August 30, 2023 • 35 mins
On July 29, 2016, Dawn and Antonio Armstrong Sr. were shot to death in their beds, and immediately, their 16-year-old son was arrested for the murders. After 7 years on house arrest and 3 capital murder trials, the now 23-year-old husdand and father's criminal prosecution has reached a conclusion.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
MMMM episode one thirty nine, HighlyUnusual The Three Trials of A. J.
(00:45):
Armstrong war Baby. Here with anotherepisode of Murderous Miners. After more
than seven years, it's finally timeto talk about the murder re trials of
Antonio A. J. Armstrong Junior, as this case has reached a conclusion.
As we previously covered, Armstrong Juniorwas prosecuted for the two thousand and
(01:07):
seventeen murders of his parents, DonWhitely Armstrong and Antonio Armstrong Senior in two
thousand and nineteen. However, thattrial ended with a mistrial after the jury
deadlocked. The first retrial began withjury selection on October third, two thousand
and twenty two. The prosecution calledthree Houston police officers to the stand,
(01:30):
who all testified that signs in thehouse pointing to Armstrong Junior as the likely
killer. One said that the teamsaid he heard gunshots come from his parents
room when he called nine to oneone, but he also said he was
hiding on the third floor, Sohow was it possible that he knew that
his younger sister's bedroom was on thesame floor. So it was odd to
(01:53):
the police that he seemed to knowexactly where the gun had been fired.
An officer testified that although the sisterwas hysterical and inconsolable, Armstrong Junior's demeanor
throughout the entire time he spent withhim was quote eerie and calm. His
attorney asked, quote did you everconsider he was handcuffed and put into the
(02:14):
back of your patrol car at twoam at the age of sixteen? If
aj wasn't scared enough for his parents, now he's being accused of it,
did you consider that, to whichthe officer replied simply no. Another officer
testified that they did not swab ArmstrongJunior's bedroom for gunshot residue that night because
(02:35):
nothing in there looked quote pertinent tothe investigation, while another said that all
of the windows had screens firmly inplace and didn't appear to have been recently
tampered with. One of the officerstestified that he saw a different officer pick
up the murder weapon from the kitchencounter where it had been left, saying
that he told her to put itdown. None of that appeared in the
police report. The defense placed emphasison the fact that responding officers handcuffed Armstrong's
(03:01):
twelve year old sister and put herin the back of a squad car,
even though officers said she looked likeshe had just woken up. He was
accusing police of quote forming an opinionwithin eleven minutes of being in that house
that the killer had come from inside. The officer explained that it was department
policy at a crime scene. TheEMT who attempted to save Antonio Senior,
(03:23):
testified that he tossed the pillow thatthe man had been shot through haphazardly because
he was more concerned about saving hislife than he was about the evidentiary value.
A blood spatter expert also took thestand, but no testimony was more
highly anticipated than that of the ADTrepresentative, who testified as to the intricacies
(03:45):
of the home security system's activity log. Much had been made of those records,
but the defense was able to getthe witness to admit that there had
been seventy seven errors on the homeslog in the three weeks leading up to
the murders. Defensive attorney Rick Dettotold reporters that the day of the alarm
records testimony was his quote favorite dayof trial. The state is stuck on
(04:08):
alarm records, they say the houseis closed. The alarm records are one
hundred percent accurate, and during crossexamination we were able to show there were
seventy seven different errors in those alarmrecords. Those alarm records are useless and
they mean nothing. Jurors heard thesixteen minute long whispered nine one one call
(04:28):
made at one forty am on Julytwenty ninth, two thousand and sixteen,
during which time Armstrong never told thedispatcher that he saw a masked intruder in
the house, which he would laterclaim they did. However, hear him
whisper quote it's all my fault towardthe end of the call, and they
also heard him tell the dispatcher thathe was experiencing ringing in his ears,
(04:51):
saying quote, I hear a loud, high pitched noise, a clear indication.
The prosecution said that Armstrong Junior hadrecently fired a gun. The state
laid out text messages again and presentedan activity log for Armstrong Junior's cell phone
that showed continuous usage all day untilone o two am, roughly forty minutes
(05:15):
before he called for help, meaningthey were trying to say that the only
time that day, that he wasn'tgoogling, texting, posting, playing a
game, or whatever was in thethirty eight minutes before he called nine to
one one and said he heard gunshotsin his parents room. The phone continued
to be handled during that time,as the screen did activate and light up
(05:38):
several times. However, the phoneitself remained locked for that entire thirty eight
minutes. The defense said that textmessages show that the team hadn't been angry
or up said on the day ofthe murders, while the prosecution used those
records and data derived from an expertthat showed that Armstrong Junior had been texting
himself, pretending to be texting anotherboy from school, and then sending screenshots
(06:01):
to his girlfriend proof The States saidthat he was lying and deceitful in the
hours leading up to his parents murders, and although the defense has made a
huge deal of AJ's older half brother'smental health records, the attorneys did not
offer any tangible proof or viable evidencethat the brother was involved in the murders,
much less responsible for them. Prosecutorsstated that there exists quote a stigma
(06:28):
with mental illness. A lot ofpeople view people with mental illness as scary
instead of showing compassion. Mental illnessdoesn't equal murderer. They pointed out that
some of the medical documents clearly statethese mental health issues arose quote since parents
were murdered, because the defense weretrying to say they existed before with their
experts testifying that quote, it wouldbe very unlikely the murders would have provoked
(06:53):
to this illness. It doesn't happenthat way. His ex girlfriend, who
had been with him for about ayear leading up to the murders, testified
that his mental state began to quicklyunravel after they died, saying that he
just wanted to know what really happened. She said she had been asleep that
night and that he and his cousinhad been playing video games in the living
(07:14):
room of her apartment when he camein and woke her, saying they were
shooting at his parents house. Thedefense said that he could have traveled the
two minutes by foot distance to hisparents' house easily without his sleeping girlfriend's knowledge.
