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00:00between tommy and byron turned into eating turkey pot pies and watching porn
00:05i didn't see that tommy had any motive to do it when we found out my dad was shot the first person
00:12i thought of was cory higgs did you ever think of getting even with something yes cory is my son
00:21charles and anthony's stories were falling apart why would you lie about something as stupid as
00:26what vehicle you drove i don't believe i was lying it must have been mistaken they were the last ones
00:33to see byron so that made it a possibility after byron died they start buying boats and they start
00:39spending money like crazy he had a motive to kill my dad it's all about money i don't like to use
00:46the term fighting for your life but that's what it felt like we were ready to make arrests but now we
00:52had another dead body on our hands
01:06there was a police officer in florence in the city manager's office um he gets a phone call
01:24that they're calling medical to charles and anthony's house so i go race into the scene
01:30and i find charles on the floor of the bathroom it was obvious that he was deceased
01:38the ambulance came and the police covered the whole property with caution tape
01:44i remember being out on the yard you know and everybody hoping hoping hoping that it was good news
01:51and i just remember just shaking my head like there is no good news it was terribly sad it was terribly sad
02:06at that time charles was mayor and that afternoon i went to the city council meeting and about halfway
02:14through the meeting the chief of police comes in he said look we found charles dead
02:22i couldn't believe it after i got that phone call i drove to charles and anthony's house i don't have
02:29any idea why and i said across the street from their house i just cried and cried the anger
02:38like how could you do this so that you didn't have to answer for my dad if you were going to kill
02:43yourself today you could have told me last night i never in a million years saw this coming
02:50the fact that charles died was just a punch in the stomach
02:57we're drafting the arrest warrant for both of them to be charged with murder at that time
03:02when charles's death occurred we kind of took a step back it was like what else you know are we
03:08going to see in this case well i was at work somebody called me and said charles died i mean i
03:14was shocked just stunned my first thought was suicide some of us knew that he was being investigated for
03:25murder of byron griffey and i felt like he took the easy way out charles may not have ever seen a way
03:32out i mean how could you ever recover from the mountain of lies you start with the brothers
03:42i mean think about it keeping up appearances that's all they had done since they got to florence
03:48the whole church thing was it all just fake will we ever know the truth of what happened irene witty
03:54what happened to all of byron's gold these were life-changing lies well where's the end the end for
04:01charles was his death the last time i talked to charles was the day before he died and he told me
04:11i'm not going to cause you any more trouble we can work through this we can take care of the business
04:17dealings and do what needs to be done that was pretty much it i really wasn't sad about charles
04:27passing away because that was a part of my life that i had already chosen to leave
04:33i know that sounds heartless but after what i had been through that was just a small hiccup in the
04:40general scheme laura and i were trying to get things worked out and figured out where we were
04:47going to go from there at this point in the investigation we brought the last person that
04:57saw charles alive in to interview him guy named cj young charles and i we've been friends forever
05:07i've known him since i was 12 they were my scout masters boy scouts okay so i've been staying with
05:15charles since him and tony broke up so you were there last night yeah anything to think of that's helpful
05:24sometime after 10 30. charles hollered at me and said cj help i can't move i can't breathe i can't
05:31move i thought he was having a panic attack and i got him sat down and he said he started
05:37to feel better so he got up and he was walking around he did tell me man i'm not taking this
05:43well did you consider him to be depressed this week he may have been depressed but i don't know
05:50as far as charles's death your cop brain is thinking he's guilty so he killed himself part of
05:56he thinks he had medications that did he overdose who knows i mean it's all suspicious any way you look
06:02at it i didn't think that charles was suicidal the police were trying to push him to crack basically
06:10for no reason he didn't do the crime the next week after tony left charles was getting everything set
06:18up to go forward without tony he didn't plan to die i had heard from my son eric that charles got his
06:26hair frosted charles got his ears pierced charles ordered a teeth whitening kit charles called um this
06:33guy and uh asked him you know where does an old queen like me go to hook up these days no i wouldn't
06:41say he committed suicide i got the impression he had plans we all gotta have to answer for whatever
