenience store, she was
awoken from her nap by a knock at the front door, but after taking
a brief look outside the window and not seeing anyone, she went back to
sleep in the bedroom. Since Susan managed to escape the trailer unharmed, investigators
started looking into her as a possible suspect, but she had no discernible motive
to commit the crime. While Susan had taken out life insurance policies on both
her husband and daughter, they were only worth two thousand dollars and one thousand
dollars respectively, and would not have even covered the costs of their burials.
After she passed a polygraph, Susan was ruled out as a suspect and moved
into an apartment with Robert, though they eventually moved back to Seattle. Investigators
also looked into Joe's brother Ray, who had left the trail or hours before
the bombing took place, but there was nothing to suggest he was involved.
That's the sad part of cases like this is that you do have to start
at the center of the family and start saying, Okay, who was there,
who's related who knew these individuals because usually were hurt by people that we
know and specifically are related to our friends, with, our coworkers with and
so it's not uncommon to really focus on those closest to the case. And
these are the people who were in the midst of their own grieving, who
actually have their own survivor's guilt, that are sitting there going it could have
been me, maybe it should have been me, And so poor Ray and
Susan. I feel really sad for them that they're not only trying to help
the police, but they're also trying to say, like, gosh, if
you only knew how horrific this situation was, Like I'll do anything to help
you, but we had nothing to do with it. I imagine Susan goes
to sleep, she has this nap in the master bedroom or in the primary
bedroom, and in doing so, she wakes up when she hears this explosion,
and when she wakes up, nothing will ever be the same. Her
husband is deceased and her daughter, like, I can't even imagine how that
would feel. And then also Michael Columbus, who is the cousin or the
son of Ray, who is Joe's brother, So I can't even imagine how
that would feel. And I can only imagine the survivor's guilt that would go
along with that. Yeah, I can understand looking at Susan as a potential
suspect since she wound up surviving, But the big point in her innocence is
the fact that she was still inside the trailer when the bomb went off.
So it's a huge risk she could have been killed too. And you have
to assume that if she was the one who set this bomb, that she
would have made sure that she was far away from the trailer when it went
off, and she would have got life insurance that exceeded two thousand and one
thousand dollars, like, not even enough to have a funeral and to support
a burial. That isn't somebody who unless you know she'd been wronged by her
husband. We could come up with scenarios where that could be feasible as an
explanation if say, he cheated or he was abusive, but not your daughter,
and not putting everybody else at risk as well during or in the process,
it just doesn't make any sense. The crime left everyone baffled, as
the Blounts did not seem to have any known enemies or involvement in criminal activity.
However, since there were other residents of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park who
did have ties to criminal activity, the authorities began speculating that the bomb may
have been left at the wrong trailer. One of these residents was Tim Tortella,
who lived in the mobile home behind the Blount residence and was there watching
television when the bomb went off. Even though Tortella was a jeweler by trade,
he was known to be involved in other illegal activities, which included operating
a methamphetamine business from his trailer and selling automatic weapons to drug dealers Skywards a
lot of Halts. Another resident to the park who was known for selling methamphetamine
from his trailer was Darren Irvin, who lived on Lot number two, six
spaces away from the Blount residence. In fact, on the afternoon of the
bombing, Irvin had a fight with his wife and left the trailer park,
but when questioned about the crime, Irvin passed to polygraph and investigators were unable
to find anything to suggest that either he or Tortella were linked to the bombing.
Another interesting development would take place in March of nineteen eighty six, when
a man named Douglas Raymond Brown was arrested for selling an explosive device to an
undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms aka the ATF.
Brown lived in Azel and owned a company that manufactured business machinery, but was
being investigated by the ATF because he was reportedly using his business as a front
to sell drugs and automatic weapons, even though the undercover agent had not specifically
requested this. The explosive device Brown provided to him was in the form of
a briefcase and very similar to the bomb which was left at the Blount residence.
