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00:00where nobody would believe it.
00:04This story, it's a whodunit.
00:10It involves sex and power.
00:13You've got wealth and intrigue and hiding one's identity.
00:19There's two types of funeral directors.
00:21Some want to help people.
00:23And some are in this to take advantage of people.
00:26He's dead, he's dead, there's blood everywhere.
00:29Who could do something like that?
00:31This woman came up to me and said, I know who did it.
00:36So now we had another dead body on our hands.
00:40The things that came to light, I was just
00:43as shocked as everybody else.
00:45What the is happening?
00:47You guys trying to fool around me?
00:48Did you ever think of getting even with someone?
00:52Seriously?
00:53I am trying to get to the truth.
00:55Did you kill Wiring Griffith?
00:59Did you kill Wiring Griffith?
01:01When you move to a small town, there's things that you learn really fast, like
01:07a mission that
01:30fast, like anything that you might want hidden doesn't stay hidden.
01:421994 is when Charles and I moved to Colorado from Salt Lake City.
01:52We wanted to be in the funeral business.
01:55Charles and Tony were brothers. They shared a mother, and they were great film directors,
02:06just willing to help anybody with anything.
02:10I had a cat. He was dying. It was terrible. So they came and they got him for me,
02:16and they took him and they took care of him for me, and they cremated him for me.
02:21They're wonderful guys.
02:25If you talk to any mortician, death does not weigh heavy on their hearts.
02:32They're morticians, man. They deal with death all the time, and they have the means to deal with death.
02:40Morticians, that's kind of an unusual profession.
02:46Morticians make a lot of money, especially on coffins and caskets.
02:51It's very lucrative. Very lucrative.
02:55A lot of people see the money that you can make, and that's their driving force. I wasn't like that.
03:03Becoming a funeral director is almost more of a calling. A lot of it isn't pleasant,
03:09but with funeral homes in small towns, you're pretty much like family. For us, it was more than just a job.
03:21Byron Griffey was the same way.
03:23Byron was a funeral director, too. He was a really good funeral director. He knew what he was doing.
03:31He'd been doing it for a long time. He was a very generous person.
03:36He helped us with some equipment when we first got started. And after that, we just became good friends.
03:48On October 12th, Charles and I went to Fowler to meet Byron for lunch.
03:55It's usually about an hour's drive from Florence to Fowler. We were meeting Byron at his farm.
04:09When we pulled up to the gate, it was locked.
04:12Charles tried calling him and didn't get an answer. That was a little strange.
04:25We finally just decided to leave.
04:289-1-1-1-2 emergency.
04:41I think my mother lost it. I think he fell.
04:46Okay. Is he bleeding anywhere?
04:48Yes. All over. He's dead. He's sick. He's cold. There's blood everywhere.
04:54I'm sorry. Please hurry.
05:08My dad took care of everybody.
05:12When I moved back home with three kids, he bought a house for us, which had some land.
05:19And he said it would be fun for the kids to grow up on a farm.
05:26And then at that point, I met Gina, my wife.
05:32My dad was my biggest support system.
05:36When I told my dad I was gay, he said, well, you know, you're not alone.
05:43There's a lot of people that are.
05:44So when Lynette and I decided to get married, Byron was extremely supportive.
05:54He took my kids, all of my kids, just like they were his own grandkids.
06:03Whether I was his favorite or not, he was my favorite.
06:09He was my favorite person in the whole world.
06:14The morning of Byron's death, which was a day before his birthday, he was planning to meet
06:22Charles and Anthony out at the farm and go to lunch.
06:32We were sitting down for dinner and Byron never showed up.
06:37He wasn't answering his phone.
06:39My dad always answered the phone, always.
06:44So I called Charles.
06:47I said, is my dad still with you?
06:50Charles told her we never even saw him.
06:53He never showed up.
06:56We started to get worried about him.
06:59So we drove out to the farm.
07:02Gina said, I'll check the house.
07:04Then I was yelling for him, you know.
07:09He didn't answer.
07:11And I heard Gina say, I found him.
07:19I said, is he okay?
07:22She said, no.
07:22We received a call of a male that was down.
07:34The address I knew as Byron Griffey's farm.
07:38When I got on scene, EMS was there.
07:42We went in.
07:43We found Byron Griffey laid out on the floor in the middle of a bedroom that was empty.