06:51happens but if you have a good life and all of a sudden it's brought to an end it's sad it's very sad
06:59look at he was only 52 he had wonderful cars beautiful church and a mansion lovely mortuary
07:08having stuff and more stuff isn't the answer guess we found that out
07:13charles's death made me stop and think did anthony have something to do with this
07:22i heard people talking about how that must be nice now you don't have to deal with any of that
07:28well it wasn't nice i was considered a suspect it very clearly looks like anthony would be the
07:35one that gains the most because i know that with charles alive that was going to be a huge battle
07:44tony definitely had a motive to get rid of charles because everything was in charles's name i think
07:50if charles was still alive tony could have ended up with nothing tony is unassuming and you wouldn't
07:58think he's dangerous but as far as charles and anthony's relationship anthony was the muscle if there
08:05was somebody who was going to get their hands dirty more bloody it was going to be anthony anthony
08:13had a lot to gain from charles dying now anthony could point the fingers at charles for
08:19byron's death i knew that because charles was gone tony was now the prime suspect in the murder of
08:26byron griffey it was hard to kind of look at tony and not sit there and question like what's going on
08:34like are you a murderer
08:39after charles died there were a lot of rumors one of the rumors around town was that he'd offed
08:53his self because he killed byron griffey or maybe he offed his self because tony broke up with him
09:00you know small town stories there was a lot of rumors about my brother tommy with anthony and his
09:07half brother everybody in town calls it the love triangle supposedly he had it was a love triangle
09:14between anthony and charles byron and my brother tommy that would actually be a love square yeah it's
09:20square but they called it the love triangle because there's four yes you know every rumor ever just
09:26starts coming out like charles and anthony teaming up with lynette and gina to kill byron
09:34as a gay person myself it's just borderline offensive that that's what people thought
09:40you couldn't really talk to anyone that didn't think that something was up with charles's death and
09:45the only person you could really look at was anthony it was really easy to think that if anyone had the
09:52access opportunity and motive to tamper with his medicine it would be anthony and it would look like
10:00what happened after charles's death the autopsy report came back there was no poison in his system
10:12and that he had died of natural causes it was a massive heart attack that killed charles
10:19under all that stress your lover left you for another person you're probably going to go to
10:24prison for murder that's a lot of stress on a guy who already had a bad heart
10:32the official story is that his heart gave out if you want to romanticize it died of a broken heart
10:42the cbi used charles death to be able to get warrants and to go search my old house
10:52in the basement they had what they called the gun room
10:59they had guns in boxes they had them on the rack they had them all over the place
11:03during that search warrant in charles bedroom in the back of the closet they found a hidden compartment
11:12and in that hidden compartment were several boxes of coins one of which had byron griffey's name on it
11:22they were hidden why weren't they turned back over to his daughter
11:33my dad trusted them they were his friends and they were helping him
11:37by making sure that his money was safe but they already had stolen from him
11:43there's no explanation as to where my dad's money went
11:47i believe that byron probably had close to a million dollars in collectible stamps and coins
11:54and currency and he had a lot of gold lynette and gina never saw any gold return to them
12:02what happened to all the gold i suspect charles and tony had a lot to do with byron's gold disappearing
12:08neither of us took anything in byron's when the investigator came in and took a bunch of coins
12:15there was one that did have byron's name on it but the other coins were actually my collection
12:20they had lynette griffey identify them as byron's coins but they weren't they were mine
12:29the coins that byron had a store for him byron ended up selling most of it to
12:38some guy out of the springs but i wasn't even there when he came to pick it up
12:42i was working on the crematory that day anthony's default position on anything
12:49potentially criminal in this case was he knows nothing and saw nothing including the death of byron
12:55griffey
13:11charles's memorial was held at florence high school in the auditorium and you know it had a really
13:17huge turnout he was the mayor at the times they owned multiple businesses along main street they had the
13:23church and so most of the town was there
13:30i stayed away from charles's funeral just because i didn't want to turn it into a circus
13:36i knew there was going to be police there
13:40one of the church members was speaking to everyone and he said charles's brother must just be so upset
13:46that he couldn't make it and we you know our hearts are are with him and me just shaking my head in
