The murders of Dawn and Antonio Armstrong [True Crime documentary]

in the summer of 2016 in the city of Bel Air Texas a stone's throw from Houston Don and Antonio Armstrong were both attacked by an unknown assailant both of them shot while sleeping in the dead of the night the couple's son heard the gunfire from elsewhere in the house and made an emergency call sending responders rushing out to the house these officers arrived to find that the home security system had not been breached no one had entered or left the house for hours the killer must have already been inside hi everyone I'm Kevin and this is just thought Lounge JTL is the true crime channel that delivers serious well-balanced coverage of the cases that really make you think this case is truly confounding an unlikely suspect a weak motive both an abundance and notable lack of different physical evidence and circumstances that seem to prove that sometimes things are not how they may appear this is the Strange Case of Antonio Armstrong Jr let's take a look Antonio and Don Armstrong have been described as a couple at the head of what was considered to be an All-American family in 2016 both were 42 years old Antonio was a Texan native he had grown up in Houston Antonio had studied at Texas A M under a full scholarship to play football before going on to the NFL where he was a linebacker for the Miami Dolphins in the mid-1990s ankle injuries ended his career before he could get much playing time but he moved on to play professionally in the CFL the Canadian football league for six years he and his wife Don co-owned and ran first class training a gym in Bel Air Antonio doubled as a personal trainer motivational speaker and a General Health and Fitness advocate by all accounts it was a very happy marriage the couple were parents to three children Josh was the eldest he was Don's son from a previous relationship by 2016 Josh was a college student he had also developed a close relationship with his stepfather and was extremely close to his younger siblings sixteen-year-old Antonio Jr known as AJ and 12 year old Kara AJ was a football player himself and was known as the Big Man on Campus he and his sister still lived in the family home with their parents on the evening of the 28th of July 2016 the Armstrongs retired to bed around 10 pm Kara set the home security system that night securing the family safely inside they separated to their respective rooms the master bedroom was located on the second floor where Don and Antonio slept Cara was just down the hallway AJ had a room in the Loft on the third floor one that he had previously shared with his older brother Josh three weeks earlier however Josh had moved into his own apartment only a short drive away for hours that night the house was quiet the only activity was 16 year old AJ awake in his room texting with his girlfriend Kate the two called it a night at just past 1 AM the events of the next hour would change all of their lives forever at 1 40 Am AJ called 9-1-1 emergency he told the dispatcher that he heard gunshots in the house he then descended to the second floor and noticed that the door to his parents bedroom was a jar they never leave it open even a crack AJ said he did not enter the room do you require medical assistance yes AJ said there are several lengthy pauses throughout the call while the dispatcher checked in with updates and information about the responding officers much of the call is inaudible however AJ was understood to have pondered aloud how someone could have gotten into the house and it sounds like a handgun Wrangler shotgun yeah [Music] um and another barely distinguishable whisper in response to the dispatcher AJ notes a ringing that he has in his ear then seven minutes into the call he also made another ambiguous statement okay do you hear anything else what's wrong um [Music] towards the end of the 9-1-1 call AJ entered a code into the ADT keypad on the front door to disable the home security system the call lasted 16 minutes in total then AJ's heard opening the door he and Kara walked out to meet law enforcement responding officers entered the house and performed a walk through to confirm that no individuals were inside aside from Don and Antonio this was verified within minutes Emergency Medical Teams found Antonio senior in bed clinging to life with a slight pulse and immediately rushed him out for further care he had been shot with a single bullet in the head Dawn in bed beside her husband was sadly declared dead at the scene the mother of three had received two gunshots behind her ear both had been asleep when the killer attacked when the couple was found each had a pillow rusting over their heads walking through the kitchen responding officers noticed drawers hanging open haphazardly though nothing appeared Disturbed within them nor were any items found to be missing from one of these drawers a notepad and a pen had been retrieved and left sitting out on the kitchen counter on the Note someone had roughly scrawled I've been watching you for some time get me the writer had gone over each capitalized letter a few times as though to conceal the handwriting also on the counter was a gun later to be confirmed as Antonio senior's own handgun a 22 caliber pistol and the murder weapon he was known to have kept the gun in the drawer of his bedside table just as AJ had recalled when speaking with 