The Rocky Mountain Mortician Murder (2025) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
1
Who killed Byron?
Who killed Byron griffy?
Not knowing why somebody
would have murdered him
was the biggest thing.
We didn't have a murder weapon.
We didn't have any
real DNA at the scene.
Byron was laid out almost like
one would be laid in a casket.
He was staged.
Tommy tomlin and Cory
higgs were obviously on
the suspect list.
But Byron's friends,
Charles and Anthony,
might be hiding something.
We'd known Charles
and Anthony for years.
Anthony was so kind and patient.
Well
Yeah.
Charles and Tony are not brothers.
They're together. They're lovers.
It was all just crazy. It
was, like, wait, what?
Charles and Tony are gay
and have been for 24 years.
Now Tony's leaving
Charles for my mother,
who's leaving my
stepfather, who raised us.
What the is happening?
I'm furious.
I am so upset
That I would introduce
Tony into our family
and that the two of them
would just blow it all up
for their own selfish needs.
Not only did that rock of your family get
just completely destroyed,
you know, Charles and Tony
Boom! That's blown up too.
We brought Laura in to
interview her to see if Anthony
had disclosed anything to her
about the murder of Byron griffy.
We did start off calling
ourselves brothers.
Initially, figured that would help us get
broke in to the town.
Yes, Charles and I were
together for a long time,
but we weren't really close physically
for the last 10 or 15 years.
There was no romantic
inclination between us.
That had already faded by
the time I was starting to have
feelings for Laura.
A few hours prior to this
happening, I just told Charles,
"bottom line is, I'm not
gonna stay with you."
Charles's personality was controlling,
and I was okay with giving up
businesses and personal belongings
to just try and be happy.
Laura told me that she was moving out.
She had a place to go.
So I packed a bunch of
clothes into a garbage bag
and threw them in my car and went.
I knew that Charles was very vindictive.
I knew there would be
problems in the future.
But I was hoping to work through that.
Always an optimist, I guess.
Before I had even gotten to Laura,
Charles had called her
and let her in on everything.
So she was freaking out pretty bad.
I told her, yeah, it was true,
but we weren't together
for years physically.
It was just basically a convenience
because we were working
the same businesses.
I told her I was gonna
go talk to Charles again,
and I was hoping I
could just reason with him
to be human about it.
Drove all the way
home. When I got there,
Charles was gone
somewhere, so I left him a note.
I had business credit cards
and the business phone,
so I just set it on the
table, and I just walked out.
I was a police officer in Florence in 2012.
I believe it was a Sunday night.
When I got called into
the police department,
they said, "hey, Anthony's missing."
There's a suicide note.
911, what's the emergency?
Charles was thinking Anthony
was going to kill himself.
He starts crying. You
know, he's really upset.
He was telling me, you
know, he really loved Anthony.
He was hoping he was all right.
And he told us to check
where the horses were.
My mom was so distraught.
She's like, "Charles told me
Anthony's gonna kill himself
we have to find him."
So my friends and I
started driving around town.
There's cop cars everywhere.
All of 'em, going to the
church, the main street grill,
all the places, you know.
So we're like, "man,
where would he go?"
Like, "what would he do?"
Where is he gonna kill himself?
I didn't know any of this was happening.
I was hanging out with my horses.
Yes, I had a firearm with me,
but at the time, I always had
a firearm with me.
A couple officers from the Florence
police department showed up.
So I just came wandering up,
"hey, what's going on, guys?
And "how are you doing, buddy?"
And they're like, "fine,
how are you doing?"
They were doing an evaluation
to see if I was suicidal.
If I wanted to commit
suicide, I'd have done it.
There was no reason not to.
But I didn't, because I
wasn't gonna commit suicide.
The officers took me to
Florence police department.
Law enforcement did receive the note
that Anthony had authored.
Some believed it to
be an admission of guilt
with the murder of Byron griffy.
It says, "I hold no one responsible"
"for my actions but myself.
"Please don't hold
anyone else responsible
"for anything that I have
done." And then I signed it,
"Anthony s. Wright."
I don't know it was a personal note
to Charles about Laura,
and that's all it was.
If I'd have known CBI was gonna read it,
I probably would have
worded it differently.
We brought Charles in so that
they both could be questioned.
We had realized there
were inconsistencies
in their story.
We were hoping at some point,
one would turn on the other,
and say something that
hadn't been said before.
When I learned that Charles
and Anthony weren't brothers,
wow, it was a sense of betrayal.
I think a lot of people
in Florence felt that way.
It was almost like the
whole town got duped.
As an investigator for the
fremont county coroner's office,
I would have to call funeral
homes at strange hours
of the night.
There'd be a call to Charles giebler
for him to come pick up
somebody that just passed away,
and he'd just say, "hold
on, talk to Anthony,"
and then roll over and
give the phone to Anthony.
So, you know, at that
point, it's like, well, I don't
Sleep with my brother.