During their closing statement, prosecutors characterizedthis case as a parent's worst nightmare
to come to the realization that theperson you brought into this world would end
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your life, also stating that quote, if officers arrive at that scene with
the doors locked, the garage down, the windows closed, the murder weapons
still in the home, and theydon't assume it's this defendant, they should
have their badges taken away. Hereminded the jury that the team admitted to
police to test firing Antonio seniors gunthe murder weapon through a comforter and pillow
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he stashed in his bedroom closet.Then about the fire he admitted to trying
to start a few days before themurders on the second floor hallway landing just
doubt his parents and younger sister's bedroom. The prosecutor even showed them the singed
portion of carpet that contained traces ofalcohol and Gasolye also later found in his
bedroom, saying that quote, hewas engaging in serious, disturbing, disruptive
(08:28):
behavior, and he did it witha smile on his face. What kind
of person takes on the persona ofa normal, happy person when he's clearly
experimenting with ways to kill his parents, reminding them that he'd even gone so
far as to google quote, howcan a car bomb be rigged to explode
when started. All evidence. Allevidence points to one person. The number
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of people who could have committed thiscrime is limited. It makes no sense
that somebody outside the immediate household wouldbust into a house with the alarm system
on and peruse the house to findthe homeowner's gun, shoot the homeowners,
find a pad in the kitchen,write a note, and lock up the
house after leaving. In the historyof murders, no murderer has ever left
(09:15):
a murder weapon behind, adding thatit was right next to the note.
Quote. So the killer is writinga note to the people he just killed.
Does that make any sense? Theywanted jurors to understand that, according
to their experts quote, there wereno signs of mental illness before the murders.
The person who committed these murders wasnot somebody suffering from a psychotic episode.
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This was planned. They want youto believe mental illness means murder,
aren't you offended? The prosecutor remindedthem that quote the only time he was
not on his phone was in thethirty eight minute window when his parents were
getting murdered, and made sure theyunderstood that the first person Armstrong Junior called
after nine one one was his brother, who then woke his sleeping girlfriend and
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arrived at the scene within minutes ofpolice. Specifically, the state maintained that
Armstrong Junior stopped using his phone atone o two am, plugged it in
at one o four am, thenunplugged it at one o eight am,
one minute before the second floor motionsensor detector activated. The phone remained locked,
(10:22):
but was in use over the nextthirty two minutes, with the display
lighting up numerous times, indicating thatthe flashlight could have been in use or
that the screen was being used forambient lighting. Although it had been pointed
out that a pistol as small asthe twenty two caliber used in these murders
wouldn't produce a testable amount of gunshotresidue, the defense questioned the lack of
(10:45):
physical evidence, asking quote, where'sthe gunshot residue, Where's the DNA,
where's the blood spatter? Where's theclothes bloody clothes? Where are the wet
towels, the wet sinks, thewet showers, anything that would show that
somebody cleaned themselves off or tried tohide evidence. It's not there. Where
in the world did this evidence gois Armstrong junior at the age of sixteen,
(11:09):
some professionally trained assassin who somehow knowshow to put all of this together
to get away scot free, becausethere's no evidence that points to him.
I don't think so. The stateended their closing statement powerfully with text from
a message Don had sent her sona few days before she was murdered.
That read quote, I know youleft the alarm. Doesn't lie. You
(11:33):
lied, I can show you,adding how appropriate that six years later,
the last words of this trial wouldcome from Don Armstrong, the woman who
believed injustice and holding her son accountable. There are no words I can say,
no phrases I can use that aremore powerful, more appropriate, or
more damning than that text message.The jury was sequestered for the duration of
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the deliberations, which lasted a totalof seventeen hours and fifty eight minutes,
only one hour less than the firstjury deliberated. They began following the closing
statements on Monday, October twenty fourth, and on Wednesday, October twenty sixth,
two thousand and twenty two, thejudge declared a second mistrial after the
(12:18):
jury could not reach a unanimous decisionas required in a capital murder case.
Just like in the first trial,juror sent the judge a note letting her
know that they couldn't agree and thatno one juror felt that they would likely
change their mind. The judge onceagain read them the all in Charge,
letting them know that if a mistrialwas declared and a different jury were presented
(12:43):
with the same evidence, they wouldhave just as hard a time and encourage
them to keep deliberating due to theamount of time they'd already put into the
process. About two hours later,the jury alerted the judge that they wouldn't
be able to reach a consensus.In the end, it all came down
to reasonable doubts owned by the defense, with one anonymous juror telling reporters after
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that quote, he's guilty. He'sabsolutely guilty. Everyone kind of had their
mind made up. But it wasvery frustrating to hear everyone say, and
I mean everyone say, quote,we know he's not innocent, but we
still have doubt. Harris County DistrictAttorney Kim og released a statement saying,
quote, we followed the evidence andstood up for Antonio Armstrong Senior and Don
(13:30):
Armstrong, who were murdered in theirbed. We appreciate the time, effort,
and diligence of jurors as they werepresented all the evidence in this brutal
attack. Antonio Armstrong Junior and severalmembers of his family appeared on ABC's twenty
twenty in early January two thousand andtwenty three, and he remained free on
(13:52):
bond as he prepared for his thirdcapital murder trial throughout May two thousand and
twenty three. Twelve and four alternateswere selected from a pool of forty eight
candidates. They consisted of more thanone United States marine, a grandmother,
former and current mental health professionals,and span the racial and age spectrums fairly
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well. Before opening statements could begin, the trial was postponed until a hearing
could be held on the following Mondayto address a motion to suppress evidence.
When June twelfth came around, thetrial start date was reset to July thirty
first, and the reason being thrownaround in the media was shocking. A
gag order was in place, soneither attorneys could tell reporters what was causing
(14:39):
the delay. We all assumed thatthis issue would turn out to be new
evidence pertaining to Armstrong's older brother.However, it was in regards to recently
discovered trace DNA found on the shirtthat teen was wearing when he was arrested
on the night of his parents murders. Previously undetected flecks of blood were allegedly
(15:01):
found underneath the visitors sticker placed onArmstrong Junior's T shirt. Legal analyst Lisa
Andrews said on Houston KARPC two showthe Bench that finding new DNA on evidence
police have had in their custody forseven years was quote highly unusual. Judge
Kelly Johnson sealed nineteen documents from thepublic and band cameras, cell phones,
(15:26):
and laptops from the trial in startcontrast to the minute by minute video coverage
of the first two trials. Inregards to those thousands of text messages trotted
out before the last two juries,this time only messages from April first to
July twenty ninth, two thousand andsixteen were admissible. Trial began on July
(15:48):
thirty first, two thousand and twentythree as schedules and lasted eleven days in
total. Blood spatter and crime scenereconstruction expert Celestina Rossi testified that on June
second, two, twenty three,she visited Houston Police Department's property room to
retrieve some evidence, specifically the pillowsthe Armstrongs were laying on when they were
(16:12):
shot. When she noticed Armstrong Junior'sclothes from that night, she said that
she took them out because she quotewanted to take a look, and quote
immediately saw what appeared to be analmost reddish brown stain touching the bottom of
the police sticker. She explained thatthe edge of the sticker was peeling,
(16:32):
revealing the small speck beneath, andthat she removed the sticker further and uncovered
another speck in the middle. Itwas quote a pristine sticker where we see
no other evidence, going on tosay that quote if it was cross contamination,
there would be more fibers or bloodflakes. The Houston Forensic Science Center,
who processed all of the evidence thefirst time around two determined that it
(16:56):
is quote very likely that it isthe defendant's follow there's blood. No first
responding officers testified in any of thethree trials to seeing blood on the team,
and no blood or gunshot residue wasoriginally found on Armstrong Junior's clothes or
body. Rossi testified that the shooterwould have been positioned roughly two and a
(17:18):
half to three feet from Dawn Armstrongwhen the couple was shot, and that,
according to her calculations, the shooterwould not have had any blood spatter
on them. She posits that whatwas found under the sticker could have been
exhaled by Antonio Senior as he triedto survive, admitting as well, though,
that this was purely speculation. Thedefense refuted her assumptions entirely, telling
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the jury instead that the blood likelycame from cross contamination and showing them dried
flakes of blood that had fallen tothe bottom of a tote that evidence was
being kept in. Here's what theprosecution said during closing about the newfound blood
evidence and about gunshot residence. Whatwas made about gunshot residue in this case,
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and the common misconception is that wheneversomebody fires have gone there's going to
be gunshot residue on their hands.First of all, we know that twenty
twos do not commonly produce gunshot residue, and we also know it's because they
don't have one of the elements.It's antimony and the manufacture of that ammunition
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is not going to tell us it'sprotected by proprietary meats, so they're not
going to disclose to us what theingredients are that is in the bullet itself.