While Brown ultimately wound up receiving a four year prison sentence for selling the
device, the authorities could not find anything to link him to the Blount bombing
and seemed to chalk the whole thing up to a bizarre coincidence. Okay,
so this whole mobile home park seems to be filled with characters who are into
questionable behaviors right there, Manu factoring drugs or selling drugs. What extent do
you think that that bomb was placed on the front doorstep and they had the
wrong mobile home, Like I've seen incredible cases where people go to great links
over a very small amount of drugs or drug money or being on the wrong
turf. Is it possible that this is not actually even meant for the Blount
family whatsoever? I think there's a decent chance of that because the Blounts had
not been there all that long, and they'd only been there for a few
months since they were originally from Washington State, And I can't imagine what they
could have done during that short amount of time that would merit someone placing a
bomb on their doorstep to kill them in such an intricate fashion. So I
definitely do think it is possible because there were so many criminals living in that
trailer park that someone just left it at the wrong place. But even though
like Tortella and Urban were involved in illegal activity, it's not like they were
Heisenberg or Walter White for breaking batter or anything like high profile criminals so it
just makes you wonder, like a briefcase bomb is such an intricate way to
kill someone that what could anybody from that park have done to prompt someone to
try and murder them in that fashion. I like how it's like this kind
of small criminal ecosystem that reminds me of like a small town where somebody is,
you know, the mayor, but they're also a hairdresser and they're also
the county coroner. We've got Tortella who's a jeweler, but he also has
a methambetamine business, and he also sells automatic weapons to drug dealers, and
he's not the only one. It's like, these are very enterprising individuals.
I gotta give it to Joe. He was getting a legitimate job as a
mechanic, so he made even the only one living there who wasn't involved in
neth and selling weapons. Is there like a lot of people buying automatic weapons
in this area. Yeah, it's quite a rural area of Texas. It's
not known for being like a high crime area, So that is kind of
crazy just how frequently this stuff seems to be going on, so believe it
or not, Investigators considered the most promising suspect to be a fifteen year old
named Mikey Huff, who was known for being a violent drug user and had
a history of criminal offenses such as burglary. Mikey first popped up on the
radar when the ATF received some anonymous calls alleging that he had bragged about setting
off a bomb. Mikey's stepfather also claimed to have found pieces of a bomb
in Mikey's bedroom, and that a pair of Victor brand mousetraps the same brand
of mousetraps which were attached to the briefcases latches and used to trigger the bomb,
had gone missing from their home. It was rumored that Mikey had made
advances towards Angela and became angry when she rejected him, which could have given
Mikey a potential motive to leave a bomb at her trailer, but once again
the authorities could not find anything to conclusively link him to the crime. The
investigation remained at a standstill for a decade, but would received new life after
the infamous Oklahoma City terrorists bombing in April of nineteen ninety five. The attack
compelled the ATF to assemble a new task force to investigate domestic bombings which were
still unsolved, so the Blount case was reopened. A grand jury investigation would
be launched in order to take a fresh look at Mikey Huff, who was
now married and had children, but they never indicted him. So now we
have two people that are really linked to bomb making in this small area too,
Like what kind of places are we living in here? Yeah? I
mean I can see like a fifteen year old getting angry enough that a girl
rejected him that he would inflict violence upon or as revenge, but doing so
by building a briefcase bomb scenes a bit sophisticated for a fifteen year old.
Incredibly, Then there was the other man that they confronted two I was Darren
Evan. No, Douglas Raymond Brown. Yeah, Douglas Raymond Brown. He's
also sitting there making these intricate suitcase bombs. So I don't know, this
is just not the way I would first think to get back at somebody.
And I would think that Mikey at the age of fifteen, he's this violent
drug user, does he have the clarity to be able to figure out how
to formulate this bomb? Like, we're not looking at a time frame where
there was the advent of the internet. Now, any Tom Dick or Harry
can stumble across instructions on how to put together a myriad of bombs. But
back then, to be able to figure that out someone who seems to be
really emotionally unstable, which could lend itself to the fact that he might not
take rejection well, But like, wouldn't you just pick up a gun and
shoot somebody To actually put a bomb on somebody's front door, it seems like
you're sending a message, like a broad message, not just like, hey,
this girl rejected me and so I'm going to place a bomb there,
but like the message would be lost. Do you know what I mean?
Oh, exactly, because nobody would suspect like a fifteen year old to do
something like that, and they hadn't even known Angela for that long, So
it just seems kind of weird that she would be he would feel so like
in rage that she turned him down, that he would not only try to
kill her, but potentially wipe out her entire family. And I do agree
with your point. I don't know how a fifteen year old in nineteen eighty
five is going to find the instructions about how to properly put together a suitcase
bomb in the pre internet era of nineteen eighty five. And just by the
way he's described, he sounds like a bit of a douche. So I'm
sure that he's been rejected by many women in the past. I'm sure that
Angela was not the first woman to reject him. So I think to have
this escalation to a point where somebody would potentially leave a bomb on her trailer
right at Thanksgiving, that seems like you wouldn't just start there. You would
have escalated with behavior where if a woman rejected you, you would behave violently.