13:51disbelief and that the entire town is in this room and they all believe something that's not true
13:59some of the members of the community wanted to put a statue up of him out by city hall
14:04and it's like i'll wait a few weeks you might see his face on the front page for something else
14:09charles was very good at telling stories and no one really thought to question him charles once told
14:19me about his ex-wife and the two kids that he had and it was just like these grand stories so you would
14:26get sucked into them but they were always a little unbelievable the son he said was in the air force a
14:34pilot or something and then the daughter was a scientist charles would pretend that he was talking
14:42to one of them or that he just got off the phone with one of them we always believed the story about
14:48charles having two children and one in the air force
15:00but it was a lie huge lie
15:07our view was that charles had been the mastermind of all of it and that when his death occurred
15:12my entire focus became how to prosecute this crime we had to reevaluate if we had enough evidence
15:20to charge just anthony in the death of byron griffey he was trying to get me to admit something
15:27i want to know what happened there's no one else to protect now you're on your own
15:33after charles died i was just trying to survive pretty much still trying to run the businesses
15:50but the last two payrolls i had to cover myself out of my own pocket and that's when decided to close
15:57the funeral home i don't know it just didn't seem like a place i wanted to be anymore
16:04i found the person that i believe i was meant to be with for the rest of my life
16:10charles and anthony kept that relationship a secret for over 20 years
16:16i'm not gonna lie i was pretty devastated and i wasn't devastated about the type of relationship
16:22it was the fact that it was a lie then i thought would my life be better with him or without it
16:29and there was no there was no delay anthony and my mom rushed to get married my mom had me be her
16:39wedding photographer from their point of view the murder investigation was a side thing that was like
16:45don't worry about this murder they didn't have squat for evidence i kept thinking did the cops come up
16:53with something else is there something else and there never was anything any anything else that i heard
16:57charles's death made us reanalyze everything so there was a significant delay before we ultimately filed the charges
17:10i got a call from chief of police from florence
17:15i got a call from chief of police from florence
17:20and he told me we've got your coins here if you can come down and pick them up
17:25so i get in the car i go down and that's when i was arrested
17:33hands on your head you've got a warrant to be arrested or post your good murder
17:36can i call my wife um we will make a phone call for you
17:41it was all a setup just to get me to come in with charles unfortunately deceased
17:48you're the only other person that knows anything i want to know what really happened that day
17:54i told you everything i knew i got nothing more to add we're here charles is dead yeah thanks for that
18:06what do you mean by that what you pasturn in the cause they well i'm sorry to feel that late
18:12i don't think that's what the coroner felt our investigation determined that you and charles
18:18conspired and caused the death of byron griffey last october it's our belief that when this goes to
18:25a jury they're going to see the same thing that we're saying and your story is just not matching with
18:31what the evidence is showing
18:36i've got a direct line to the district attorney this would be the time for me to call them and
18:42tell them that you want to tell us something there's nothing else to do
18:55once we knew anthony was going on trial he very quickly started liquidating anything that he could
19:01and with the help of my mom trying to get enough money to pay for his defense
19:06the first attorney i had said people always ask how much does it cost to defend against the charge of
19:14first-degree murder and he said everything and he wasn't kidding
19:19everything started getting sold to try and pay attorney's fees all of the vehicles
19:24it was everything
19:34i have been a criminal defense investigator for about 45 years lawyers representing people charged hire me to
19:44investigate the case for the defense i've met with thousands of clients and some of them would just flat
19:54say you know i did it and it's your job to help me get off but that wasn't anthony anthony was
20:04you're wrong we didn't do it and he was determined to be found innocent of something he kept maintaining that
20:14he didn't do the case against anthony was circumstantial juries like meat they want to be able to find dna
20:25at the scene fingerprints air fibers something to put the suspect there and in this case there was no
20:33such evidence everything in my mind pointed to charles and anthony as committing the crime the fact
20:38that they're there at the farm easy access to a weapon he had motive i believed i was going to be
20:45able to meet that obligation of proof beyond a reasonable doubt
20:48any time somebody's charged with crime the defense attorneys have an obligation