9-1-1 dispatch investigators determined that the gun had been retrieved next to Antonio while he slept the evidence indicated that Don had been shot first twice and very closely together then the shooter turned to Antonio perhaps they thought because the initial Two Shots had caused him to awake prompting the killer to shoot Antonio senior as well the initial assessment of the scene yielded an obvious suspect the home security system had sensors on every external door as well as motion detectors to catch movement inside none of the door sensors had been triggered all windows were locked with their screens still secured it would have been impossible for the killer to go out through a window there was no sign of forced entry two family members have been shot using a gun that had already been inside the house and that remained inside the house when law enforcement arrived not carried away by the Killer two individuals walked out twelve-year-old Kara who had just been awoken by her brother as recorded while he spoke to the 911 dispatcher that left only 16 year old Antonio Jr AJ was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser in the early morning hours AJ was questioned by investigators from the Houston Police Department HPD officers remarked that AJ appeared emotionless throughout this period they did not see him shed a tear over the loss of his mother his father was in critical care fighting for his life HPD felt certain that given the circumstances AJ must have been the shooter they began to piece together the context and their case by asking AJ to explain his relationship with his parents the interview audio was recorded but not captured on video you get along with your mom get along with Dad no problems nobody was really close and then me and my mom like we I mean me like me my brother and my sister like had our like little issues with my mom but it was never anything like experience but investigators asked specifically about AJ's older brother Josh who had arrived at the crime scene shortly after law enforcement in the chaos of the night AJ had also found time to call his brother Josh he told his brother that their parents had been shot Josh was at the house moments later because he lived just down the street now you have an older brother that doesn't live there no he's not he just moved he was going to uh Glenn and he just moved back like three weeks ago he's going to the Art Institute now and he lives in those apartments like our house is here and when you come out and make that left on Maple Ridge he's he lives in those apartment complexes right there okay now how is his relationship with everybody in the family I mean he's really like me him and my dad are like a really close we like to sit down and talk a lot and then him my mom would like identical people like their personalities are the same so if they're close and then me and him would just like have a really close brother relationship and then my little sister like loved him while AJ was questioned the crime scene was being processed there were no usable fingerprints found in the house nothing was found on the gun nor on the note and Pen left out in the kitchen there were shell casings found in the master bedroom but also in AJ's bedroom AJ was asked about what he knew about his father's gun range I was like eight years old or something like that but like that's about it can he gets his case in one of his drawers and like my dad his drawers the closet and I'm the bed as I off limits so I've never gone in there or like seen it or anything like that except for when he brings it out so like I don't know where he was keeping the gun them at the time but I know he keeps it on one of those three places searching through the master bedroom investigators noticed a bullet hole in the ceiling originating from AJ's third floor bedroom they locate the entry hole in the teenager's room concealed only by a pile of socks when pressed by the HPD on this point AJ admits to having fired the gun he showed it off to a friend weeks earlier and had fired it at that time police then found bullet holes in a pillow and blanket in AJ's closet me and one of my friends just like playing around and they were they were about to leave and he was like he was like me I was like Hey like if you ever tried that before and now I've never done it and I was like do you want me to show you how to and like I like wouldn't check the three places in the film was under my dad's bed and I like laid uh the pillow I lick my pillow and then like to a bunch of over it or like it under it thinking like that would stop it but I guess it did not stop me yeah police did not buy into AJ's timeline investigators say materials from the ceiling were visible on the floor of the master bedroom this indicated that the bullet could not have been fired weeks earlier if that was the case surely someone would have noticed you're explaining away around the shop to explore two or three weeks ago when we've got fresh sheetrock on the ground and we got around so laying on the ground I mean your parents use that room constantly they're gonna notice if your dad's gonna notice any kind of hard on the carpet he's gonna know what's up that's why that's why I'm saying it doesn't make sense because it wasn't it wasn't in his path I'm pretty sure it wasn't impossible if it wasn't this week then it was last week The Bullet Hole was