Gay relationships have been
in this world from the beginning
of time it's nothing new.
It's who you are, and some
people can't accept that.
Lying about who you are and
not wanting to tell everyone
is self-preservation.
It's really hard for me
to wrap my head around
how long of a relationship they had.
This was a full-fledged life
that these guys built together.
And so it's really hard
that Tony's never really
addressed it or talked about it.
And then, being gay myself,
it's like, you couldn't spot
two other gay guys?
I do understand why it
wouldn't be public information,
but they were like family to us.
They could have trusted at least us
to know their secret.
During the interviews
with Charles and Anthony,
they stated that they left
Fowler about one o'clock.
They drove to pueblo, they
ate lunch at a buffet restaurant,
which they had a receipt for.
We contacted the buffet
restaurant to see if we could
get some surveillance
footage from the cameras.
Unfortunately, the cameras
had already erased themselves.
As we're putting the timeline
together, if they would have
left Fowler a little before one o'clock,
it's about a 35-minute drive
from Fowler to the buffet.
Receipts showed that they
were stamped in at 2:26,
which, you pay before you eat.
So there was almost an entire
hour that was unaccounted for.
They say that they're
driving their Mercedes,
they decide to go to lunch,
then go by the home
depot to buy the deck box
that they're gonna
place out at the Marina
for their boat.
We got surveillance footage
that shows where they had
bought the deck box,
and the investigator was
able to identify that they were
in a white astro Van.
That is totally inconsistent
with them being in a Mercedes.
To the best of my knowledge,
the car that we drove down
there was a black Mercedes.
That was honestly, primary
mode of transportation for me.
And my brain told me that
that's what I was driving
that day because it made sense.
Both Charles and
Anthony seemed to forget
that they were in the astro Van.
There was no other seating in the Van,
other than the two front seats.
Charles and Anthony had no intent on
picking Byron up and
taking him anywhere that day
because there was nowhere
for an 80-year-old man
to sit in that Van.
Charles and Anthony were
not there to take their friend for
a birthday lunch.
They were there to murder Byron.
Charles and Anthony denied everything.
So we start going
through and looking closer.
We learned they had some
very deep, dark secrets
that made me think,
"how can this case get any crazier?"
The CBI had told me that
Charles and Anthony were suspects.
They had a motive to kill my dad.
I mean, it's all about money.
The police were really focused
on Charles and Anthony.
So it made me kind
of second-guess Cory.
Charles and Anthony's
the only ones that knew
that he was going to the farm.
The farm itself is isolated.
There would be no way that
a neighbor would have heard a gunshot.
Charles and Anthony's
story was falling apart.
And during the investigation,
we uncovered some
less than savory details about them.
I think most funeral directors
want to generally help people.
And there's some that
want to take advantage
of people at their lowest point.
The funeral home I worked for
had a great reputation in this community.
They've been in this
community for generations.
And then these guys come in
and just snowball everybody.
The people that hated Charles
and Anthony were kind of
the other business people in town
because Charles did not
play very well with them.
A funeral director, it's all
about being professional.
You know, you go out
to somebody's house
and take one of their
loved ones out the door
that has just passed away
You shouldn't be in a t-shirt.
These guys just kind of
did whatever they wanted.
Charles would show up
in cargo shorts, flip-flops.
I just couldn't believe it.
I thought it was so unprofessional.
Charles and Tony, they
always put you in that
situation where you were like,
"that's kind of sketchy
or like morally cloudy."
They asked us to do a few
shaky things here or there.
Felt like you were kind of
like in the little mini town mob.
And Charles was the mob boss.
Then we were the henchmen.
These people were doing
things that they shouldn't be doing.
I mean, it felt like they
were definitely out to get us.
A smoke grenade was
thrown through the window
of the mortuary.
And it's not like everybody in Florence
just has smoke grenades,
but Charles giebler was
heavily into weapons.
Can't prove it was them
but nobody else is going to do that.
And then, years back,
right around pioneer day,
before the big parade, I had brought over
the '39 packard and the '38 Cadillac limo.
It was very important
to bill holt, the owner of
the mortuary, that those
vehicles be in that parade.
We drove them over
there the night before.
The next day
All the ignition wires had been cut.
Car wouldn't start.
Somebody didn't want us in that
parade and went in and snipped
the wires behind the dash.
It was obviously Charles and Anthony.
Who else would do that?
Charles always likes to talk
about how he would get one over,
especially on the IRS or the government
or any kind of authority figure.
Charles started that church so
that he could become tax exempt
and kind of funnel some
funds through there.
That was definitely not
the first, like, tax scheme.
Charles told me that you
would not believe the tax breaks.
That's why they did it.
One of the obligations that
law enforcement has is to
investigate the background
of any potential suspect.
We became aware that Charles
had been found cat fishing.
He was setting up
these online relationships,
clearly sexual in nature,
and representing himself
as a younger individual.