20:58to investigate so i spent a good five months trying to contact witnesses going through police reports
21:07documents photographs videos and finally i stumble into a 911 call made by a fellow named rob
21:19a few months after the murder
21:26okay and you don't want to give a last thing yeah
21:29you're at the corner and tallard they got murdered i know for a fact that y'all have uh
21:35uh it is i don't know his last name his name's tom he's from
21:39tallard also yeah y'all have interviewed him he basically said i have information
21:45that tommy tomlin is involved in byron's murder the thing i'm worried about is him finding out he
21:54even made his call dude because this dude's micro man i'm telling you scared to death dude i don't
21:59know who did he try from scared okay he could trust us i mean you know head forward here forward he kept
22:04sweating to me anywhere he may be if you choose a place he'll be worried about it you whatever
22:10okay we knew rob could change everything
22:14so of course i want to find rob
22:18i want to give you some information may it may be worth something to you it may not a few months
22:32after byron's death a fella named rob called the 911 operator and said i have information
22:39that tommy tomlin is involved in byron's murder and that he told me he was
22:46so i of course had been looking for rob and as it turned out rob died about a year before i was
22:57able to try to interview him and i couldn't go into any more detail than what appeared in the
23:04police reports those reports were just handwritten notes the deputy that took the statement from him
23:11uh he said he didn't pay attention to it and didn't take it serious because he was just a drunk
23:17i needed to do everything i possibly could do to prove anthony's innocence and that was hard to do
23:28there was also a confidential informant who said that byron wanted him to kill corey
23:37corey was byron's grandson so there's some evidence that byron was talking to a hitman
23:48byron was extremely depressed did byron talk that fella into helping him commit suicide knowing that
23:59he was willing to kill but that confidential informant also died before i was able to contact him
24:11early on the investigators were trying to determine if this was an assisted suicide
24:16because there was no evidence of byron griffey fighting and no evidence of him attempting to get away
24:22i don't think there's any way at all my dad would have ever been suicidal he was mortician long enough
24:31to know what that did the families he'd have never done that
24:37as a prosecutor our obligation is that we do not bring a case to trial that we don't have a belief
24:53that we're going to be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt and i believed i had the evidence
24:58the stakes were pretty high i don't like to use the term fighting for your life but that's what it felt like
25:07the defense team had two alternate suspects tommy tomlin and corey gina's son there were other
25:16suspects but none of them ever rose to the level that would show us that they were a valid alternate
25:23suspect throughout the course of the day that the homicide took place tommy was always with someone
25:28from the start to finish that removed him as a suspect in our eyes we didn't think corey had the
25:35ability to do it and there was no evidence whatsoever that indicated that he was there the judge allowed
25:44us to kind of talk about them being closed chambers without the jury present but then wouldn't allow us
25:51to use it in court there was a significant amount of circumstantial evidence that pointed toward charles
26:01giebler and entity right they were at the scene of the crime during the time that the crime occurred
26:09there's about an hour of time that i need you to account for hardly remember that indeed we have
26:16inconsistencies in the car that they drove do you remember telling me what vehicle you drove out there
26:21it was the black mercedes it was the black the before all the cities okay i pulled the savannah's video
26:28i know you're not in the black mercedes you're driving the white astro man it must have been mistaken
26:34i could have sworn in that car when they're both confronted with it the response is exactly the same
26:39you did not drive the mercedes we were always in the mercedes usually but we may have taken it on you
26:44you know after the fact they realized we made a mistake in our statements so let's both get back
26:49on the same page and have the same response and a lot of the details just don't make sense
26:56far as you say it was the gate yes you know there was another way to get on his property that didn't
27:07charles and anthony had been to the farm plenty of times
27:10and for them to say oh the gate was locked whatever i don't buy it charles and anthony drove an hour to
27:18get their good friend to take him for a birthday lunch they didn't drive around to the other gate
27:26or even walk up to the house there was almost an entire hour that was unaccounted for
27:34you had her going somewhere else between fowler and the buffet drove around a little bit of sight
27:41with the we were just gonna head home because we had a few more work to do turned around in pueblo