The defense yelled to Jason Schroeder fornot taking the gun to his lab
and testing it for gunshot residue.And what mister Schroeder was trying to tell
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you, here's the problem with that. Taking it to a lab and testing
a gun for gunshot residue doesn't mimicthe environment the crime scene in which the
gun was fired. So for example, you could take a gun down to
the lab, shoot it and say, yes, I have gunshot residue,
but you may have somebody who touchedthe gun, shot the gun at the
(19:08):
scene and they don't have gunshot residue. You see how those results could be
skewed. And the reason for thatis there's a lot of factors that go
in to gunshot residue. The environmentin which it is shot, the amount
of time that the killer has.Remember, these elements are like like salt
almost on your hands, rub yourhands together, you rub it on a
(19:32):
surface, you wash your hands,you wear gloves if you was sweating.
Those are all things that will causegunshot residue to slough off. In this
case, the defendant's hands were veryclean. His shirt had all three elements
of gunshot residue, but because theynot fuse together in one compound, we
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can't say it's gunshot residue. Andthen we got to this, So now
you all know what the delay wasfor from June until now, it was
for this. And to be honestwith you, and John and I prepped
this case never even looked at them, never even looked because the lab had
(20:18):
tested it in twenty sixteen and toldus there's no blood anywhere was closed,
and we took him out their wordthere wasn't. And Shelley Rossi went down
that Friday on June second of thisyear, and she wanted to look at
the pillows. And when she foundout the defendant's clothing the night of the
murder was still in evidence, she'dwanted to look at it. And who
(20:38):
can blame her, because don't youknow if she didn't do that, this
defense team would say, you didn'teven bother to look at my client's clothes,
did you? And she wasn't goingto let that happen. So she
looked at him, and what shefound underneath that badge we now know is
Antonio Senior's blood. And why ishis father's blood on his clothes when,
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according to the defendant, he neverwent in and checked on him. One
of the things she told you wasone of the spects. One of the
spects. She can't account for it. She told you that, she said,
look, it could be blood onhis face or on his eyebrow dropped
and they put the sticker on it, saved it. She can't rule out
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cross contamination. She told you thatit is a fleck of blood. The
bigger one is, but that otherone it's not from the same source.
The smaller one is a blood stain. It is a small circular spatter.
The only way you get that isthrough three things. Forward spatter, which
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we know didn't happen in this case, because that means the defendant would have
had to be sitting behind his dadon the backwards spatter. You know that
didn't happen because we know that thetater was far enough away that he wouldn't
have blood kicked back, especially withAntonio Senior. And on the only other
thing, the blood stain originates fromhis exploration. And what do we know
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about the crime scene. We knowthat when Antonio Senior was shot, he
was facing the way from his wife. We know that he had from the
ant. He testified he had bloodall in his nose area and coming out
of his mouth. They deleted advicede suction it out, and we can
see the spatter on the bed.Those photos are in evidence. You can
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see that is expiration blood that heis expiring from his mouth as he fights
for his life. And we knowthat the person who did this put those
pillows over his face. He hadto come close enough in contact to do
that. Those blood spatters will dryin air. Chully Rossi testified to that
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they will dry in air and theywill become like salt or gunshop residue.
The defendant didn't have that sticker placedon him work until five hours later,
and during that time, who knowsif more spatters fell off. But what
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we do now is when that stickerwas placed on his chest, it preserved
it. It time stamped it,and there it stayed for seven years until
she went and looked at him.The prosecution showed the jury security camera footage
of the T shirt being discovered andexamined, and also constructed replicas of both
(23:52):
the second to third floor staircase ofthe Armstrong's condo and of the couple's king
sized bed pleet with mannikin replicas oftheir sleeping forms. The stairs were there
to prove that Armstrong Junior couldn't havestood on them and seeing a masked intruder
on the first floor, as heclaimed to police when he was questioned,
having told them that quote, Ikind of looked you can peaque, and
(24:15):
I saw someone. The defense spentseveral days questioning doctor Mark Muller and doctor
Ian Lamreaux about Josh Armstrong's mental stateboth before and after the murders, as
they continued to attempt to present himas a viable alternative suspect. His ex
girlfriend had already testified for the stateagain, saying about his paranoia, this
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time that quote, I want tobe very very clear about this. Josh
was never like this before. Thiscompletely ruined his life. The Armstrong's daughter,
who was twelve when they were killed, testified for the third time about
her recollections of that day, andAntonio Senior's mother testified again as well,
(25:00):
admitting that Armstrong junior. Quote wasn'tperfect. He was a sixteen year old
boy. He did what boys do, what kids do. Did he lie,
Yes, he did, But hewas very respectful to his parents.