Charles had a rock-and-roll
mortician persona
that he was trying to keep up,
that he was, you know,
younger, in a band,
worked as a mortician.
Charles the things
that he did in his life,
like the cat fishing and going
into politics and the church,
being a bishop, that
played into his narcissism.
He liked to show off,
be the man that people
were talking about.
Charles definitely thought
of himself as above the law.
Maybe he thought of himself
as the law is more accurate
because he had his own sense
of justice and he also had god
on his side. Charles also liked to boast.
He would say, "if I was
ever going to kill someone",
I would use a .22 to
the back of the head.
They were very much a threat,
I believe, to the community.
Everything that Charles and
Anthony did was all a scam.
And you've got to just wonder
What happened to Irene witty?
Irene witty and her husband
frank had lived in Florence
almost all their lives.
They operated the
funeral home next door.
When frank witty died,
we took care of his wife
because her family kind
of just left her high and dry.
I'd heard bad stories from
Charles and Tony about
how awful Irene's family was.
And they're the ones
that took care of her.
They took her soup,
they fed her, they took her to the doctor.
Charles took over the financial situation,
and a week before she passed
away, she had changed her will
and left everything to them.
The number was 700 to a million dollars.
100% believe Charles
was part of Irene's death.
Charles and Anthony
always spent money.
They liked to flash it around.
But after Byron died,
they took it up a notch.
They bought boats, jet skis.
They started spending money like crazy.
At this time, business was slow.
Charles and Tony weren't
making much money at all.
The Colorado
department of revenue was
attempting to shut down
some of the businesses
that Charles and Anthony
owned for failure to pay taxes.
So they were in financial trouble.
It made us believe that that
would have been a large motive
as to why Byron was murdered.
The next step was to
get a search warrant for
the white astro Van.
Knowing that they had bought
the deck box and that they were
at the north shore Marina,
we thought that they might have
discarded the murder weapon.
Divers were sent to look for a weapon.
Unfortunately, we were not able to obtain
the weapon from the Marina.
The evidence from the
astro Van came up empty.
There was no DNA.
There was no blood in the astro Van.
So again, we were
pretty much at square one.
At the same time,
we had not been able
to rule out other suspects,
Tommy tomlin and Cory higgs.
Tommy tomlin did take a
polygraph, which he failed.
We couldn't pinpoint where
Cory's whereabouts were
and Cory's alibi did
have some holes in it.
As we began to dig
deeper, we found that Cory
had a very good motive to hurt Byron.
Cory is extremely intelligent.
He can take control of any
situation that you put him in.
About today, ok.
Alright.
So
Cory higgs was Byron's step-grandson.
About a year before the
murder, Cory had said that
Byron would give him
cash for sexual favors
and that Byron would
take care of him that way.
And
I think Cory accused Byron because
None of us were bowing
down to him anymore
to get him out of foster care.
Accusing my dad just seemed like
That would have been
something he'd have done
Just to hurt us.
So, Byron is arrested.
When we had the
conversation with Byron,
after he had posted bail, he said,
"I did not do anything."
I did believe Byron.
A case was opened,
and Byron was charged
with sexual assault on a child
by one in position of trust.
Byron was found guilty.
After that, my dad
couldn't see his grandkids.
He went from
The most loving, caring person
To the most depressed,
withdrawn person.
He was embarrassed and
ashamed that people believed
what Cory had said.
He was scared that
Cory was gonna sue him.
I've known Byron for
years we were friends.
Several weeks before he actually died,
Byron had said, "I have
a letter to give to you."
It was a letter in a sealed envelope.
And he said,
"if something happens to
me, be sure you do an autopsy
and look at this letter."
And he said, it's just concerning
because of the situation
surrounding him and Cory.
Did he feel a threat against his life?
Was something going on
that was a major concern to him
that was gonna happen?
What would have led Cory
to actually murder Byron
was my big thing.
Time had passed.
The court case with him was over.
Cory didn't gain anything out of any of it,
other than being able to
hold Byron accountable.
Cory lost everybody
that was family to him.
After Cory had taken his
polygraph, results came in,
and it was found that he passed it.
At that point in time, Cory was ruled out
as a suspect.
We had no evidence
that Cory was there,
that he was involved.
There's nothing that
attaches him to this crime,
other than the fact that
he had been molested
by Byron griffy.
So that ruled him out in our eyes.
I truly feel that if Cory
would have walked up to
the farm, Byron would have
been on the phone calling 911.
I don't think Byron would
have willingly opened the door
for Cory prior to the murder.
During the investigation,
we begin to realize that
there's another side to
Byron that people didn't know.
Everybody knew, the young males,
if you needed money for something,
you'd just go see Byron.
He had ways of letting them earn money.
Never got any specifics.
Byron, I think, was embarrassed.
You have to remember that
men of his age, who were gay,
they didn't talk about it.
Byron got a divorce, long
ago, from linette's mom.