And do we know anything about that with Mikey Haff Has he ever done
that in the past? Your knowledge, not that I've heard. And as
time goes on, it comes out that maybe Mikey was a guy who liked
to make himself look like more of a tougher, more violent criminal than he
really was. So it seemed like a facade where he had a history of
probabling behavior, but he maybe was just too much of a cow or to
ever go through with killing anyone. The case would take an unexpected turn in
August of nineteen ninety seven, when the Parker County Sheriff's Office in the town
of Weatherford was contacted by a man named Charles Ferris. At the time,
Ferris was incarcerated in the Parker County jail for driving without a valid license and
cross paths with a thirty one year old inmate named Michael roy Tony. According
to Ferris, they started a conversation about the Blount family bombing when Tony suddenly
confessed that he was responsible for the crime. Tony was a career criminal who
had multiple felony convictions on his record and was in the county jail awaiting a
hearing on a burglary charge. Tony originally hailed from California, but when investigators
looked into his history, they discovered that he was living in Tarrant County in
November of nineteen eighty five when the bombing took place. At the time,
Michael had recently started dating his future wife, Kim Tony Kim Tony Niehem,
whom he married in March of nineteen eighty six. The couple wound up divorcing
three years later, but investigators decided to track Kim down and question her about
her ex husband's alleged confession. At first, Kim completely rejected the idea of
Michael being responsible for the bombing, but after doing her own independent research into
the case, she contacted the authorities again and shared a brand new story.
Not only did Kim suspect that Michael committed the crime, but she now believes
she might have been present when he planted the bomb. According to Kim,
in nineteen eighty five, she spent Thanksgiving Day hanging out with Michael and his
best friend, Chris Meeks. They all went out together and michael Chevrolet Silverado
pickup truck before he stopped at a propane shop located on the Jacksboro Highway next
to the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. Kim claimed that she saw Michael climb out
of the truck with a briefcase in his hand before he walked away, but
when he returned a few minutes later, Michael was no longer carrying it.
They then left the area and drove to the nearby Fort Worth Nature Center and
refuge should go fishing. Kim maintained that she never heard an explosion and had
no idea a bomblin off that night until she started digging into old newspaper articles
about the case and realized that Michael had stopped at the same trailer park.
Kim's story finally gave investigators the evidence they needed to make an arrest, so
on December fourth, Michael was indicted on three counts of capital murder. Okay,
so her case sounds incredibly convincing, but I also am starting. I
mean, she's starting the story after breaking up or getting a divorce from this
man, and clearly he's had a little bit of trouble in his past too.
So were the police at first skeptical of her story because to me,
you have an ex wife who all of a sudden has a recollection that she
might remember Michael getting out with this suitcase and not coming back, and her
story is very scary, right to think. Okay, wait, looking back,
I might have been president of my husband our ex husband placed this suitcase
on the trailer park doorstep, but it's also her ex husband. So part
of me I always start those kind of relations, was like, Okay,
how much did she learn from the police and how much did she bring to
the police without information. Well, the thing that's unique about this is that
you're right to be skeptical about her because she is his ex wife. But
she started off by saying, Nope, there's no way Michael would have ever
done something like that. I do not believe it. And she only came
back to them after reading through newspaper articles and realizing, oh my god,
I might have been at this trailer park. I think Michael did it.
So I can see why they wouldn't be a skeptical since she tried to deny
the possibility that he did it at first before changing her mind. But as
we go along, you're going to find out that there are a lot of
issues with this story she provided, even though it sounds convincing on the surface,
but when we have eyewitness testimony, first she's saying no. Her first
instinct is no, and then she jumps to yes. And then we've got
to wonder is she like internalizing and conflating these details that she's reading in this
article and kind of taking it on as her story, whether she's aware of
it or not. I think that we've seen in far too many cases people
are very sure of what they've seen, especially when it's going back years and
you're like, why do you have this crystal clear memory right now? What
was so important, like how many times have you stopped on a random day
it could be on a holiday or not, and you're not going to remember
little details like oh, yeah, he had a briefcase and then he put
it down and he came back and he didn't have a briefcase. It just
sounds entirely too specific and like she's too sure of it for them to be
able to get an arrest sworn or an indictment on you know, capital murder.