We had a loving family. Hewould have never killed his parents. Following
the testimony of a total of thirtyone witnesses, closing statements were presented on
(25:22):
August fifteenth, two twenty three,with the defense saying, quote, there's
no blood at all on any ofAJ's clothes. How in the world did
two specks of blood get under thesticker on the back of the badge if
there's no blood anywhere else here ispart of what the prosecution told the jury
during their closing argument. Because ofthe trauma of losing his parents, he
(25:47):
became paranoid. He started making listsof all the people that could have killed
his parents, including everybody in theirfamily. You don't do that if you're
the killer. The defense thinks thatthese medical records are good for them,
talk about confirmation bias. They're takingthree lines and records that are thousands of
(26:14):
pages, which says Josh Armstrong witnessedthe murder of his parents, and they
want you to believe that means hewas the killer. They're ignoring. They've
chosen to ignore the thousands of pagesthey talk about how his parents' death was
the absolute horse stay of his entirelife. Josh has shown way more emotion
(26:42):
in the wake of his parents' death. This defendant is even capable. I'm
shown and as righteous as it isto stand before you today and tell you
that the defendant in this case isone guilt of killing his parents, and
(27:03):
it is just as righteous to askyou something, something that most prosecutors will
never get to ask in their entirecareer. I'm asking you to find somebody
innocent in this case, but notthe defendant. Josh Armstrong was wrongfully accused
in this courtroom of her crime hedid not commit, but not by us,
(27:27):
by them. The judge told youthe very beginning. The defense doesn't
have to put on a case.It's third choice. They chose to put
on a case, and there arecases that Josh Armstrong did this. Are
they so desperate that they would sacrificeone brother to the other. I'm gonna
let John talk about the crime scene. That there is something I want to
(27:51):
mention to you party Josh, thedefendant called myel one in this case.
At one forty in the morning firstresponders or on the doorsteps of that house
at one forty six, six minutes. If the defendant is not the killer
(28:11):
in this case, that means theperson would put pillows over the heads,
run out of the room, butnot before turning to crack the door,
shut, run down the hall,down the stairs, go through the kitchen,
pull out a bunch of drawers,take a pen, a pad,
write a note, scribbling over severaltimes to mask their penmanship, but the
(28:32):
pad back in the drawer, putthe note down, put the gun down,
the pen next to it, andlock up the house on their way
out. Six minutes and they're tryingto tell you with a straight face that
a psychotic person did it in sixminutes. And the last thing I'll tell
you about Josh. The defendant calledhim to the scene that night. You
(29:00):
know what he said. Josh toldhim your story makes no sense, which
is the same thing that Houston PoliceDepartment has been telling him ever since.
Sound like a psychotic person to you. The jury began their deliberations, taking
roughly ten hours to unanimously find AntonioArmstrong Junior guilty of murdering Dawn and Antonio
(29:26):
senior, The now twenty three yearold husband and father of one, was
then sentenced to forty years to life, the automatic sentence for a juvenile convicted
of capital murder in the state ofTexas. Antonio Armstrong Jor. Walked into
this courthouse this morning as a defendant, and now he is a convicted capital
(29:47):
murderer. Yes, has taken along time, and I think there has
been a false narrative out in ourcommunity through an effort to shape a narrative
that just wasn't true. This jurygot all of the evidence and they,
(30:07):
I believe, are confident as wehave always been. You know, the
question has been because Kim had askedRyan, I should you try him again?
And our answer was yes, becausewe believed he killed his parents and
he killed two people, so whatbetter reason to try him again. And
(30:32):
the fact that he was youthful makeshim even that more dangerous. After spending
the last seven years wearing a GPSankle monitor, Armstrong Jr. Was taken
into custody immediately, with reports indicatingthat he'll be taken to the Bird Unit
in Huntsville, Texas to be processedinto state custody, which is a unit
(30:53):
that houses those with no chance ofparole. No word yet on whether he'll
remain there or be transferred. Camerascaptured distraught family members, including Armstrong Junior's
high school girlfriend turned wife, openlysobbing as she left the courtroom. Antonio
Senior's brother, Harvey Armstrong, alsoan NFL veteran, has been speaking out
(31:17):
on behalf of his nephew and saidfollowing the verdict that he knows his nephew
and knows that quote in his heart. He could not kill his father and
mother. Here's the defense team followingthe verdict. To have this result after
seven years, this is a toughpill to swab. But we will not
ever stop fighting for a japscause thismany times. We will be here always
(31:37):
for him. And his family isas strong as they could be, and
they will not stop fighting for ajThey will continue through an appeal and whatever
comes after that. Any idea whetherit was a different outcome to this time.
Last time, it seemed like thingswere tipping in favor of the defense,
so heavy trial is different. Heavyjury is different. It's impossible to
predict from a last trial what's goingto happen in the next trial. So
(32:00):
it's just a risk involved the jurytross anything can happen. They're different people.
In an interesting twist, just afterthe jury was sequestered to deliberate their
verdict, a lawsuit was filed infederal court by Antonio Armstrong Jr. Alleging
that the Houston Police Department planted theblood found under the sticker on the shirt.
(32:21):
Civil rights attorney Randall Kallinan is oneof the attorneys handling the federal suit.
The jury has been sequestered, andyou would do good to tell your
audience is what sequestration means. Thatmeans no contact with the outside world at
all, including this press conference oranything that's said or anything in this lawsuit
(32:46):
that has been filed. As amatter of fact, we could have filed
this lawsuit earlier and had this pressconference earlier and the jury might have seen
it. But we didn't. Wewait until sequest creation. Armstrong Junior was
in court again on August eighteenth,two twenty three, where he told Judge
(33:08):
Kelly Johnson that he couldn't afford topay an attorney to represent him on his
appeal, so a public defender wasappointed. No word yet on what exactly
is alleged in the appeal, althoughI'm sure the newfound blood evidence will be
a focal point. I'll leave youwith some of what Harris County District Attorney
Kim Ogg had to say after finallysecuring a conviction against Antonio Armstrong Junior after
(33:35):
seven years and three capital murder trials. And I want to say this on
behalf of the victims, Antonio Seniorand Dawn Armstrong died because they were trying
to be good parents, because theywanted their children to do right, not
to lie, to work, tobe law abiding, contributing adults, and
(34:02):
for that they paid with their lives. And so today we've now seen what
a murderer looks like. It canbe anyone, and the fact that it
was their own son is some It'sa trauma, it is a tragedy for
(34:25):
the whole family. And so Ijust want to tell you all that but
for the absolute labor of public servantswho are prosecutors and police, this case
couldn't have been brought to justice.And for the jurors who came down and
answered their jury their jury summons.About one in nine people does that these
(34:51):
days. I want to thank thembecause we don't make these decisions about guilt
or innocence unilaterally. Our jurisprudence andour American democracy and our government system doesn't
doesn't contemplate it that way. Weparticipate in our democracy and the community through
those jurors, twelve trial jurors,and three alternates, the community spoke today.
(35:20):
The community found Antonio Armstrong Junior guilty, and the community found justice for
our victims. Episode one thirty nine, Highly Unusual
MMMM episode one thirty nine, HighlyUnusual The Three Trials of A. J.