07:47He was just off the wall, probably about two and a half feet.
07:53Crime scene was very clean.
07:54I mean, there was nothing there.
07:57The family had moved out of the farmhouse, so the farmhouse was empty.
08:02There was no forced entry or sign of struggle of any kind.
08:07No defensive marks on him.
08:10There was very little blood.
08:11I think my words were, it's weird.
08:21There was no weapon readily available.
08:24The blood splattering on the wall was not consistent with what I'm used to.
08:32This was very strange.
08:34Byron is laid out almost like body in a casket.
08:38And then he's laying flat on the floor, face up.
08:44He was staged.
08:48Byron Griffey was a pillar of the community.
08:51Pretty much everybody knew who Byron Griffey was.
08:55So at this point in the investigation, everybody's a suspect.
08:59And then as we began to dig deeper, we learned some of these people were hiding some deep, dark secrets.
09:09If one of them killed him, who was it?
09:12Byron Griffey was dead.
09:29when we found out that byron was dead of course my first reaction is what the hell happened
09:46i was shocked charles actually got pretty emotional about it the thing that was going
09:55through my mind is we were right there after byron died charles and i thought we could help so we
10:02offered to go into cbi the very next day mark anthony nice to meet you anthony i wanted you
10:14to kind of help me with a timeline that's going to be helpful to us with our investigation okay
10:21byron griffey was a really good friend he would help people in need kind of the same theory we had
10:32charles and anthony were very intertwined with the community everybody knew them everybody has a
10:42story charles became mayor he was president of the chamber of commerce he even started a church down
10:49the street charles was a bishop i actually became a deacon we were there just about every sunday for
10:58church the sermons that charles would give were very inclusive very you know peace and love
11:07and my son eric worked for them so they owned several businesses in town the funeral home they
11:14owned smashing good guitars which was the guitar shop that i worked at they owned the main street grill
11:21and they're huge collectors they collect everything i started collecting guitars guns
11:28dogs cats birds horses if i saw an animal that needed help i took it i even had a squirrel but
11:37there were 37 vehicles i had a big bowl of keys on the table i would just walk by and pick something
11:46out and walk out front and go oh yeah that's what i'm driving today my brother like introduced them
11:52got them super close into our family but at first it was just like dinner with charles and anthony oh you're
11:57going to concert with charles and anthony and then we're spending holidays together charles liked to talk
12:04about his kids he would tell us how successful they were and he was proud of them but then that
12:09sadness because they weren't in his life you know something must have happened that that made them
12:15estranged to him charles was the brains and kind of the mouth the charismatic one he's doing the business
12:23deals but the person who like actually made the things happen that was tony
12:34it appears that you and charles were at his property right around the time that he dies so that puts
12:42you in a position to help us with the investigation when we were able to retrieve byron's phone we could
12:50see two calls one was about 12 43 ish the other one was a little after that were made from charles's
12:58phone two byron's that were missed calls so you and byron were good friends who who was closer to byron
13:05me by far well we spoke more okay we spoke and what time do you think you got to the farm
13:12had to be right about noon sometime had you ever been to the farm before yeah a couple of times do you
13:19recall the last time probably
13:27five minutes ago could you actually see the farmhouse from where you were could you tell
13:32if it was open or closed between the trees it looked close to me if it would have been open i
13:40would have probably figured he was there how long would you say you stayed in fowler
13:45oh no more than 15 20 minutes did you guys find that odd that you had plans to do this and
13:55now he's not answering the phone yeah kind of but we'd made plans for him to come up a few times and
14:01he just didn't didn't didn't show yeah before we left town we drove around fowler because i knew that
14:11byron had a little house that he had moved into downtown but i couldn't remember where that was
14:16so just kind of drove around but looking for it and then finally just decided to leave
14:23i'm right now focused on byron's state of mind would you say that he was capable of taking his own life
14:31yeah i think so it was in september he asked me if i could bring him a handgun and i actually have a
14:37gun collection anthony and i collect uh guitars cars and guns and i told him no so you never gave
14:47a gun no no anthony would not okay so i'm going to give you my card and if anything comes to mind