That sounds like you're taking a lot from one person here. And also,
even if she's being genuine and she does, after reading newspaper articles come
up with this information, how much of that is information that then is transferred
into her memory saying like, oh god, I remember that one time,
Like I swear if I read a newspaper article that rebel I don't know,
did something, I'd be like, there was one time that something close to
that did happen and we were at that one lumber shop, you know.
And it's like how much of that kind of convolutes your actual memory and you're
not drawing from similar instances. I mean, a briefcase on somebody's doorstep is
bizarre, but could it be where her memory is actually altered by observing that
with the lens of saying could he have done this and then going, oh
my god, yes he did. Like, can't your brain convince itself that
you actually picked up on some of the things you saw in the newspaper?
And that's what I was thinking. It's conflating the details that she's read in
the newspaper as her actual memories. And they've done multiple different studies where participants
have been shown this picture where say they photoshop them in being on a hot
air balloon with their family, but they've never actually been on a hot air
balloon with their family. But then when they go back and they ask questions,
this person then is pulling these memories and talking about it as if they
were there. So I don't think that our memory is nearly as hard and
fast as we like to believe that it is. It's incredibly malleable and so
easily influenced by outside events or things that we read or what people tell us.
So the case would be prosecuted by the Tarrant County District Attorney's office,
But before Tony's trial began, they hit a major snag when Charles Ferris,
the man who implicated Tony in the first place suddenly changed his story and claimed
that the whole confession was a scam. It turned out that Tony had a
reputation for being a quote unquote jail house lawyer who would cox schemes to help
his fellow inmates get out of jail. As an example, there was one
prior incident in which Tony convinced an inmate to fake a suicide attempt by hanging
himself in order to secure his release. Ferris now said that after they struck
up a conversation about the Blount bombing, Tony proposed a scheme in which Ferris
could approach the authorities and feed them a false story about Tony confessing to the
crime in exchange for an early release from jail. Tony was apparently under the
impression that he had been in jail for another crime on the night of the
bombing, so he figured that the investigation would immediately eliminate him as a suspect.
However, it turned out that Tony was mistaken about the date and was
not actually incarcerated when the bombing took place, so this strategy wound up backfiring
on him in a huge way, Tony maintained that he never actually heard about
the bombing until a short time before his conversation with Ferris. He claimed that
he first learned about the case from another inmate named Benny Joe Toole, who
had once been a friend of Mikey Huff and even looked at as a potential
suspect at one point before he was ruled out. Indeed, Tool would testify
as a witness for the defense, corroborating Tony's story that he told him about
the bombing. Well, even though Charles Ferris recanted his story, it would
not appear as a witness for the prosecution at Tony's trial, it would still
go ahead as planned in May of nineteen ninety nine. Oh goodness, yeah,
right there, you're already having issues. We know the jailhouse snitches and
jailhouse informants and people who are used by the police to be placed into certain
jail cells and to communicate with suspects. We know that they have incredible problems
being part of a case. And here, not only do you have the
person who's saying that they heard the confession and they got the confession, but
do you even have other inmates saying like, yeah, I was there.
I was there when this guy was told about the bombing. We weren't involved
in that at all, and I really think that he was shocked when he
learned the details. And then all of a sudden, he isn't going to
testify that person who's supporting the defendant here, So you have that, and
then you also have this guy who's coming forward with the information also not testifying.
Correct he's recanting what he was told exactly. So that's not even really
a strong case because they only have the testimony from Tony's ex wife and his
best friend. And now this person who heard him confess is saying, Nope,
this was just a scam. He told me to say this. So
as they're going to trial, you realize that really isn't much in the way
of evidence at all. No, So you have the friend who's vouching for
him who won't testify. You have the man who says that he got a
confession in jail. He's not testifying, he's recanting what he said. And
then the poor ex wife like either vindictively, which I don't necessarily think is
a case, or because her memories altered, she's going to be the only
story that they actually have to go forward with. There's another one from his
former friend Chris Meeks, who was supposedly with him on the night of the
bombing, that, as we're going to find out, Chris Meeks is not
a reliable witness either. Oh my lord, we'll bring it on. This
sounds about as weak as I don't know, a house built on sand.