27:46west and went back either one could say where they were for that hour that was lost so it gave us more
27:54indication that they were hiding something from us had you ever been to the farm before yeah had you
28:02been in the house yes before you went to byron's farm this day how many times do you think roughly
28:11you and charles went out to the farm i know that i was at the farm twice before maybe three times but
28:20i'd only been there a couple of times i'd never actually been in the house before
28:24there's layer after layer after layer of lie and deceit you start with the brothers and then you go
28:36all the way down to the death of charles and everything in between
28:49as we dug into charles and anthony's past we found that they had been crime scene
28:54cleaners for the utah coroner's office they had the knowledge and the know-how to clean a crime scene
29:03so that there wouldn't be any evidence left behind
29:08these were individuals who were comfortable around death i suspect that they were gloved up with latex
29:16gloves and there was a real attempt to avoid fingerprints and dna my gut feeling was there had
29:23to be more than one person involved when somebody dies that is dead weight so that dead weight becomes
29:32a very difficult thing to move but if somebody moved him you could find some drag marks there was none of
29:38those so it looked like several people moved him to that final resting position those all made us to the
29:46conclusion that it was charles giebler and anthony wright but did tony kill byron i always thought he did
29:55charles had it in to order tony to do it but i'm not sure if charles would have pulled the trigger
30:03tony was more cold and calculated
30:05not once during the trials or anything did anthony ever say i didn't do it
30:16like if you were innocent you would plead at some point and say i did not do this
30:24the trial i mean it was an agonizing couple of weeks
30:28the jury goes in to deliberate and that was the first time it really hit me that that's what i was
30:33facing was life in prison
30:41the jury in anthony's trial they were out two days very very stressful
30:48i'm looking at real punishment if i'm found guilty uh they're gonna send me to prison for life
31:00we were all there the whole family i was confident that anthony was gonna be convicted
31:08anthony's just sweating it nervous of course so the jury comes back
31:18it was a hung jury and i was extremely upset they hung meaning the jury couldn't make a unanimous decision
31:35everybody sat there completely dumbfounded when they came back as a
31:40hung jury i didn't know how the system worked i'm thinking sweet it's over i'm going home
31:46nope the district attorney right away stated that he was gonna try it again you just don't know
31:53what to even think at that point it was very traumatizing bottom line man you're gonna have to
32:01give another couple hundred thousand dollars together to defend yourself the next time i was ready
32:08for another trial but the attorney kept telling me if you have to go back after a mistrial
32:15it very rarely goes in the defendant's favor tony was just burned out he was tired he was exhausted
32:24he was just like i can't keep doing this and then the head d.a there for whatever reason offers
32:34anthony a plea bargain
32:37we made the decision that we had to get any conviction we can and my primary goal in doing
32:46that was to have anthony wright make a statement that says yes i'm responsible
32:55the spirit of c to commit murder didn't require jail time but it would be a few years of probation
33:02anthony anthony didn't want to do it the attorneys and myself basically started begging him to take
33:12the plea offer i mean i used to say no way i plead guilty to something i didn't do well you're not
33:18looking down the barrel of 25 to life it's real i wasn't given up by any means
33:25but i didn't see a way out i just had to take the plea
33:38my thoughts of anthony taking a plea deal was what did he pay the d.a that's truly what i think
33:48you take somebody's life and you get what 10 years of probation
33:52i was sick to my stomach how could something like that happen take a person's life and and it really has no value
34:06all of justice costs money you want to prove yourself innocent over something you could lose
34:12everything and where would it get you to sometimes to take the easy way
34:18admit to something get it over with and put it behind you only god knows
34:28we all wrote letters to the judge and he said you've agreed to the plea bargain and i said we
34:33didn't agree to the plea bargain bullock agreed to that plea bargain the district attorney james bullock
34:41who screwed us over i don't think that anthony is innocent i don't think charles was innocent
34:52do i want to really ask anthony anything i would like an answer
34:56i would like you to just fess up be a man tell me he did it and why he's too much of a coward though
35:06i guess that's why they shot him in the back of the head and that's why he won't tell me
35:19that according to him did you kill byron griffey
35:30uh absolutely 100 without question did not kill byron griffey and charles did not either
35:34I didn't do it. I don't know who did it. I have an idea who I think might have.