not the only suspicious anomaly identified inside the house on the second floor Landing Police identified an area of carpet that appeared to have been recently burnt it was not a large marking the bird Mark seemed to have been made from a single match that was stifled without catching a flame the area around the burn mark smelt a strongly of gasoline was the carpet Park uh that was Tuesday okay [Music] that's the thing that was like confusing to me I didn't so anything on the floor what's the big what's the bottle of rubbing alcohol that's empty in your bedroom I'm just asking because the other investigator was out there says that the floor right they're supposed to keep selling which is like sometimes yeah like that all right that's what me and my because me and my dad when like it happened we both said that it like smelled like gas somewhere we didn't know where it was coming from investigators speculated that in the days before the murders AJ had been attempting to set fire to the second floor Landing just at the entrance of the stairs which would block access out of the house to anyone in the rooms on that floor they also believed that the bullet hold pillow and blanket were evidence of a test run of the shooting this test would gauge how noisy the gun was could the shots be heard from Kara's room loud enough to wake her for example Antonio senior passed away in hospital his son stood accused of two counts of capital murder and was released on a two hundred thousand dollar Bond AJ's motive remained murky at Best But if the alarm system was to be trusted the case against him appeared at least on the surface to be a slam dunk but was it there were issues with the physical evidence if AJ had been the shooter that night there was nothing more than this circumstantial evidence linking him to the gun AJ did not have gunpowder residue anywhere on him his hands arms or clothing there was no blood spatter either none of his parents blood was on AJ's person or caught in his air bloody clothing was not found anywhere in the house had the 16 year old been Savvy enough to thoroughly clean himself and the scene there were no indications left of any cleaning products in any sinks showers or drains DNA was found on the notepad and on the gun this DNA matched to the Armstrong family but could not be isolated to a single individual this was also the case with DNA extracted from elsewhere in the house the teenager had lied to police about playing around with his father's gun to impress a friend he blamed his younger sister for the mess on the stairway but he insisted that someone had entered the house that night and he claimed to have seen that person a man running away from him and wearing a mask that's when I came down and I kind of looked because you know how like my it has been literally goes down like you can peep real quick and see like what's like going on from down from my stairs and when I saw someone like coming out so I just took off back upstairs going straight to my closet that's what I called what do you do you physically see somebody well I saw him running like I saw him running uh I'm gonna say either he or she definitely it was definitely a guy wasn't a girl there wasn't like long hair or anything like that I mean they had a it was like a mask and like you could only see the eyes and the mouth but he looked like it he looked like a black guy but I'm not like 100 positive I'm pretty sure it was an African-American and like I'd say like six feet Maybe can you talk to us about how you're feeling convicted AJ Armstrong faced an automatic life sentence without the chance of parole for at least 40 years AJ's Family stood firmly behind him while his defense attorneys prepared to defend the teenager at trial we were standing without him we know that's the thing we know our grants yes we know what it's capable of doing yes and what he's not capable no and we felt that he's not capable of murdering his mother and his father it was somebody else in the house that night in the know that this is something I'm being accused of just makes everything so much worse dealing with not having my parents anymore it's the fact that I'm being accused of something of this magnitude before the case saw a jury a woman named Maxine Adams a friend of the Armstrongs came forward offering an alternative theory of the cry Maxine claimed that Antonio senior had been involved in a prostitution ring Maxine's husband had also been involved they had by extension become connected with some shady Associates and had even received death threats AJ's defense headed by attorney Rick titoto claimed this information had been withheld by the state and pushed for an outright dismissal of the charges against AJ in Maxine's interview with police she backed up her claims to the family this came as a shock but also a potential explanation for the murders that did not involve Young AJ full details names phone numbers people involved how it worked the woman said that my son was receive a threatened phone calls he you mean to tell me that wasn't enough for you to start investigating it's painful but I want to know truth and I want my grandson free the Armstrong's gym first class training was broken into just after the murders a link between this break-in and the murders was not made the HPD found Maxine Adams claims to be unsubstantiated but with these rumors and curious activities