Let's go. Since there was no physical evidence against Tony, the state's entire
case would hinge on the testimony of his ex wife Kim and Tony's former best
friend Chris Meeks. The two men had not seen each other since the spring
of nineteen eighty six. The Meeks backed up Kim's story, claiming that he
was with Michael in his pickup truck when they stopped at the propane shop and
Michael carried a briefcase into the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. Meeks also testified that
a few days prior to the bombing, Tony had opened up the briefcase in
his presence and showed him the bomb inside. Tony apparently told him that he
needed to blow something up, and Meeks would even describe the colors of the
bomb's wires. In addition, When Tony returned to the truck without the briefcase
in his hand, he allegedly told Meeks that he had fulfilled the contract.
However, Tony claimed that the testimony from both Meeks and his ex wife was
completely false. He continued to maintain that he'd never been to the Hilltop Mobile
home Park or even heard about the bombing until Benny Joe Toole told him about
it in nineteen ninety seven. Tony's alibi for Thanksgiving Night in nineteen eighty five
was that he visited Meeks at his home in the town of Keller, where
three other witnesses, including Meeks's mother, stepfather, and girlfriend, were present.
Afterward, Tony said that he met up with Kim at her apartment,
which was located about twenty five miles away from the trailer park. Tony also
debunked the claim that he'd been driving a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, claiming that
he did not even purchase this truck until December thirteenth, two weeks after the
bombing occurred. While the defense was unable to turn up any official documentation to
verify this, they did turn up some other paperwork which poked holes in the
proseguian scenario. Kim specifically said that she saw Michael take the briefcase out from
underneath the toolbox in his truck, but documentations showed that this toolbox was purchased
as a birthday present for Michael one month later, on December twenty ninth.
Kim also testified that when they traveled to the Worth Nature Center and Refuge that
night, she saw Michael shoot a beaver with a twenty two caliber Rugal model
rifle, but atf Gun Register records showed that he did not purchase this rifle
until December nineteenth. Furthermore, records from the National Weather Service showed that the
temperatures on the evening of November twenty eight was between thirty and forty degrees fahrenheit,
making it the coldest date of the month that year and a very unusual
night to go fishing at the nature center. So this is insane. Whether
Michael did it or not, you have not Michael, so sorry, no,
it is Michael. Yeah that's his name. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,
then I got Chris. I saw Chris, and I panicked. Okay,
Okay. Whether or not Michael is guilty of this or not, the
fact that you're telling me we're going to trial for capital murder against this individual
with a story that at this point Kim's the only one telling, right,
and we know that there's holes in this story. He has an alibi where
he was spending time with his family, three family members. Now, again,
when you have a murder case and someone has an alibi that they're with
family members, the truth is, your family is most likely to know where
you were. They're most likely going to be the people who truly do know
what you were doing that night or that afternoon. But they're also the most
suspicious and the ones that we say, oh, well, they would cover
anyway for this person, right, They're they're family, they're protecting them.
So it's almost like when families your alibi witness, you're in big trouble.
And then added an next wife who is either purposefully or just misconstruming facts that
she's read and placing them into this day with Michael, that's all we have.
How did they get to this place where not only are we going for
a murder charge, they're going for capital murder with the risk of the death
penalty. How I mean, we were talking about Kim's unreliable memory and how
she could have read these newspaper articles and had something like confirmation bias. I
mean, I do believe parts of her story are probably accurate. That one
time she went out with Michael and Chris to this nature center and shot a
Biber and they went into Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. But that's a memory of
a completely unrelated incident that she probably they probably did like maybe a month or
two after the bombing took place. But she's looking back and her memory is
playing tricks on her and thinking, oh my god, I think this happened
the same night of the crime, and that my husband did it. And
it's just very unreliable testimony. And I do commend Michael's defense team because they
really did their homework and their due diligence in order to poke holes in her
story. So the defense attempted to direct suspicion towards Mikey Huff, who was
called upon to testify at the trial and denied any involvement in the crime,
though he did admit that he had once built a bomb during his youth,
While other witnesses testified about having heard Mikey Bragg about being responsible for the bombing
during the nineteen eighties. He claimed this wasn't true. However, Mikey did
concede that he enjoyed the attention he received during this time period because it enhanced
his reputation as a quote unquote tough guy. He testified, quote it was
a thing with me. I never alluded to being a tough guy. I
just let people believe end quote. Unfortunately for Michael Ray Tony, he was
not painted in a very flattering light during his trial, as the prosecution brought
up previous criminal convictions and a history of drug usage, and his ex wife
and some other former girlfriends testified that he was abusive towards them. In the
end, the jury ultimately believed the prosecution's version of events, and after deliberating
only four hours, they found Tony guilty on all three counts of capital murder.