(00:45):
Armstrong war Baby. Here with anotherepisode of Murderous Miners. After more
than seven years, it's finally timeto talk about the murder re trials of
Antonio A. J. Armstrong Junior, as this case has reached a conclusion.
As we previously covered, Armstrong Juniorwas prosecuted for the two thousand and
(01:07):
seventeen murders of his parents, DonWhitely Armstrong and Antonio Armstrong Senior in two
thousand and nineteen. However, thattrial ended with a mistrial after the jury
deadlocked. The first retrial began withjury selection on October third, two thousand
and twenty two. The prosecution calledthree Houston police officers to the stand,
(01:30):
who all testified that signs in thehouse pointing to Armstrong Junior as the likely
killer. One said that the teamsaid he heard gunshots come from his parents
room when he called nine to oneone, but he also said he was
hiding on the third floor, Sohow was it possible that he knew that
his younger sister's bedroom was on thesame floor. So it was odd to
(01:53):
the police that he seemed to knowexactly where the gun had been fired.
An officer testified that although the sisterwas hysterical and inconsolable, Armstrong Junior's demeanor
throughout the entire time he spent withhim was quote eerie and calm. His
attorney asked, quote did you everconsider he was handcuffed and put into the
(02:14):
back of your patrol car at twoam at the age of sixteen? If
aj wasn't scared enough for his parents, now he's being accused of it,
did you consider that, to whichthe officer replied simply no. Another officer
testified that they did not swab ArmstrongJunior's bedroom for gunshot residue that night because
(02:35):
nothing in there looked quote pertinent tothe investigation, while another said that all
of the windows had screens firmly inplace and didn't appear to have been recently
tampered with. One of the officerstestified that he saw a different officer pick
up the murder weapon from the kitchencounter where it had been left, saying
that he told her to put itdown. None of that appeared in the
police report. The defense placed emphasison the fact that responding officers handcuffed Armstrong's
(03:01):
twelve year old sister and put herin the back of a squad car,
even though officers said she looked likeshe had just woken up. He was
accusing police of quote forming an opinionwithin eleven minutes of being in that house
that the killer had come from inside. The officer explained that it was department
policy at a crime scene. TheEMT who attempted to save Antonio Senior,
(03:23):
testified that he tossed the pillow thatthe man had been shot through haphazardly because
he was more concerned about saving hislife than he was about the evidentiary value.
A blood spatter expert also took thestand, but no testimony was more
highly anticipated than that of the ADTrepresentative, who testified as to the intricacies
(03:45):
of the home security system's activity log. Much had been made of those records,
but the defense was able to getthe witness to admit that there had
been seventy seven errors on the homeslog in the three weeks leading up to
the murders. Defensive attorney Rick Dettotold reporters that the day of the alarm
records testimony was his quote favorite dayof trial. The state is stuck on
(04:08):
alarm records, they say the houseis closed. The alarm records are one
hundred percent accurate, and during crossexamination we were able to show there were
seventy seven different errors in those alarmrecords. Those alarm records are useless and
they mean nothing. Jurors heard thesixteen minute long whispered nine one one call
(04:28):
made at one forty am on Julytwenty ninth, two thousand and sixteen,
during which time Armstrong never told thedispatcher that he saw a masked intruder in
the house, which he would laterclaim they did. However, hear him
whisper quote it's all my fault towardthe end of the call, and they
also heard him tell the dispatcher thathe was experiencing ringing in his ears,
(04:51):
saying quote, I hear a loud, high pitched noise, a clear indication.
The prosecution said that Armstrong Junior hadrecently fired a gun. The state
laid out text messages again and presentedan activity log for Armstrong Junior's cell phone
that showed continuous usage all day untilone o two am, roughly forty minutes
(05:15):
before he called for help, meaningthey were trying to say that the only
time that day, that he wasn'tgoogling, texting, posting, playing a
game, or whatever was in thethirty eight minutes before he called nine to
one one and said he heard gunshotsin his parents room. The phone continued
to be handled during that time,as the screen did activate and light up
(05:38):
several times. However, the phoneitself remained locked for that entire thirty eight
minutes. The defense said that textmessages show that the team hadn't been angry
or up said on the day ofthe murders, while the prosecution used those
records and data derived from an expertthat showed that Armstrong Junior had been texting
himself, pretending to be texting anotherboy from school, and then sending screenshots
(06:01):
to his girlfriend proof The States saidthat he was lying and deceitful in the
hours leading up to his parents murders, and although the defense has made a
huge deal of AJ's older half brother'smental health records, the attorneys did not
offer any tangible proof or viable evidencethat the brother was involved in the murders,
much less responsible for them. Prosecutorsstated that there exists quote a stigma
(06:28):
with mental illness. A lot ofpeople view people with mental illness as scary
instead of showing compassion. Mental illnessdoesn't equal murderer. They pointed out that
some of the medical documents clearly statethese mental health issues arose quote since parents
were murdered, because the defense weretrying to say they existed before with their
experts testifying that quote, it wouldbe very unlikely the murders would have provoked
(06:53):
to this illness. It doesn't happenthat way. His ex girlfriend, who
had been with him for about ayear leading up to the murders, testified
that his mental state began to quicklyunravel after they died, saying that he
just wanted to know what really happened. She said she had been asleep that
night and that he and his cousinhad been playing video games in the living
(07:14):
room of her apartment when he camein and woke her, saying they were
shooting at his parents house. Thedefense said that he could have traveled the
two minutes by foot distance to hisparents' house easily without his sleeping girlfriend's knowledge.
During their closing statement, prosecutors characterizedthis case as a parent's worst nightmare
to come to the realization that theperson you brought into this world would end
(07:39):
your life, also stating that quote, if officers arrive at that scene with
the doors locked, the garage down, the windows closed, the murder weapons
still in the home, and theydon't assume it's this defendant, they should
have their badges taken away. Hereminded the jury that the team admitted to
police to test firing Antonio seniors gunthe murder weapon through a comforter and pillow
(08:03):
he stashed in his bedroom closet.Then about the fire he admitted to trying
to start a few days before themurders on the second floor hallway landing just
doubt his parents and younger sister's bedroom. The prosecutor even showed them the singed
portion of carpet that contained traces ofalcohol and Gasolye also later found in his
bedroom, saying that quote, hewas engaging in serious, disturbing, disruptive
(08:28):
behavior, and he did it witha smile on his face. What kind
of person takes on the persona ofa normal, happy person when he's clearly
experimenting with ways to kill his parents, reminding them that he'd even gone so
far as to google quote, howcan a car bomb be rigged to explode
when started. All evidence. Allevidence points to one person. The number
(08:52):
of people who could have committed thiscrime is limited. It makes no sense
that somebody outside the immediate household wouldbust into a house with the alarm system
on and peruse the house to findthe homeowner's gun, shoot the homeowners,
find a pad in the kitchen,write a note, and lock up the
house after leaving. In the historyof murders, no murderer has ever left
(09:15):
a murder weapon behind, adding thatit was right next to the note.