14:54please call me but you know i'm just hoping to help
15:08the autopsy on byron indicated that he was shot from the back
15:14and it was just a single back to front gunshot wound to the neck
15:18there was soot right on the entrance wound which means it's basically a contact wound so you couldn't
15:26really shoot yourself the way he was shot unless somebody was holding a gun at his neck on the backside
15:38i was in shock
15:39i thought who could do something like that i didn't view that people would want to hurt byron at all
15:50definitely it was not a robbery there was a watch on byron he had his wallet his phone was with it
15:57but obviously there had to be some kind of motive when we talked to his family members we began to realize
16:06what it was byron was a huge collector he collected stamps coins old money antiques
16:19my dad had a secret room in the back of the garage only a few people knew that the room was there
16:26and he had i don't even know how many safes in there byron bought a lot of silver and gold coins
16:34it was probably pretty close to a million dollars
16:46prior to byron being murdered there was multiple calls and somebody trying to break in to take his
16:53saves they tried to rob him but they didn't get nothing they made more of a mess than anything
17:01i have no idea who did it
17:07but then there was a noose that was hung in the barn
17:15it was scary
17:18after the noose was found in the barn
17:22i just felt like my family wasn't safe out there at the farm where there wasn't really any neighbors
17:27so we all just decided to just move back to fowler
17:36byron was very scared he was very adamant that somebody was trying to steal his money
17:47when we found out my dad was shot even before anybody said you know anybody who would want to hurt
17:54him the first person i thought of was corey higgs when we lived out at the farm we called the cops many times
18:04on corey i was scared of corey every day it was hard to think that it could have been corey because
18:13corey is my son
18:23right after byron's death gina and lynette were
18:26very quick to point fingers that corey hicks was the one that had murdered byron
18:32gina is my wife and corey is her son i really have trouble saying that i love her other two kids to
18:50death saying corey is my stepson makes me want to barf
18:55there was a lot of things going on in the griffey household before byron's murder
19:05when they were at the farm they were all living there lynette and gina and the kids with corey
19:12and byron and gina's mom i believed corey to be very dangerous on a few multiple levels
19:20uh stories i heard from other people and his own family in fact life with corey was not easy from ever
19:37he is extremely intelligent but also violent and manipulating corey pulled a knife on his siblings
19:50when he was younger he grabbed me by the neck and choked me out when he was 16 17 corey went into foster
20:00care and the court said least contact with us the better but for some reason the foster system here
20:09decided that it was good for him to spend time with my dad
20:13so corey always seemed like he needed a father figure until corey met byron
20:26corey told my dad he wanted to be a funeral director
20:29my dad always wanted somebody to take over his business so corey was this ray of hope for him
20:37they were really inseparable byron would take him on funeral calls so when they would do funeral
20:45business corey was dressed just like byron things started going south between corey and byron when
20:55corey attacked me he was in trouble for something got up went running for a gun which i stepped in front
21:04of him in stockton he turned violent broke my shoulder after that byron was very hard on him
21:13i think corey felt that byron looked at him different which he did when corey aged out of foster care
21:21he moved right across the street from our farm so corey could have known that byron was at the farm that
21:28day i think corey's motivation for byron's murder would just be that that was just another way to hurt us
21:43okay corey you have any idea why you're here today i think i may have an idea yeah i heard that byron
21:49griffey died okay i had known corey from previous incidents where i'd been to the farm
21:56and so i interviewed corey where were you yesterday i slept most of the day actually i was at my house
22:06in fowler was there anybody else sir um not during the day at about 3 45 or so my friend i went down for
22:17her play practice so from friday morning until 3 45 when you were there by yourself did you talk to
22:25anybody on your cell phone i talked on the phone i texted but there was nobody really with you there
22:32was nobody with me like physically and i have my location settings on on my cell phone it doesn't
22:37really give an address and that's where i'm kind of running into trouble here that's um
22:44at the time of the murder corey told me that he was watching tv at home
22:49at that time corey was living about a mile and a half down the road he could have walked to the
