Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

Nearly twelve years after the Thanksgiving 1985 bombing at Hilltop Mobile Home Park, investigators received a tip that shifted their attention to Michael Roy Toney, a 31-year-old man with a lengthy criminal history. After a five-month investigation and grand jury proceedings, Toney was indicted for the bombing deaths of Joe Blount, his 15-year-old daughter Angela Blount, and his 18-year-old nephew Michael Columbus.

Toney’s capital murder trial began in early May 1999 in Fort Worth. Susan and Robert Blount testified and nearly 80 pieces of physical evidence recovered from the destroyed trailer and the victims were presented. Prosecutors argued that the Blount family had not been the intended target and that Toney had mistakenly placed the briefcase bomb outside the wrong trailer.

The prosecution’s case relied heavily on testimony from Toney’s former wife and estranged friend, who both testified that they accompanied Toney to a business beside Hilltop Mobile Home Park on Thanksgiving Day 1985 and that Toney carried a briefcase away from his truck and returned without it. The defense challenged both accounts and emphasized that there was no physical evidence presented at trial connecting Toney to the bomb. They also returned attention to former Hilltop resident Mikey Huff, who had been investigated repeatedly over the years.

On May 20, 1999, after approximately four hours of deliberation, the jury found Michael Roy Toney guilty of capital murder. During the punishment phase, more witnesses provided damning testimony against him.

If you have any information about the murders of Joe and Angela Blount and Michael Columbus, please call the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tipline at (888) 283-8477.

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Shortly after the 1985 bombing murders of Joe Blount, Angela Blount, and Michael Columbus, early suspicion fell on people connected to Hilltop Mobile Home Park, including drug dealers and Angela’s 15-year-old classmate. Despite rumors and circumstances that drew investigators to the teenager, the ATF ultimately eliminated him in the initial investigation.

Months later, in 1986, an Azle businessman became a person of interest after an ATF operation. Although the circumstances that led to his arrest looked like a promising lead in the Blount Family bombing, agents but were also unable to connect him. Later that year, another potential lead emerged after a major North Texas drug raid in which authorities recovered weapons and explosive materials. Following the unfortunate trend, it went nowhere.

Ten years later, federal, state, and local investigators assembled a new task force and began again from the beginning. It led back to the 15-year-old classmate of Angela Blount who was a suspect in the original investigation. His telephone was tapped and witnesses testified before a grand jury, but they chose not to indict.

In 1997, one telephone tip finally sent agents and investigators in a new direction. By December of that year, the task force reported they had witnesses capable of placing the bomb in their suspect’s hands. After the longest-running investigations in ATF history, authorities announce that they expect a capital murder indictment and an arrest in the bombing murders.

If you have any information about the murders of Robert and Angela Blount and Michael Columbus, please call the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tipline at (888) 283-8477.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

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On Thanksgiving night in 1985, Joe and Susan Blount were spending the holiday with their children, teenagers Angela and Robert, at their home in the Hilltop Mobile Home Park outside Fort Worth. Joining them for dinner were Joe’s brother, Ray, and Ray’s teenage son, Michael Columbus.

Later that evening, Ray left, Susan went to lie down, and Joe, Angela, Robert, and Michael drove to a nearby convenience store for ice cream and beer. While they were gone, someone knocked at the Blount’s door, but when Susan looked outside, she saw no one. When the others returned about twenty minutes later, they discovered a brown leather briefcase sitting on the top step outside the front door and took it inside.

At approximately 9:15 p.m., an explosion ripped through the mobile home, killing Joe Blount, Angela Blount, and Michael Columbus instantly. Robert was blown through the front door and was badly burned, while Susan escaped from the rear portion of the burning trailer unharmed, at least physically.

Investigators soon determined that the explosion was not an accident. Someone had constructed a bomb, concealed it inside the briefcase, and deliberately left it outside the Blount family’s home. But determining who left it there and who the bomb was actually intended to kill would prove far more difficult.

More than forty years later, the questions remain unanswered.

If you have any information about the murders of Robert and Angela Blount and Michael Columbus, please call the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tipline at (888) 283-8477.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

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In June 1974, seven-year-old Michael “Mickey” David Niles was asleep in his family’s Abilene home when an intruder entered. Mickey was stabbed once through the heart. His thirteen-year-old sister, Kelly, was stabbed eight times in the back but survived and managed to call for help. Their six-year-old brother Robbie slept through the attack.

Police found no obvious signs of forced entry and no motive. Detectives recovered blood and a latent fingerprint from inside the house, but neither led them to the killer. Kelly provided a description of the man who assaulted her and took the life of her brother, and the Abilene Police pursued leads across Texas and beyond, questioned numerous people, and considered whether Mickey’s murder could be connected to other baffling Abilene killings. Nothing produced an arrest, and the case eventually went cold.

In 1994, investigators entered the fingerprint into a database, but there was no immediate match. Ten years later, a DWI arrest in San Antonio finally connected the print to a suspect who had been stationed at Dyess Air Force Base at the time of Mickey’s murder. DNA testing also linked the man.

More than thirty years after Mickey’s death, the suspect pleaded guilty and received a forty-year prison sentence.

Whether he was responsible for any other Abilene murders remains unknown. If you have any information about the murder of Sharon Watts, Geneva Lucille Jackson, or the death of Juanita Carroll, please contact Abilene Crime Stoppers at (325) 676-8477.

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On April 24, 1977, 59-year-old Juanita Carroll was found dead inside the bathroom of her home on Ballinger Street in Abilene, Texas. Natural gas was flowing from a bathroom heater, and Juanita was seated in a chair, fully clothed, with her legs bound, her hands secured behind her back, and a cloth gag across her mouth.

From the beginning, the scene appeared to investigators to be a homicide. Justice of the Peace Silas Clark described what he saw as resembling an “execution,” while detectives searched Juanita’s home for fingerprints, fibers, hairs, and anything that might identify another person who had been inside. Her purse had been disturbed, an interior door from the garage had been left open, and yet there was no obvious robbery, clear evidence of a struggle, or apparent motive.

But as the autopsy progressed and detectives reconstructed Juanita’s final months, the investigation began moving in an unexpected direction. Medical findings, the unusual bindings, Juanita’s private life, and the absence of evidence clearly showing that another person had overpowered her forced investigators to reconsider what had initially seemed obvious.

Whatever happened inside Juanita’s house carried an unsettling familiarity. Ten years earlier, Sharon Kay Watts had been murdered in the bathroom of her Abilene apartment. In 1973, Geneva Jackson was beaten and left to drown in the bathtub of her home. Now a third woman had been found dead in a bathroom within the same small area of south and southwest Abilene. All three cases involved no signs of forced entry, no obvious robbery, and no clear motive.

What investigators ultimately decided happened to Juanita Carroll would only create more questions about the strange scene, and whether her death truly belonged alongside Abilene’s other unsolved bathroom slayings.

If you have any information about the murder of Juanita Carroll, please contact Abilene Crime Stoppers at (325) 676-8477.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

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