Quote. So the killer is writinga note to the people he just killed.
Does that make any sense? Theywanted jurors to understand that, according
to their experts quote, there wereno signs of mental illness before the murders.
The person who committed these murders wasnot somebody suffering from a psychotic episode.
(09:37):
This was planned. They want youto believe mental illness means murder,
aren't you offended? The prosecutor remindedthem that quote the only time he was
not on his phone was in thethirty eight minute window when his parents were
getting murdered, and made sure theyunderstood that the first person Armstrong Junior called
after nine one one was his brother, who then woke his sleeping girlfriend and
(10:01):
arrived at the scene within minutes ofpolice. Specifically, the state maintained that
Armstrong Junior stopped using his phone atone o two am, plugged it in
at one o four am, thenunplugged it at one o eight am,
one minute before the second floor motionsensor detector activated. The phone remained locked,
(10:22):
but was in use over the nextthirty two minutes, with the display
lighting up numerous times, indicating thatthe flashlight could have been in use or
that the screen was being used forambient lighting. Although it had been pointed
out that a pistol as small asthe twenty two caliber used in these murders
wouldn't produce a testable amount of gunshotresidue, the defense questioned the lack of
(10:45):
physical evidence, asking quote, where'sthe gunshot residue, Where's the DNA,
where's the blood spatter? Where's theclothes bloody clothes? Where are the wet
towels, the wet sinks, thewet showers, anything that would show that
somebody cleaned themselves off or tried tohide evidence. It's not there. Where
in the world did this evidence gois Armstrong junior at the age of sixteen,
(11:09):
some professionally trained assassin who somehow knowshow to put all of this together
to get away scot free, becausethere's no evidence that points to him.
I don't think so. The stateended their closing statement powerfully with text from
a message Don had sent her sona few days before she was murdered.
That read quote, I know youleft the alarm. Doesn't lie. You
(11:33):
lied, I can show you,adding how appropriate that six years later,
the last words of this trial wouldcome from Don Armstrong, the woman who
believed injustice and holding her son accountable. There are no words I can say,
no phrases I can use that aremore powerful, more appropriate, or
more damning than that text message.The jury was sequestered for the duration of
(11:58):
the deliberations, which lasted a totalof seventeen hours and fifty eight minutes,
only one hour less than the firstjury deliberated. They began following the closing
statements on Monday, October twenty fourth, and on Wednesday, October twenty sixth,
two thousand and twenty two, thejudge declared a second mistrial after the
(12:18):
jury could not reach a unanimous decisionas required in a capital murder case.
Just like in the first trial,juror sent the judge a note letting her
know that they couldn't agree and thatno one juror felt that they would likely
change their mind. The judge onceagain read them the all in Charge,
letting them know that if a mistrialwas declared and a different jury were presented
(12:43):
with the same evidence, they wouldhave just as hard a time and encourage
them to keep deliberating due to theamount of time they'd already put into the
process. About two hours later,the jury alerted the judge that they wouldn't
be able to reach a consensus.In the end, it all came down
to reasonable doubts owned by the defense, with one anonymous juror telling reporters after
(13:05):
that quote, he's guilty. He'sabsolutely guilty. Everyone kind of had their
mind made up. But it wasvery frustrating to hear everyone say, and
I mean everyone say, quote,we know he's not innocent, but we
still have doubt. Harris County DistrictAttorney Kim og released a statement saying,
quote, we followed the evidence andstood up for Antonio Armstrong Senior and Don
(13:30):
Armstrong, who were murdered in theirbed. We appreciate the time, effort,
and diligence of jurors as they werepresented all the evidence in this brutal
attack. Antonio Armstrong Junior and severalmembers of his family appeared on ABC's twenty
twenty in early January two thousand andtwenty three, and he remained free on
(13:52):
bond as he prepared for his thirdcapital murder trial throughout May two thousand and
twenty three. Twelve and four alternateswere selected from a pool of forty eight
candidates. They consisted of more thanone United States marine, a grandmother,
former and current mental health professionals,and span the racial and age spectrums fairly
(14:15):
well. Before opening statements could begin, the trial was postponed until a hearing
could be held on the following Mondayto address a motion to suppress evidence.
When June twelfth came around, thetrial start date was reset to July thirty
first, and the reason being thrownaround in the media was shocking. A
gag order was in place, soneither attorneys could tell reporters what was causing
(14:39):
the delay. We all assumed thatthis issue would turn out to be new
evidence pertaining to Armstrong's older brother.However, it was in regards to recently
discovered trace DNA found on the shirtthat teen was wearing when he was arrested
on the night of his parents murders. Previously undetected flecks of blood were allegedly
(15:01):
found underneath the visitors sticker placed onArmstrong Junior's T shirt. Legal analyst Lisa
Andrews said on Houston KARPC two showthe Bench that finding new DNA on evidence
police have had in their custody forseven years was quote highly unusual. Judge
Kelly Johnson sealed nineteen documents from thepublic and band cameras, cell phones,
(15:26):
and laptops from the trial in startcontrast to the minute by minute video coverage
of the first two trials. Inregards to those thousands of text messages trotted
out before the last two juries,this time only messages from April first to
July twenty ninth, two thousand andsixteen were admissible. Trial began on July
(15:48):
thirty first, two thousand and twentythree as schedules and lasted eleven days in
total. Blood spatter and crime scenereconstruction expert Celestina Rossi testified that on June
second, two, twenty three,she visited Houston Police Department's property room to
retrieve some evidence, specifically the pillowsthe Armstrongs were laying on when they were
(16:12):
shot. When she noticed Armstrong Junior'sclothes from that night, she said that
she took them out because she quotewanted to take a look, and quote
immediately saw what appeared to be analmost reddish brown stain touching the bottom of
the police sticker. She explained thatthe edge of the sticker was peeling,
(16:32):
revealing the small speck beneath, andthat she removed the sticker further and uncovered
another speck in the middle. Itwas quote a pristine sticker where we see
no other evidence, going on tosay that quote if it was cross contamination,
there would be more fibers or bloodflakes. The Houston Forensic Science Center,
who processed all of the evidence thefirst time around two determined that it
(16:56):
is quote very likely that it isthe defendant's follow there's blood. No first
responding officers testified in any of thethree trials to seeing blood on the team,
and no blood or gunshot residue wasoriginally found on Armstrong Junior's clothes or
body. Rossi testified that the shooterwould have been positioned roughly two and a
(17:18):
half to three feet from Dawn Armstrongwhen the couple was shot, and that,
according to her calculations, the shooterwould not have had any blood spatter
on them. She posits that whatwas found under the sticker could have been
exhaled by Antonio Senior as he triedto survive, admitting as well, though,
that this was purely speculation. Thedefense refuted her assumptions entirely, telling
(17:41):
the jury instead that the blood likelycame from cross contamination and showing them dried
flakes of blood that had fallen tothe bottom of a tote that evidence was
being kept in. Here's what theprosecution said during closing about the newfound blood
evidence and about gunshot residence. Whatwas made about gunshot residue in this case,
(18:03):
and the common misconception is that wheneversomebody fires have gone there's going to
be gunshot residue on their hands.First of all, we know that twenty
twos do not commonly produce gunshot residue, and we also know it's because they
don't have one of the elements.It's antimony and the manufacture of that ammunition
(18:26):
is not going to tell us it'sprotected by proprietary meats, so they're not
going to disclose to us what theingredients are that is in the bullet itself.