35:41The suspects that I believe possibly had a part in Byron's murder were Tommy Tomlin,
35:51Corey Higgs, and Byron's daughter Lynette. The biggest motive Lynette had was financial
36:00reasons. Byron told me he was tired of just having to continually support her and put
36:06money out for every little whim, and he was talking about just not doing that anymore.
36:11We did not hear any stories at all of Byron Griffey cutting her off in any way. She was
36:19at work all day the day that Byron was murdered. Lynette had an airtight alibi unlike Charles
36:26Giebler and Anthony Wright.
36:33Here are the facts. Charles and Anthony had hundreds of thousands, close to a million
36:43dollars worth of this guy's money. Yes, other people had reason to do something terrible to
36:49Byron. Can't argue that. But the people who gained the most financially, it was them.
37:01It was all about lies and greed and deceit. And I'm not sure if we'll ever know really the
37:10full truth, the full extent of it. There's one person that knows the truth 100%. That's Anthony
37:21Wright. I don't suppose that we can ever trust a damn thing that he says. How could you really
37:31trust anything that he says at this point?
37:38I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
37:57Having Laura there gave me something to focus on. Trying to start our life together. You know, it's a good
38:05distraction. Still is. That's sage from the Lake Pueblo. That doesn't even smell like sage
38:14anymore. Oh, there it is. So this summer, it'll be 12 years that Tony and I have been married. So I
38:25mean, Anthony and I, all we ever, ever wanted was to be together. That was it. We just wanted to be
38:31together. And we are. And we always will be. I said this at the very beginning, because, you know,
38:38right away, the attorneys are like, well, we got paid and you didn't go to prison. So all's good. Yes,
38:44he gets to walk around and have a job and, you know, kiss me goodnight every night or whatever. I said,
38:51but do not think for a minute that this was some kind of damn gift. This is not a best case scenario.
38:58Give me a break. I don't know that there will ever be closure because we didn't get justice. Anthony
39:10gets to walk around and do whatever he wants to do. I would have really liked for my dad
39:17to get justice. There was no justice. It doesn't matter that it's 12 years later. It hurts just
39:26as bad today. I would do anything I could to prove my innocence. But, you know, everybody's
39:35going to think something different. I struggle a lot still with, is Anthony innocent or is he guilty?
39:41We're a decade later and we just have questions and some things that probably will never be able
39:47to be answered because it's too late.
39:50Who killed Byron? I'm convinced Anthony didn't, but there's no evidence and probably never will be
39:59unless somebody makes a deathbed statement declaring that they did it.
40:06There's so many rabbit holes in this case to chase down that I suspect if we were to reopen the case,
40:12there's additional evidence that we would find that would just be more than we could deal with.
40:16I'd like to say that the moral of the story is don't trust somebody who says that they're your friend,
40:21but then what kind of life do you have? Like I'm still going to trust and I'm still going to be giving
40:26and loving and caring because that's what my dad would have wanted.
40:32A lot of this could have been avoided if people could just be themselves and tell the truth.
40:39Truth is the thing that everyone seeks. It's hard to come by. Just be honest. Say what happened or what didn't happen.
40:48Because someday they're going to have to answer to their maker for whatever they did.
40:55Both you and I, we're going to have to answer for our misdeeds and our mistakes.
41:00Monday, they will too.
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