During the sensing phase, the state suddenly produced a new eye witness named
Finnis Blanketship, a career criminal who had been a cellmate of Tony's while he
was in jail awaiting trial. According to Blanketship, Tony had confessed to him
that he was paid five thousand dollars to commit a drug related murder with a
briefcase bomb, but he wound up leaving the bomb on the doorstep of the
wrong trailer. The jury subsequently voted to sentence Tony to death for his crimes,
and he would be sent to death row at the Alan B. Polunsky
unit in West Livingstone. That's insane, Okay, So again the only person
coming forward is the ex wife and this career criminal. Again, Michael might
be involved in this. I'm not saying he's innocent. I'm saying the case
is incredibly weak. When we're talking about someone's life and actually ending their life
via the death penalty. It's interesting here because the idea that he's a bad
spouse, he's a bad friend, he has poor moral decisions, right,
he's a criminal, doesn't make him a murderer. Those are very very different
things, and so I always find it very interesting when people are like,
let's go and talk about his character. There's a lot of bad people where
are around them every day. There's a lot of people I wouldn't want my
poor dog to be left with, you know. But I don't think that
automatically comes into play when you're saying did they kill people or not. It's
like abusive husband doesn't mean murder of strangers or a pipe bomb, you know,
I think that's I don't know, I just think that's a big stretch.
And it seems like they just attacked his character and he wasn't worthy of
really digging much deeper according to the people who were judging him. Yeah,
I think it really influenced the jury, because it does seem surprising that they
would only deliberate for four hours because it was a pretty weak case and they're
sensing him to three counts of murder for which he could receive the death penalty.
So I have a feeling they probably heard all this testimony about his abusive
relationship ships in his criminal history and just thought, well, he sounds like
a bad guy. He probably committed these murders, even though there really isn't
much evidence placing him at the scene. And do either of you think that
it's strange that when Meeks was describing what he had done that he had said
like that, Tony had said, Okay, well yeah, I really want
to blow something up with regards to the bomb, and then later he said,
oh, I fulfilled that contract. Those are two very different things.
Whether you're saying Okay, I'm just building a bomb because like I'm impulsive and
I really just want to commit like a faithless murder or whatever. And then
the second one implies that somebody hired you to do so they seem to be
two different stories. Yeah, that is true that the first time he just
sounds like he did it as like a thrill, and the second time he
did it because someone hired him. And also makes me wonder why did the
authorities, if this was true, try to find out who hired Tony two
plant this bomb, because that means there's a murderer still out there, but
you don't seem all that concerned with finding out who it is. Well over
the next few years, Tony's defense team would find serious issues in the testimony
from Chris Meeks and Finished Blankinship. Meeks was known for being a heavy drinker
who would sometimes drink between eighteen to twenty four cans of beer per day,
and when originally questioned by investigators, he claimed to have no knowledge of the
bombing or any memory at all a Thanksgiving Day in nineteen eighty five. Even
though Meeks ultimately changed his story after further questioning, it turned out that he
failed a polygraph prior to the trial, and his testimony on the witness stand
proved to be shaky, as he even provided a few details which seemed to
contradict the testimony of Kim Tony Niehem. In two thousand one, Meeks signed
an affidavit for a defense investigator in which he acknowledged that the events which took
place on the night of the bombing may not have happened the way that he
testified as for Finnish Blanketship. At the time of the trial, he happened
to be facing two counts of indecency with a child, which was subsequently dropped
in exchange for his testimony. During the sentencing phase, he eventually admitted that
this story about having heard Tony confessed to the bombing was a complete lie.
The controversy surrounding Tony's conviction attracted the attention of the Texas Innocence Network at the
University of Houston, who agreed to take on his case. While Tony's initial
appeal, as well as his first state law petition for a writ of habeas
corpus were denied, his second habeas petition was a lot more successful after his
defense team uncovered evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. You already need more stuff. This
poor guy is sitting there, and it's person after person after person coming forward
and making up stories that don't fit the facts, and they keep recane their
stories. They keep saying, Okay, listen, that was a lie.