I personally never spoke
to Byron about sexuality,
but I think that Byron
was extremely lonely
as far as A partner-type relationship.
Tommy tomlin was someone
who would do just about
anything for money.
As time went on, we
started to hear that he was in
a relationship with Byron,
that he kind of withheld
from us from the start.
So the next step was to
meet with Tommy again.
Alright.
Ok.
There was a relationship
between Tommy and Byron that
was more than your everyday handyman.
He would do odd jobs around the house.
Byron would invite him
over to have Turkey pot pies
and to watch porn.
And Byron would give him
money for sexual favors.
With Tommy tomlin,
knowing his drug issues,
if Tommy killed Byron in a
heat of passion, it probably
wouldn't have been at the farm,
and it probably wouldn't
have been as clean as it was.
So it was at this time that
we kind of started shying away
from Tommy as a top suspect.
What motive did he have?
I mean, he could have
worked for my dad every day
and got money.
And now he gets
nothing, so I didn't see that
Tommy had any motive to do it.
This was a very hard case.
We felt that we were
getting very close to making
arrest warrants for Charles and Anthony.
But the moment we
thought we had it figured out,
there was a turn, and
now we had another
dead body on our hands.
A few months after Byron's
murder, we felt that we were
getting very close to being able to make
an arrest of Charles and Anthony.
And we were in the process
of drafting the arrest warrant,
and they were aware that
they were being investigated
for the murder of Byron.
It was tough.
We're dealing with the family collapse.
My mom had left my
stepdad, Dave, for Tony,
and now this murder investigation is
fully happening, and, like,
Charles and Anthony are suspects.
But they were always assuring
me that this was nothing,
and it was gonna go away.
Charles was just absolutely wrought.
Anger, fear, stress,
and you could just see it on him.
Charles called, he told
me, Anthony had left him,
and that they were gonna
be charged with murder,
and picked up the next day.
So he said, "you need to
come get your dad's coins."
CBI told me to go then, but I was scared
and I didn't trust Charles.
We knew that Charles and
Anthony were accused of
killing Byron, so we
took Harry tomlin with us
just to be safe.
So I brought a weapon with me.
Basically, I was their guardian angel.
Charles and Tony lived in a
big, beautiful victorian home
that they had restored.
It was the first and only time I
had ever been in their house.
We weren't allowed to
go to the secret room.
Charles and his friend
were bringing everything to
the living room.
When the state quarters came out,
there's 50 states.
My dad had bought four boxes of each.
They gave me back 60 boxes,
a couple pennies, whatever.
It was nothing compared
to what they took.
But Charles said nothing.
No explanation as to
where my dad's money went.
I was told there was a
million dollars worth of coins,
but there was a
substantial amount missing.
When Charles and
Anthony came out to the farm
to get Byron's coins, they
used a very heavy-duty Van.
Charles and Anthony loaded
that Van until it was squatting.
So you knew that you
were getting to capacity.
When we went to pick up the coins,
we had just a regular pickup truck
and it didn't even fill half of the bed.
Like the truck didn't squat at all.
Charles kept saying, "I
wanted to show you something."
Like, he kept trying to get me alone
In, like, a dining room area,
but I was scared of him
and I didn't want to be
in a room alone with him.
Harry made sure that that didn't happen.
None of us were ever
alone with Charles.
As we were driving back from Florence,
I called CBI and told them
what all had happened, and everything.
And after I hung up, we kept driving.
And when we got about at pueblo west,
the passenger side
window just shattered.
Somebody came up and shot
out the side window, and then
Sped off, and then at the next light,
flipped around and went
back towards Florence.
I don't know I think I'm lucky that
I wasn't shot that night.
The next day, I was trying
to get ahold of Charles.
I had some questions
about the funeral home.
I had chatted with Pam at
the restaurant, and Pam was
trying to get ahold of him also.
I got a call from Angela,
who was running the mortuary.
She said she hadn't heard
from Charles, and she wanted me
to meet her over at the house.
And I told her, "absolutely
not, I'm sorry, I can't."
But Tony brought Pam the key
to the house, and we drove out
to the house.
We were really, kind of
hoping the car wouldn't be there,
and that he'd just be somewhere.
But the car was there,
and so we went in,
and we couldn't find him upstairs.
And we went downstairs
And found him in the
downstairs bathroom.
My friends and I were going by
Charles's house.
And there's ambulances everywhere.
I pull over.
Just enough time to watch them
Pull him out on the stretcher.
And I was like, "what the?"
There's a lot of unanswered
questions about this case.
It would be nice if somebody
stepped up and answered
for what they did.
The questions that I
still have 12 years later
Is ridiculous.
It's suspicious that Charles passed away.
Somebody wanted him dead.
I think it was a suicide
because he didn't want to have
to go through prison time.
The big unanswered
question I have is what really
happened to Charles?
Was he involved with Byron's murder?
And what happened
to all of Byron's gold?