The defense yelled to Jason Schroeder fornot taking the gun to his lab
and testing it for gunshot residue.And what mister Schroeder was trying to tell
(18:47):
you, here's the problem with that. Taking it to a lab and testing
a gun for gunshot residue doesn't mimicthe environment the crime scene in which the
gun was fired. So for example, you could take a gun down to
the lab, shoot it and say, yes, I have gunshot residue,
but you may have somebody who touchedthe gun, shot the gun at the
(19:08):
scene and they don't have gunshot residue. You see how those results could be
skewed. And the reason for thatis there's a lot of factors that go
in to gunshot residue. The environmentin which it is shot, the amount
of time that the killer has.Remember, these elements are like like salt
almost on your hands, rub yourhands together, you rub it on a
(19:32):
surface, you wash your hands,you wear gloves if you was sweating.
Those are all things that will causegunshot residue to slough off. In this
case, the defendant's hands were veryclean. His shirt had all three elements
of gunshot residue, but because theynot fuse together in one compound, we
(19:55):
can't say it's gunshot residue. Andthen we got to this, So now
you all know what the delay wasfor from June until now, it was
for this. And to be honestwith you, and John and I prepped
this case never even looked at them, never even looked because the lab had
(20:18):
tested it in twenty sixteen and toldus there's no blood anywhere was closed,
and we took him out their wordthere wasn't. And Shelley Rossi went down
that Friday on June second of thisyear, and she wanted to look at
the pillows. And when she foundout the defendant's clothing the night of the
murder was still in evidence, she'dwanted to look at it. And who
(20:38):
can blame her, because don't youknow if she didn't do that, this
defense team would say, you didn'teven bother to look at my client's clothes,
did you? And she wasn't goingto let that happen. So she
looked at him, and what shefound underneath that badge we now know is
Antonio Senior's blood. And why ishis father's blood on his clothes when,
(21:07):
according to the defendant, he neverwent in and checked on him. One
of the things she told you wasone of the spects. One of the
spects. She can't account for it. She told you that, she said,
look, it could be blood onhis face or on his eyebrow dropped
and they put the sticker on it, saved it. She can't rule out
(21:29):
cross contamination. She told you thatit is a fleck of blood. The
bigger one is, but that otherone it's not from the same source.
The smaller one is a blood stain. It is a small circular spatter.
The only way you get that isthrough three things. Forward spatter, which
(21:55):
we know didn't happen in this case, because that means the defendant would have
had to be sitting behind his dadon the backwards spatter. You know that
didn't happen because we know that thetater was far enough away that he wouldn't
have blood kicked back, especially withAntonio Senior. And on the only other
thing, the blood stain originates fromhis exploration. And what do we know
(22:22):
about the crime scene. We knowthat when Antonio Senior was shot, he
was facing the way from his wife. We know that he had from the
ant. He testified he had bloodall in his nose area and coming out
of his mouth. They deleted advicede suction it out, and we can
see the spatter on the bed.Those photos are in evidence. You can
(22:47):
see that is expiration blood that heis expiring from his mouth as he fights
for his life. And we knowthat the person who did this put those
pillows over his face. He hadto come close enough in contact to do
that. Those blood spatters will dryin air. Chully Rossi testified to that
(23:10):
they will dry in air and theywill become like salt or gunshop residue.
The defendant didn't have that sticker placedon him work until five hours later,
and during that time, who knowsif more spatters fell off. But what
(23:30):
we do now is when that stickerwas placed on his chest, it preserved
it. It time stamped it,and there it stayed for seven years until
she went and looked at him.The prosecution showed the jury security camera footage
of the T shirt being discovered andexamined, and also constructed replicas of both
(23:52):
the second to third floor staircase ofthe Armstrong's condo and of the couple's king
sized bed pleet with mannikin replicas oftheir sleeping forms. The stairs were there
to prove that Armstrong Junior couldn't havestood on them and seeing a masked intruder
on the first floor, as heclaimed to police when he was questioned,
having told them that quote, Ikind of looked you can peaque, and
(24:15):
I saw someone. The defense spentseveral days questioning doctor Mark Muller and doctor
Ian Lamreaux about Josh Armstrong's mental stateboth before and after the murders, as
they continued to attempt to present himas a viable alternative suspect. His ex
girlfriend had already testified for the stateagain, saying about his paranoia, this
(24:40):
time that quote, I want tobe very very clear about this. Josh
was never like this before. Thiscompletely ruined his life. The Armstrong's daughter,
who was twelve when they were killed, testified for the third time about
her recollections of that day, andAntonio Senior's mother testified again as well,
(25:00):
admitting that Armstrong junior. Quote wasn'tperfect. He was a sixteen year old
boy. He did what boys do, what kids do. Did he lie,
Yes, he did, But hewas very respectful to his parents.