That was a lie. At some point it gets the I feel like the
prosecutors in so deep that they've already said, Hey, this is the guy
who did it. We're going with this story. We've made deals with the
devil multiple times to try to get him for this case. And so they
almost turned a blind eye to the case they're pursuing, because again, you
can drop charges and bring them back later. At this point, I just
feel like they're so set on it being Michael that they just looked away.
They didn't pay attention to any of the details. No wonder the Texas Innocence
Network is saying, hey, we're going to jump home board and help advocate
for this person. Because again, if you're going to say we're going to
put somebody into a trial where their life is physically at risk, we're going
to sentence them to death, you better proved to me one hundred and ten
percent that they did this, I'll tell y'all. I used to be a
very strong proponent of the deathfenality growing up, and then as I worked through
mythters in PhD, I became a massive advocate for people in the courtroom for
our rights to be protected and for wrongful convictions. We looked at more seriously
both actual innocence cases and cases where people's rights were taken away from them,
because I've met humans who sat on death row for years and years and even
had their execution scheduled, and later we're proven to be innocent. So it's
like, what are we doing this case? Specifically, you're talking about the
death penalty, not life in prison, not life in prison with the chance
of parole. This is someone's life. And I still have yet to hear
anything that I go, I don't know. I'm I'm ninety nine point nine
percent sure and almost one hundred percent to sentence this man to death. Yeah.
I think the finnest Blanketship testimony is particularly despicable because he was not brought
in as a witness at the trial. He was only brought in for the
sentencing phase because I'm sure the prosecution would realize that, well, this is
a guy who's facing two counts of indecency with a child. His credibility will
be torn apart on the witness stand if we try to make him as evidence.
So they put him there for the express purpose of trying to make Tony
look even worse to the jury so that they would vote to send him to
death because they figured, well, it's a weak case, but if we
give them death penalty, someday he'll be executed and he'll cease to be our
problems. And they're willing to drop the charges against a guy who is indecent
with children just to get their conviction. So it turned out that the Tarrant
County District Attorney's office had withheld fourteen documents from the defense containing potentially exculpatory evidence,
as they showcased a number of credibility issues with the testimony of Kim,
Tony Niham, and Chris Meeks. The documents suggested that investigators and prosecutors had
fed them both information about the crime and kept pressuring them to revise their stories
until they fit the prosecution's narrative. For example, one document showed that Kim
had originally stated that she did not recall her ex's husband carrying a briefcase on
the night of the bombing, but after the ATF called in a cognitive interviewing
technique specialists to perform hypnosis on Kim, she suddenly changed her story and remembered
seeing the briefcase. Another key issue, which was not shared with the defense,
is that Kim had been exposed to toxic chemicals while serving in the military
during the Gulf War, which caused her to suffer from memory loss and potentially
made her suggestible to remembering events which never actually happened. These allegations of prosecutorial
misconduct were presented to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and on December the
seventeenth, two thousand and eight, they ruled that Tony's constitutional rights have been
violated and overturned his conviction. Wow, okay, So now that means that
the Texas courts have the ability to retry him correct if they have enough evidence
they believe, I can go forward and do the trial again. Exactly.
Yeah, So they could have said that if we found new evidence, we
could bring him back to courts, so he was not officially exonerated. Fascinating,
But I mean, honestly, guys, if you've ever paid attention to
any of these wrongful conviction cases. It takes so much to get a conviction
overturned, like you will see cases where it is so clear that this person
is actually innocent, right, did not do the crime, and yet they
raise the antie right, they just keep raising the cost and say no,
this has to be what happened, like just to cover their own rear ends
like the Norfolk four is. I think my favorite example of that when I
teach my students, it's the military guys in the Navy who were charged with
raping and killing this poor young girl, and they all falsely confessed to it
over and over again. In fact, they get i think seven or eight
individuals involved in this case. They keep naming someone else because none of their
DNA matches, and by the end they find out it's an unrelated man who
admits and says that I'm the one who killed her. And what they do
instead of letting these people go none of their DNA matches. It's very clear
they falsely confess. It's very clear they've made up these stories that do not
match the physical evidence. And someone comes forward in his DNA matches and he
did it alone. They said, oh, they all did it together,
like they just keep uping the story. So the fact that he did get
his conviction overturned with the help of the Innocence Project here is fascinating because it
usually takes decades, and even then they will continue to double down, trying
to deny and not allow that to happen. It's almost like you need to
solve your own crime in order to get them to pay attention. And even
then they still might not because everyone wants to cover their own butts and they
want to avoid having to pay any money which that person would be entitled to
restitution if they are factually innocent. But that's why I think they often get
them to plead out with Alfred please and stuff, because it's like, Okay,
we're gonna let you out, which like you know in the West Memphis
three they did. But it's like, why would you make deals with child
killers if you did indeed believe that they killed these children. You're only doing
it because you know that you know they likely did not do this, and
you're trying to kind of cover your butts and relieve some of the pressure here,
which you don't want them to come after you for damages and so they
end up kind of getting their way, which just seems so unfair. Exactly.