Where did it go?
Where did it all go?
Who killed Byron?
Who killed Byron griffy?
Not knowing why somebody
would have murdered him
was the biggest thing.
We didn't have a murder weapon.
We didn't have any
real DNA at the scene.
Byron was laid out almost like
one would be laid in a casket.
He was staged.
Tommy tomlin and Cory
higgs were obviously on
the suspect list.
But Byron's friends,
Charles and Anthony,
might be hiding something.
We'd known Charles
and Anthony for years.
Anthony was so kind and patient.
Well
Yeah.
Charles and Tony are not brothers.
They're together. They're lovers.
It was all just crazy. It
was, like, wait, what?
Charles and Tony are gay
and have been for 24 years.
Now Tony's leaving
Charles for my mother,
who's leaving my
stepfather, who raised us.
What the is happening?
I'm furious.
I am so upset
That I would introduce
Tony into our family
and that the two of them
would just blow it all up
for their own selfish needs.
Not only did that rock of your family get
just completely destroyed,
you know, Charles and Tony
Boom! That's blown up too.
We brought Laura in to
interview her to see if Anthony
had disclosed anything to her
about the murder of Byron griffy.
We did start off calling
ourselves brothers.
Initially, figured that would help us get
broke in to the town.
Yes, Charles and I were
together for a long time,
but we weren't really close physically
for the last 10 or 15 years.
There was no romantic
inclination between us.
That had already faded by
the time I was starting to have
feelings for Laura.
A few hours prior to this
happening, I just told Charles,
"bottom line is, I'm not
gonna stay with you."
Charles's personality was controlling,
and I was okay with giving up
businesses and personal belongings
to just try and be happy.
Laura told me that she was moving out.
She had a place to go.
So I packed a bunch of
clothes into a garbage bag
and threw them in my car and went.
I knew that Charles was very vindictive.
I knew there would be
problems in the future.
But I was hoping to work through that.
Always an optimist, I guess.
Before I had even gotten to Laura,
Charles had called her
and let her in on everything.
So she was freaking out pretty bad.
I told her, yeah, it was true,
but we weren't together
for years physically.
It was just basically a convenience
because we were working
the same businesses.
I told her I was gonna
go talk to Charles again,
and I was hoping I
could just reason with him
to be human about it.
Drove all the way
home. When I got there,
Charles was gone
somewhere, so I left him a note.
I had business credit cards
and the business phone,
so I just set it on the
table, and I just walked out.
I was a police officer in Florence in 2012.
I believe it was a Sunday night.
When I got called into
the police department,
they said, "hey, Anthony's missing."
There's a suicide note.
911, what's the emergency?
Charles was thinking Anthony
was going to kill himself.
He starts crying. You
know, he's really upset.
He was telling me, you
know, he really loved Anthony.
He was hoping he was all right.
And he told us to check
where the horses were.
My mom was so distraught.
She's like, "Charles told me
Anthony's gonna kill himself
we have to find him."
So my friends and I
started driving around town.
There's cop cars everywhere.
All of 'em, going to the
church, the main street grill,
all the places, you know.
So we're like, "man,
where would he go?"
Like, "what would he do?"
Where is he gonna kill himself?
I didn't know any of this was happening.
I was hanging out with my horses.
Yes, I had a firearm with me,
but at the time, I always had
a firearm with me.
A couple officers from the Florence
police department showed up.
So I just came wandering up,
"hey, what's going on, guys?
And "how are you doing, buddy?"
And they're like, "fine,
how are you doing?"
They were doing an evaluation
to see if I was suicidal.
If I wanted to commit
suicide, I'd have done it.
There was no reason not to.
But I didn't, because I
wasn't gonna commit suicide.
The officers took me to
Florence police department.
Law enforcement did receive the note
that Anthony had authored.
Some believed it to
be an admission of guilt
with the murder of Byron griffy.
It says, "I hold no one responsible"
"for my actions but myself.
"Please don't hold
anyone else responsible
"for anything that I have
done." And then I signed it,
"Anthony s. Wright."
I don't know it was a personal note
to Charles about Laura,
and that's all it was.
If I'd have known CBI was gonna read it,
I probably would have
worded it differently.
We brought Charles in so that
they both could be questioned.
We had realized there
were inconsistencies
in their story.
We were hoping at some point,
one would turn on the other,
and say something that
hadn't been said before.
When I learned that Charles
and Anthony weren't brothers,
wow, it was a sense of betrayal.
I think a lot of people
in Florence felt that way.
It was almost like the
whole town got duped.
As an investigator for the
fremont county coroner's office,
I would have to call funeral
homes at strange hours
of the night.
There'd be a call to Charles giebler
for him to come pick up
somebody that just passed away,
and he'd just say, "hold
on, talk to Anthony,"
and then roll over and
give the phone to Anthony.
So, you know, at that
point, it's like, well, I don't
Sleep with my brother.