We had a loving family. Hewould have never killed his parents. Following
the testimony of a total of thirtyone witnesses, closing statements were presented on
(25:22):
August fifteenth, two twenty three,with the defense saying, quote, there's
no blood at all on any ofAJ's clothes. How in the world did
two specks of blood get under thesticker on the back of the badge if
there's no blood anywhere else here ispart of what the prosecution told the jury
during their closing argument. Because ofthe trauma of losing his parents, he
(25:47):
became paranoid. He started making listsof all the people that could have killed
his parents, including everybody in theirfamily. You don't do that if you're
the killer. The defense thinks thatthese medical records are good for them,
talk about confirmation bias. They're takingthree lines and records that are thousands of
(26:14):
pages, which says Josh Armstrong witnessedthe murder of his parents, and they
want you to believe that means hewas the killer. They're ignoring. They've
chosen to ignore the thousands of pagesthey talk about how his parents' death was
the absolute horse stay of his entirelife. Josh has shown way more emotion
(26:42):
in the wake of his parents' death. This defendant is even capable. I'm
shown and as righteous as it isto stand before you today and tell you
that the defendant in this case isone guilt of killing his parents, and
(27:03):
it is just as righteous to askyou something, something that most prosecutors will
never get to ask in their entirecareer. I'm asking you to find somebody
innocent in this case, but notthe defendant. Josh Armstrong was wrongfully accused
in this courtroom of her crime hedid not commit, but not by us,
(27:27):
by them. The judge told youthe very beginning. The defense doesn't
have to put on a case.It's third choice. They chose to put
on a case, and there arecases that Josh Armstrong did this. Are
they so desperate that they would sacrificeone brother to the other. I'm gonna
let John talk about the crime scene. That there is something I want to
(27:51):
mention to you party Josh, thedefendant called myel one in this case.
At one forty in the morning firstresponders or on the doorsteps of that house
at one forty six, six minutes. If the defendant is not the killer
(28:11):
in this case, that means theperson would put pillows over the heads,
run out of the room, butnot before turning to crack the door,
shut, run down the hall,down the stairs, go through the kitchen,
pull out a bunch of drawers,take a pen, a pad,
write a note, scribbling over severaltimes to mask their penmanship, but the
(28:32):
pad back in the drawer, putthe note down, put the gun down,
the pen next to it, andlock up the house on their way
out. Six minutes and they're tryingto tell you with a straight face that
a psychotic person did it in sixminutes. And the last thing I'll tell
you about Josh. The defendant calledhim to the scene that night. You
(29:00):
know what he said. Josh toldhim your story makes no sense, which
is the same thing that Houston PoliceDepartment has been telling him ever since.
Sound like a psychotic person to you. The jury began their deliberations, taking
roughly ten hours to unanimously find AntonioArmstrong Junior guilty of murdering Dawn and Antonio
(29:26):
senior, The now twenty three yearold husband and father of one, was
then sentenced to forty years to life, the automatic sentence for a juvenile convicted
of capital murder in the state ofTexas. Antonio Armstrong Jor. Walked into
this courthouse this morning as a defendant, and now he is a convicted capital
(29:47):
murderer. Yes, has taken along time, and I think there has
been a false narrative out in ourcommunity through an effort to shape a narrative
that just wasn't true. This jurygot all of the evidence and they,
(30:07):
I believe, are confident as wehave always been. You know, the
question has been because Kim had askedRyan, I should you try him again?
And our answer was yes, becausewe believed he killed his parents and
he killed two people, so whatbetter reason to try him again. And
(30:32):
the fact that he was youthful makeshim even that more dangerous. After spending
the last seven years wearing a GPSankle monitor, Armstrong Jr. Was taken
into custody immediately, with reports indicatingthat he'll be taken to the Bird Unit
in Huntsville, Texas to be processedinto state custody, which is a unit
(30:53):
that houses those with no chance ofparole. No word yet on whether he'll
remain there or be transferred. Camerascaptured distraught family members, including Armstrong Junior's
high school girlfriend turned wife, openlysobbing as she left the courtroom. Antonio
Senior's brother, Harvey Armstrong, alsoan NFL veteran, has been speaking out
(31:17):
on behalf of his nephew and saidfollowing the verdict that he knows his nephew
and knows that quote in his heart. He could not kill his father and
mother. Here's the defense team followingthe verdict. To have this result after
seven years, this is a toughpill to swab. But we will not
ever stop fighting for a japscause thismany times. We will be here always
(31:37):
for him. And his family isas strong as they could be, and
they will not stop fighting for ajThey will continue through an appeal and whatever
comes after that. Any idea whetherit was a different outcome to this time.
Last time, it seemed like thingswere tipping in favor of the defense,
so heavy trial is different. Heavyjury is different. It's impossible to
predict from a last trial what's goingto happen in the next trial. So
(32:00):
it's just a risk involved the jurytross anything can happen. They're different people.
In an interesting twist, just afterthe jury was sequestered to deliberate their
verdict, a lawsuit was filed infederal court by Antonio Armstrong Jr. Alleging
that the Houston Police Department planted theblood found under the sticker on the shirt.
(32:21):
Civil rights attorney Randall Kallinan is oneof the attorneys handling the federal suit.
The jury has been sequestered, andyou would do good to tell your
audience is what sequestration means. Thatmeans no contact with the outside world at
all, including this press conference oranything that's said or anything in this lawsuit
(32:46):
that has been filed. As amatter of fact, we could have filed
this lawsuit earlier and had this pressconference earlier and the jury might have seen
it. But we didn't. Wewait until sequest creation. Armstrong Junior was
in court again on August eighteenth,two twenty three, where he told Judge
(33:08):
Kelly Johnson that he couldn't afford topay an attorney to represent him on his
appeal, so a public defender wasappointed. No word yet on what exactly
is alleged in the appeal, althoughI'm sure the newfound blood evidence will be
a focal point. I'll leave youwith some of what Harris County District Attorney
Kim Ogg had to say after finallysecuring a conviction against Antonio Armstrong Junior after
(33:35):
seven years and three capital murder trials. And I want to say this on
behalf of the victims, Antonio Seniorand Dawn Armstrong died because they were trying
to be good parents, because theywanted their children to do right, not
to lie, to work, tobe law abiding, contributing adults, and
(34:02):
for that they paid with their lives. And so today we've now seen what
a murderer looks like. It canbe anyone, and the fact that it
was their own son is some It'sa trauma, it is a tragedy for
(34:25):
the whole family. And so Ijust want to tell you all that but
for the absolute labor of public servantswho are prosecutors and police, this case
couldn't have been brought to justice.And for the jurors who came down and
answered their jury their jury summons.About one in nine people does that these
(34:51):
days. I want to thank thembecause we don't make these decisions about guilt
or innocence unilaterally. Our jurisprudence andour American democracy and our government system doesn't
doesn't contemplate it that way. Weparticipate in our democracy and the community through
those jurors, twelve trial jurors,and three alternates, the community spoke today.
(35:20):
The community found Antonio Armstrong Junior guilty, and the community found justice for
our victims. Episode one thirty nine, Highly Unusual
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.