22:57farm and murdered byron and walked back you know with you not being able to tell me that i was with
23:06this person from this time to this time there's a window there okay cbi is involved they're probably
23:13going to want to talk to you would you be willing to submit to a polygraph test yeah yeah i definitely
23:18would yeah all righty end of the interview corey was sad i think corey truly loved byron
23:31carol coats she's a good cop but he's a master manipulator and controls every situation
23:39he played her just like he does everybody else i feel guilty being his mom and feeling the way that i
23:46feel but i know he did it or had something to do with it i 100 believe that
23:58there were a lot of people at byron's funeral pretty much the whole town it was beautiful
24:14we asked charles to do the eulogy he got up there and told how he met my dad and what a great
24:23guy he was to help him out when they were trying to get started charles and anthony did a good job
24:31handling a service for another funeral director is the ultimate way of learning you did your job right
24:39if another funeral director or their family would trust you to do it that's a good sign in my opinion
24:47cbi told us sometimes the killer shows up at the funeral
24:51so keep your eyes and ears open as to what might be going on after the funeral we were all eating and
25:00socializing and this woman came up to me and said you know tommy did it
25:12she said tommy came home the other night and he was covered in blood tommy did it
25:17so tommy tomlin was harry tomlin's brother they are complete polar opposites i would trust harry with
25:28my life tommy tomlin is scary my brother tommy tomlin did have a drug problem meth heroin whatever
25:39drug was out there tommy was violent he was capable of doing anything tommy had been doing odd jobs for
25:48byron so tommy was obviously on the suspect list we were able to call tommy in colorado bureau of
25:59investigation did most of the interview thomas what's your last name paul and keeler elman having
26:06these rights in mind you wish to talk to me now
26:13byron was like family to me byron griffey took care of a lot of funerals for my family
26:30he was a good man the day that byron was murdered i was the last person to see him alive
26:36i met byron at noon to get paid for the work i'd done for him when i heard the news there was a lot
26:44of stuff going through my life and then stories are going around of who did it one was my baby brother
26:52tommy tomlin
26:55tommy tomlin never had a steady job so when my dad needed help doing anything at the farm
27:03he just got tommy tommy was around when he needed money which was all the time
27:13when you do drugs you do things that you really shouldn't be doing he went to a party and was
27:20supposedly had blood all over him and told everybody the gino buying group he got murdered
27:25the rumors of tommy tomlin showing up to a party and being covered in blood were false we had heard
27:35that the day after byron's murdered tommy was flashing around hundred dollar bills that he normally
27:41didn't have so we were questioning where tommy had gotten this money and so we did set tommy up for a
27:48polygraph so let me get introduce myself i'm joey sure so and it's thomas it's nice to meet you
28:02thank you very much um i'm going to talk to you about the death of byron griffey okay
28:09just tell me in your own words why is it that you're being locked out as a suspect
28:13because i had all the money that i found in somebody else's house and they think it's
28:20byron's money how good a friendship did you have with the fire
28:28when did you last see him
28:32so you leave this house by 11 11 30 the next hour hour and a half bigger than one house
28:37i guess okay hold on back up what did you just say you leave byron's about 11 11 years
28:44yeah yeah don't worry that one else you get home around 12 or 12 30 right okay
28:52when you answer the questions i answer truthfully with the separate yesterday
28:56did you participate in any way in shooting byron
29:01this test is not complete mr tomlin um unfortunately it's pretty evident to me
29:17that there's something you are telling me about life
29:21i'm not trying to put a murder on you i am trying to get to the truth that is all i want
29:36you are in my mind because i didn't kill byron
29:43no i'm not shut up already please look look you look i'm trying to make you understand i didn't
29:50shoot byron and i'm not going to go down for somebody else's bullshit and you're trying to get
29:54me to confess something i didn't do i'm not trying to get you to confess anything other than the
29:57truth i'm here to get the truth whatever that is you can cut my junk off if i lied to you
30:04leave me alone please
30:12at this point in the investigation we did pull dna from everybody involved
30:17we were back at square one
30:47so without physical evidence you start looking at circumstantial we start looking at timelines
30:57the last person that saw byron griffey alive was harry tomlin they met at the bank in downtown
31:03fowler and that was about 12 10.