Gay relationships have been
in this world from the beginning
of time it's nothing new.
It's who you are, and some
people can't accept that.
Lying about who you are and
not wanting to tell everyone
is self-preservation.
It's really hard for me
to wrap my head around
how long of a relationship they had.
This was a full-fledged life
that these guys built together.
And so it's really hard
that Tony's never really
addressed it or talked about it.
And then, being gay myself,
it's like, you couldn't spot
two other gay guys?
I do understand why it
wouldn't be public information,
but they were like family to us.
They could have trusted at least us
to know their secret.
During the interviews
with Charles and Anthony,
they stated that they left
Fowler about one o'clock.
They drove to pueblo, they
ate lunch at a buffet restaurant,
which they had a receipt for.
We contacted the buffet
restaurant to see if we could
get some surveillance
footage from the cameras.
Unfortunately, the cameras
had already erased themselves.
As we're putting the timeline
together, if they would have
left Fowler a little before one o'clock,
it's about a 35-minute drive
from Fowler to the buffet.
Receipts showed that they
were stamped in at 2:26,
which, you pay before you eat.
So there was almost an entire
hour that was unaccounted for.
They say that they're
driving their Mercedes,
they decide to go to lunch,
then go by the home
depot to buy the deck box
that they're gonna
place out at the Marina
for their boat.
We got surveillance footage
that shows where they had
bought the deck box,
and the investigator was
able to identify that they were
in a white astro Van.
That is totally inconsistent
with them being in a Mercedes.
To the best of my knowledge,
the car that we drove down
there was a black Mercedes.
That was honestly, primary
mode of transportation for me.
And my brain told me that
that's what I was driving
that day because it made sense.
Both Charles and
Anthony seemed to forget
that they were in the astro Van.
There was no other seating in the Van,
other than the two front seats.
Charles and Anthony had no intent on
picking Byron up and
taking him anywhere that day
because there was nowhere
for an 80-year-old man
to sit in that Van.
Charles and Anthony were
not there to take their friend for
a birthday lunch.
They were there to murder Byron.
Charles and Anthony denied everything.
So we start going
through and looking closer.
We learned they had some
very deep, dark secrets
that made me think,
"how can this case get any crazier?"
The CBI had told me that
Charles and Anthony were suspects.
They had a motive to kill my dad.
I mean, it's all about money.
The police were really focused
on Charles and Anthony.
So it made me kind
of second-guess Cory.
Charles and Anthony's
the only ones that knew
that he was going to the farm.
The farm itself is isolated.
There would be no way that
a neighbor would have heard a gunshot.
Charles and Anthony's
story was falling apart.
And during the investigation,
we uncovered some
less than savory details about them.
I think most funeral directors
want to generally help people.
And there's some that
want to take advantage
of people at their lowest point.
The funeral home I worked for
had a great reputation in this community.
They've been in this
community for generations.
And then these guys come in
and just snowball everybody.
The people that hated Charles
and Anthony were kind of
the other business people in town
because Charles did not
play very well with them.
A funeral director, it's all
about being professional.
You know, you go out
to somebody's house
and take one of their
loved ones out the door
that has just passed away
You shouldn't be in a t-shirt.
These guys just kind of
did whatever they wanted.
Charles would show up
in cargo shorts, flip-flops.
I just couldn't believe it.
I thought it was so unprofessional.
Charles and Tony, they
always put you in that
situation where you were like,
"that's kind of sketchy
or like morally cloudy."
They asked us to do a few
shaky things here or there.
Felt like you were kind of
like in the little mini town mob.
And Charles was the mob boss.
Then we were the henchmen.
These people were doing
things that they shouldn't be doing.
I mean, it felt like they
were definitely out to get us.
A smoke grenade was
thrown through the window
of the mortuary.
And it's not like everybody in Florence
just has smoke grenades,
but Charles giebler was
heavily into weapons.
Can't prove it was them
but nobody else is going to do that.
And then, years back,
right around pioneer day,
before the big parade, I had brought over
the '39 packard and the '38 Cadillac limo.
It was very important
to bill holt, the owner of
the mortuary, that those
vehicles be in that parade.
We drove them over
there the night before.
The next day
All the ignition wires had been cut.
Car wouldn't start.
Somebody didn't want us in that
parade and went in and snipped
the wires behind the dash.
It was obviously Charles and Anthony.
Who else would do that?
Charles always likes to talk
about how he would get one over,
especially on the IRS or the government
or any kind of authority figure.
Charles started that church so
that he could become tax exempt
and kind of funnel some
funds through there.
That was definitely not
the first, like, tax scheme.
Charles told me that you
would not believe the tax breaks.
That's why they did it.
One of the obligations that
law enforcement has is to
investigate the background
of any potential suspect.
We became aware that Charles
had been found cat fishing.
He was setting up
these online relationships,
clearly sexual in nature,
and representing himself
as a younger individual.
