November 28, 1985. Tarrant County, Texas. The family of 44-year old Joe Blount gathers together for Thanksgiving dinner in their trailer at the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. After making a trip to a convenience store later that night, they return home to discover a briefcase on their front doorstep. When the briefcase is opened, a bomb goes off, claiming the lives of Joe, his 15-year old daughter, Angela, and Joe’s 18-year old nephew, Michael Columbus. Fourteen years later, a suspect named Michael Roy Toney is convicted of the bombing and sentenced to death, but it turns out the prosecution withheld evidence supporting Toney’s innocence at trial. As result, Toney’s conviction is overturned and he is released from prison in 2009. Who was actually responsible for planting the bomb which killed three members of the Blount family and what could their motive have been? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore a tragic and baffling unsolved mystery which took place on Thanksgiving. Special thanks to listener Brooke Bunch for providing the opening narration for our episode.

Special thanks to our sponsor of this week’s episode: Nutrafol. For 20 % off, please visit Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code “cold”.

“The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon 2021: Austin” at the Fairmont Hotel in Austin, Texas on June 2-4, 2021, as well as “Crimecon UK” at the Leonardo Royal Hotel & Spa in London on June 12-13, 2021. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to either event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD21”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.com/CC21 or https://www.crimecon.co.uk.

“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.

Additional Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Roy_Toney

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3692

https://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/toney-michael-roy.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20100830181454/http://www.michaeltoney.com/case.htm

https://www.deseret.com/1997/12/6/19349732/12-year-probe-into-briefcase-blast-at-texas-home-finally-yields-an-arrest

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Inmate-on-death-row-for-Fort-Worth-bombing-freed-1737069.php

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/crime/article24558250.html

https://www.newspapers.com/image/639108561

https://www.newspapers.com/image/639108567

https://www.newspapers.com/image/639206571/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/649058179/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/648201727/

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.

The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.