I mentioned how I recently did a case about the Austin yogurt shop murders.
That's another one where you had multiple perpetrators, two of whom had confessed
and then recanted their confessions, and then they found DNA evidence which did not
match any of the suspects. So of course they come up with a new
theory that, oh, they must have had a fifth accomplice we don't know
about, and that's the person who left their DNA but find So sometimes even
with DNA evidence which exonerates the defendants, they will still try ways to keep
them in jail by any means necessary, don't They call that like the unknown
co conspirator or the unindicted coejaculate. They said, there's someone else around who
left their even behind, but they're still guilty. Don't worry. None of
the people in prison though, yeah, not the three to four people in
prison. Just the random one missing is the one who's actually the ejaculator.
We got it. After his conviction was overturned, Tony was taken off death
row and transferred to the Tarrant County Jail. While the Tarrant County District Attorney's
office withdrew from the case and turned it over to the office of the Attorney
General for the State of Texas. On September two, two thousand and nine,
after several months of legal wrangling, the state finally announced that they were
dropping all charges against Tony and he was finally released from custody. One asked
if the investigation would now pursue other suspects. A spokesman for the Attorney General
stated, quote, evidence will dictate the direction in this case and possible suspects
end quote. While in a tragic PostScript to this story, Michael Roy Tony
would not get to enjoy his new found freedom for very long. On the
foggy morning of October third, just one month after his release, Tony was
driving his pickup truck on a remote road in Cherokee County when he suddenly veered
off the road and the truck overturned. Since Tony was not wearing his seatbelt,
he was ejected from the truck and wound up losing his life at the
age of forty three. To date, no one has ever been charged with
the murders of Joe Blount Angela Blount, and Michael Columbus. So the truth
about who was actually responsible for the Blount family bombings remains unknown. So I
guess you could say the path went chilly. Oh, this case is tragic.
I mean, just the idea that this man is in prison for how
many years? How many years? Ten? Ten? Yeah, he's in
prison for ten years on death row, correct, pretty much like he spent
the last year in the county jail, but the majority of it on death
row. My god. And then they say, listen, clearly you were
not granted your constitutional rights. Clearly we did not have a beyond a reasonable
doubt case built against you, and so we're going to drop all charges,
which also is massively huge. And then this man is out for a short
while and dies in a car accident. So it's pitiful for all reasons,
right, this man who wasn't able to really live a life with his name
cleared. Even though he had been released, there was no ability to follow
up and get any more information that might have helped the family have some kind
of justice for Joe, Angela and Michael. And so it's frustrating because again,
I in my gut feel like it's very possible that that briefcase was left
with the intent to hurt somebody, but it's very possible it was not the
Blount family. It's very possible they had moved into that area, they were
newer there, and that someone came back for revenge against someone who used to
live in that trailer, or they came to maybe get revenge on someone who
lived a door or two down and they got the wrong place. So I'm
just hurtsick. I want to know more about what it has been done in
this case. And I know earlier you were asking after Tony's conviction was overturned,
did they drop the charges completely? Can they bring him back to trial?
But now they've got a convenient out because he dies in an accident just
one month after his relief, so they don't have to make that decision.
They could just say, well, he was the right guy all along,
but he was killed in this accident, so there's nothing else we can do.
So they now have no motivation to make finding out what really happened and
who the real perpetrator was. So I think this would be a good time
to bring an in to part one. But join us next week as we
present part two of our series about the Blount family bombing Robin. Do you
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