Charles had a rock-and-roll
mortician persona
that he was trying to keep up,
that he was, you know,
younger, in a band,
worked as a mortician.
Charles the things
that he did in his life,
like the cat fishing and going
into politics and the church,
being a bishop, that
played into his narcissism.
He liked to show off,
be the man that people
were talking about.
Charles definitely thought
of himself as above the law.
Maybe he thought of himself
as the law is more accurate
because he had his own sense
of justice and he also had god
on his side. Charles also liked to boast.
He would say, "if I was
ever going to kill someone",
I would use a .22 to
the back of the head.
They were very much a threat,
I believe, to the community.
Everything that Charles and
Anthony did was all a scam.
And you've got to just wonder
What happened to Irene witty?
Irene witty and her husband
frank had lived in Florence
almost all their lives.
They operated the
funeral home next door.
When frank witty died,
we took care of his wife
because her family kind
of just left her high and dry.
I'd heard bad stories from
Charles and Tony about
how awful Irene's family was.
And they're the ones
that took care of her.
They took her soup,
they fed her, they took her to the doctor.
Charles took over the financial situation,
and a week before she passed
away, she had changed her will
and left everything to them.
The number was 700 to a million dollars.
100% believe Charles
was part of Irene's death.
Charles and Anthony
always spent money.
They liked to flash it around.
But after Byron died,
they took it up a notch.
They bought boats, jet skis.
They started spending money like crazy.
At this time, business was slow.
Charles and Tony weren't
making much money at all.
The Colorado
department of revenue was
attempting to shut down
some of the businesses
that Charles and Anthony
owned for failure to pay taxes.
So they were in financial trouble.
It made us believe that that
would have been a large motive
as to why Byron was murdered.
The next step was to
get a search warrant for
the white astro Van.
Knowing that they had bought
the deck box and that they were
at the north shore Marina,
we thought that they might have
discarded the murder weapon.
Divers were sent to look for a weapon.
Unfortunately, we were not able to obtain
the weapon from the Marina.
The evidence from the
astro Van came up empty.
There was no DNA.
There was no blood in the astro Van.
So again, we were
pretty much at square one.
At the same time,
we had not been able
to rule out other suspects,
Tommy tomlin and Cory higgs.
Tommy tomlin did take a
polygraph, which he failed.
We couldn't pinpoint where
Cory's whereabouts were
and Cory's alibi did
have some holes in it.
As we began to dig
deeper, we found that Cory
had a very good motive to hurt Byron.
Cory is extremely intelligent.
He can take control of any
situation that you put him in.
About today, ok.
Alright.
So
Cory higgs was Byron's step-grandson.
About a year before the
murder, Cory had said that
Byron would give him
cash for sexual favors
and that Byron would
take care of him that way.
And
I think Cory accused Byron because
None of us were bowing
down to him anymore
to get him out of foster care.
Accusing my dad just seemed like
That would have been
something he'd have done
Just to hurt us.
So, Byron is arrested.
When we had the
conversation with Byron,
after he had posted bail, he said,
"I did not do anything."
I did believe Byron.
A case was opened,
and Byron was charged
with sexual assault on a child
by one in position of trust.
Byron was found guilty.
After that, my dad
couldn't see his grandkids.
He went from
The most loving, caring person
To the most depressed,
withdrawn person.
He was embarrassed and
ashamed that people believed
what Cory had said.
He was scared that
Cory was gonna sue him.
I've known Byron for
years we were friends.
Several weeks before he actually died,
Byron had said, "I have
a letter to give to you."
It was a letter in a sealed envelope.
And he said,
"if something happens to
me, be sure you do an autopsy
and look at this letter."
And he said, it's just concerning
because of the situation
surrounding him and Cory.
Did he feel a threat against his life?
Was something going on
that was a major concern to him
that was gonna happen?
What would have led Cory
to actually murder Byron
was my big thing.
Time had passed.
The court case with him was over.
Cory didn't gain anything out of any of it,
other than being able to
hold Byron accountable.
Cory lost everybody
that was family to him.
After Cory had taken his
polygraph, results came in,
and it was found that he passed it.
At that point in time, Cory was ruled out
as a suspect.
We had no evidence
that Cory was there,
that he was involved.
There's nothing that
attaches him to this crime,
other than the fact that
he had been molested
by Byron griffy.
So that ruled him out in our eyes.
I truly feel that if Cory
would have walked up to
the farm, Byron would have
been on the phone calling 911.
I don't think Byron would
have willingly opened the door
for Cory prior to the murder.
During the investigation,
we begin to realize that
there's another side to
Byron that people didn't know.
Everybody knew, the young males,
if you needed money for something,
you'd just go see Byron.
He had ways of letting them earn money.
Never got any specifics.
Byron, I think, was embarrassed.
You have to remember that
men of his age, who were gay,
they didn't talk about it.
Byron got a divorce, long
ago, from linette's mom.
