Thanksgiving Crimes: The Blount Family Briefcase Bombing
Texas Department of CorrectionsMichael Toney in a 1999 mugshot.
The Blount family’s Thanksgiving in 1985 started ordinarily enough. Joe Blount, his wife Susan, their two teenage children, and Joe’s nephew gathered at their trailer in the Hilltop Mobile Home Park near Lake Worth, Texas, for the holiday.
That evening, after the family returned from a trip to a convenience store for snacks and drinks, they discovered something unusual waiting for them: an ordinary tan briefcase sitting on their doorstep. Curious about who might have left it and hoping to return it to its owner, the family carried the briefcase into their living room. Then, 15-year-old Angela Blount opened the latches.
The briefcase exploded.
The blast killed Joe Blount, his daughter, and his nephew, 18-year-old Michael Columbus. Joe’s son, Robert, who was then 14, survived but suffered devastating burns so severe that his plastic slippers melted to his feet. Only Susan Blount escaped injury. Family members later described how the victims’ bodies were burned beyond recognition.
For 12 years, the case went unsolved. Investigators believed the bombing had something to do with narcotics and suspected the wrong house might have been targeted. The trailer park was reportedly known to have drug activity.
Still, the mystery of who planted the bomb during the Thanksgiving crime — and why — seemed like it might never be solved.
Then, in 1997, while a man named Michael Roy Toney was in jail awaiting a hearing for an unrelated burglary charge, his cellmate told authorities that Toney had confessed to the bombing. This led investigators to Toney’s ex-wife, Kim, who — after initially denying any knowledge — called back with a detailed account of the night of the explosion.
She claimed that Toney had left their truck near the trailer park carrying a briefcase and then returned empty-handed. Another witness, Chris Meeks, corroborated her story.
MurderpediaThe Blounts’ trailer following the explosion of the briefcase.
Toney was arrested and charged with capital murder. He maintained his innocence, however, insisting he had never been to the mobile home park and didn’t even know it existed. He also pointed out that he hadn’t purchased the truck his ex-wife described until mid-December, a month after the bombing.
Nevertheless, Toney was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to death. He spent nearly a decade on death row — but the case was far from closed.
It was later revealed that the prosecution had withheld key evidence that could have aided Toney’s defense, including the fact that the cellmate who first connected Toney to the bombing had recanted his story. Meeks had changed his testimony four times, and Kim Toney admitted to experiencing memory loss.
In December 2008, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated Toney’s conviction due to prosecutorial misconduct. All charges were dropped, and Toney was released.
Tragically, his freedom lasted only a month. On Oct. 3, 2009, Toney died in a car accident. For the Blount family, Toney’s release and subsequent death brought no closure.
As local station WFAA reported at the time, Susan Blount told the media that she still believed Toney was the bomber. When informed of his death in the crash, she said, “If this is Michael Toney who died, then I can finally say it is over with and I don’t have to worry about Michael Toney any more.”
Officially, the bombing remains unsolved, leaving the question of who planted that briefcase on the Blounts’ porch forever unanswered.