31:09byron handed me my check and he goes i'm gonna go to lunch
31:13he typically told me he was going to meet up with anthony and his brother
31:19we believe that byron probably arrived back at the farm approximately 12 15 to meet with charles and
31:25anthony byron's phone showed two missed calls from charles's cell phone number since byron had his cell
31:34phone on him byron probably didn't answer the call at 12 43 because he was probably dead
31:43the body wasn't discovered until approximately 8 pm by gina and lynette
31:49so from the time that byron was last seen in fowler and the first call being missed at 12 43
32:01that's how long it would have taken to murder him
32:05tommy said that he was at an abandoned house with a friend during the time byron was murdered
32:11cory higgs he was home alone but he was living down the road from the farm
32:20everybody's a suspect until you can rule them out but trying to definitively rule them out was very
32:28very hard it was something that we just continued to pursue i think many people in town started to
32:37wonder what happened to all of byron's gold where did it all go now that's the million dollar question
32:52so after my dad's murdered gina and i were trying to find my dad's money a year before my dad was
33:01murdered he was really worried that whoever it broke in before was going to come back and take
33:07all of his coins or somehow corey knew it was there and so corey was going to take it and there was
33:15no way that he could take that to a safety deposit box or something like that and so my dad called
33:22charles and anthony byron asked if we could watch some coins for him i had a gun room as what everybody
33:36called it in the basement of my house my dad wanted to make sure that his money was in a secure place
33:45they talked about a secret room in their house to where nobody would ever see it and so charles and
33:52anthony agreed
33:56they had to call it like 10 o'clock at night charles and tony they're like hey come over and give us a hand
34:01it was just boxes on boxes of quarters 500 boxes of quarters from each state i mean i'm talking a
34:09whole truck bed i was like why is this all in coins like this is ridiculous charles explained to me well
34:17if you put all your money into quarters then it's technically a coin collection so it can't be taxed
34:22byron did not keep a full record of what he sent to charles and anthony he called them several times
34:33after they took the coins and said hey can i come up i need to document you know what i gave you
34:40charles and anthony were always busy they always had a funeral or something
34:45it begins to paint the picture that charles and anthony might be hiding something how long would you
34:54say you stayed in fowler oh no more than 15 20 minutes charles and anthony drove an hour to take
35:05byron for a birthday lunch the fact that they didn't even walk up to the house it was a little strange
35:12that they found charles and anthony said this is where we're going to meet it's odd to me that
35:18that's where they met because we didn't live at the farm anymore the far as you made it was the gate
35:24yes now you know there was another way to get on his property that didn't involve no
35:32charles and anthony had been out to the farm at least three times the only entrance ever accessible
35:41was the back entrance that's the only entrance they used when they came to get the coins
35:48that's the only entrance they used to leave
35:54one of the tools that my agency uses is a polygraph sure if at some point we got to that would that be
36:02something you'd be willing to want a definite reason as to why i told him no because polygraph
36:10it doesn't prove or disprove anything and then he asked would you give a dna sample i said absolutely
36:17that's not subjective that's actual so we did give dna samples and soon it became pretty clear that maybe
36:27i was considered a suspect
36:32i was shocked i couldn't imagine that either one of those brothers would do anything to byron
36:54my family they were always like you know we had nothing to do with the murder yeah i don't know
37:01honestly i'm kind of surprised we didn't talk about it more we've known these brothers for
37:06years we were really close to charles and anthony and anthony was so kind and he really inspired me to be
37:16kinder and more patient not so jaded because my job was a little dark
37:21laura was a probation officer i was talking with her about how i can deal with being a suspect
37:33we started talking more i gave her my phone number which i'd never done before so we could text and we
37:41just began texting and at some point i was starting to have feelings for her but that's how it started
37:51i was away at college and i could tell that something was up with my mom she wasn't acting like herself
38:05anymore the first week of the semester i had missed a call from my mom's good friend mandy
38:14i remember checking the voicemail i knew something horrible had happened
38:21i'm just getting information really slowly and i'm trying to talk to my mom and she won't pick up my
38:43calls
38:53i got a surprise phone call from one of my mom's friends and uh my mom's friend she was like
39:01eric your mom is hysterical she's just like screaming and crying he's gonna kill himself like
39:07you know i never meant for this to happen and i'm like what are you talking about
39:10i'm going down the street looking for my mother she had got like even more hysterical crazy
39:19to where like they're trying to get her into an ambulance
39:23they didn't take her to the hospital they took her to the jail
39:26i understand that do you know aunt yes my oldest son um works for him and his brother okay
39:47he had been talking a lot more and texted on december 26 he told me that he loved me and he'd been in
39:58love with me for three years i could just say i've been in love with him for the last three years as well
40:05but so we immediately started to make plans but she didn't try to get there
40:12because anthony's mom charles gave me a love but i thought that was his brother
40:19yeah charles and tony are not brothers
40:35they're together they're lovers
40:38yeah they're not brothers
40:47no
40:49how long do you be going about charles and anthony's relationship
40:54two o'clock this afternoon
40:56oh
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