I personally never spoke
to Byron about sexuality,
but I think that Byron
was extremely lonely
as far as A partner-type relationship.
Tommy tomlin was someone
who would do just about
anything for money.
As time went on, we
started to hear that he was in
a relationship with Byron,
that he kind of withheld
from us from the start.
So the next step was to
meet with Tommy again.
Alright.
Ok.
There was a relationship
between Tommy and Byron that
was more than your everyday handyman.
He would do odd jobs around the house.
Byron would invite him
over to have Turkey pot pies
and to watch porn.
And Byron would give him
money for sexual favors.
With Tommy tomlin,
knowing his drug issues,
if Tommy killed Byron in a
heat of passion, it probably
wouldn't have been at the farm,
and it probably wouldn't
have been as clean as it was.
So it was at this time that
we kind of started shying away
from Tommy as a top suspect.
What motive did he have?
I mean, he could have
worked for my dad every day
and got money.
And now he gets
nothing, so I didn't see that
Tommy had any motive to do it.
This was a very hard case.
We felt that we were
getting very close to making
arrest warrants for Charles and Anthony.
But the moment we
thought we had it figured out,
there was a turn, and
now we had another
dead body on our hands.
A few months after Byron's
murder, we felt that we were
getting very close to being able to make
an arrest of Charles and Anthony.
And we were in the process
of drafting the arrest warrant,
and they were aware that
they were being investigated
for the murder of Byron.
It was tough.
We're dealing with the family collapse.
My mom had left my
stepdad, Dave, for Tony,
and now this murder investigation is
fully happening, and, like,
Charles and Anthony are suspects.
But they were always assuring
me that this was nothing,
and it was gonna go away.
Charles was just absolutely wrought.
Anger, fear, stress,
and you could just see it on him.
Charles called, he told
me, Anthony had left him,
and that they were gonna
be charged with murder,
and picked up the next day.
So he said, "you need to
come get your dad's coins."
CBI told me to go then, but I was scared
and I didn't trust Charles.
We knew that Charles and
Anthony were accused of
killing Byron, so we
took Harry tomlin with us
just to be safe.
So I brought a weapon with me.
Basically, I was their guardian angel.
Charles and Tony lived in a
big, beautiful victorian home
that they had restored.
It was the first and only time I
had ever been in their house.
We weren't allowed to
go to the secret room.
Charles and his friend
were bringing everything to
the living room.
When the state quarters came out,
there's 50 states.
My dad had bought four boxes of each.
They gave me back 60 boxes,
a couple pennies, whatever.
It was nothing compared
to what they took.
But Charles said nothing.
No explanation as to
where my dad's money went.
I was told there was a
million dollars worth of coins,
but there was a
substantial amount missing.
When Charles and
Anthony came out to the farm
to get Byron's coins, they
used a very heavy-duty Van.
Charles and Anthony loaded
that Van until it was squatting.
So you knew that you
were getting to capacity.
When we went to pick up the coins,
we had just a regular pickup truck
and it didn't even fill half of the bed.
Like the truck didn't squat at all.
Charles kept saying, "I
wanted to show you something."
Like, he kept trying to get me alone
In, like, a dining room area,
but I was scared of him
and I didn't want to be
in a room alone with him.
Harry made sure that that didn't happen.
None of us were ever
alone with Charles.
As we were driving back from Florence,
I called CBI and told them
what all had happened, and everything.
And after I hung up, we kept driving.
And when we got about at pueblo west,
the passenger side
window just shattered.
Somebody came up and shot
out the side window, and then
Sped off, and then at the next light,
flipped around and went
back towards Florence.
I don't know I think I'm lucky that
I wasn't shot that night.
The next day, I was trying
to get ahold of Charles.
I had some questions
about the funeral home.
I had chatted with Pam at
the restaurant, and Pam was
trying to get ahold of him also.
I got a call from Angela,
who was running the mortuary.
She said she hadn't heard
from Charles, and she wanted me
to meet her over at the house.
And I told her, "absolutely
not, I'm sorry, I can't."
But Tony brought Pam the key
to the house, and we drove out
to the house.
We were really, kind of
hoping the car wouldn't be there,
and that he'd just be somewhere.
But the car was there,
and so we went in,
and we couldn't find him upstairs.
And we went downstairs
And found him in the
downstairs bathroom.
My friends and I were going by
Charles's house.
And there's ambulances everywhere.
I pull over.
Just enough time to watch them
Pull him out on the stretcher.
And I was like, "what the?"
There's a lot of unanswered
questions about this case.
It would be nice if somebody
stepped up and answered
for what they did.
The questions that I
still have 12 years later
Is ridiculous.
It's suspicious that Charles passed away.
Somebody wanted him dead.
I think it was a suicide
because he didn't want to have
to go through prison time.
The big unanswered
question I have is what really
happened to Charles?
Was he involved with Byron's murder?
And what happened
to all of Byron's gold?
Where did it go?
Where did it all go?