playing out in the months after the killings Rick De Toto told the media that it was clear that the state did not want the public to know what was really happening the motion to have the case dismissed nonetheless failed AJ was 19 years old when he went on trial in the spring of 2019. within 11 minutes of going into that house before any evidence was processed before they knew anything about the crime scene as far as forensics before anything they made up their mind he did it in a surprise move the defense introduced yet another theory of the crime when they pointed the finger at a new suspect Josh Armstrong AJ and Kara's older half-brother Josh is the son of Dawn and stepson to Antonio senior in the Years following the murders Josh had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and he began to receive treatment he had reported paranoid episodes and violent thoughts for the past three years he's been in and out of a psychiatric facility you're going to hear evidence that he's suicidal You're Gonna Hear evidence that he's homicidal you're going to hear evidence that it's cataponic you're going to hear evidence that he has a woman in his head that he's trying to kill jurors heard from Hannah pylon Josh's ex-girlfriend who had been living with him at the time of the murders she was asleep when the shooting had taken place Josh was at home when she awoke but she was unable to verify his whereabouts for the hours earlier she assumed he had been sleeping next to her Hannah testified that she awoke when Josh received the phone call from AJ there was someone in his parents house he told her as he headed for a shotgun then straight out the door she also testified that Josh spiraled after his parents death he heard voices in his head he became paranoid depressed and obsessed with the murders Josh then checked himself into the hospital for psychiatric treatment Kara Armstrong now a teenager herself took the stand as a character witness for her brother and to discuss the family Dynamic she told the jury that Josh had been the black sheep of the family that he perceived that his parents loved the other two children more than him and that his Demeter had completely changed for the worse just after returning from college Kara also gave testimony addressing the key piece of evidence against AJ the security system it was finicky she said Kara recounted how the system often misfired the sensors did not always work in particular the door sensors would fail to Signal when the external doors were opened she had explained this to investigators on the night her parents were killed the defense aimed to prove that the alarm system reports showing no doors had been opened in the home for hours prior to law enforcement arriving on the scene were complete nonsense those records are not worth the paper they're written on there is at least 77 different arrows in those alarm records those alarm records are absolutely useless and the whole State's theory that the house is closed and no one can get into it is nonsense to this point the motive attributed to AJ for the murderers remained murky the state sought to show a growing tension between the teenager and his parents prosecutor John Jordan presented a series of text messages sent amongst AJ and his parents prosecutors showed the jury that Don and Antonio senior sent several texts to AJ calling him a liar expressing anger that he was smoking in the house letting his grades slip and disobeying their rules to her husband Don wrote AJ is starting to lie I am so disappointed he doesn't care about anything he is a bold-faced liar like I have never seen before AJ had been kicked out of school due to failing grades he had broken curfew been irresponsible with his car and not taking responsibility eight weeks before the murders AJ wrote to his parents I'm not even going to try to say sorry for everything because right now I know it doesn't mean anything to you guys I know I need a major like change right now his mother responded we gave you all and the best we had we wanted the best for you we provided the best education bought you a great car to celebrate you we tried to be open with you and what was important to you and all you do is lie to us scheme behind our backs chose to piss on all we tried to do Beyond disappointed I will never understand why you are a liar and do not work hard in school you don't want to be right or do good I am so heartbroken but it is what it is although some exchanges showed a growing tension between the Armstrongs and their teenage son others showed the opposite on occasion Dawn and Antonio offered praise to AJ for his efforts his attorneys argued that his messaging history is not one of a homicidal son just a regular teenager flirting with his girlfriend misbehaving and having disagreements with his parents 90 minutes before this happened he's in bed flirting with his girlfriend talking about how I love you how I want to get married I mean that's totally inconsistent with someone who's angry suicidal homicidal the jury heard over 39 hours of testimony at times the proceedings were emotional AJ's former football coach who is a close friend of Antonio senior broke down on the stand while speaking of his affection towards both father and son AJ himself collapsed with his head in his hands while the court was shown autopsy photos of his parents AJ did not take the stand in his own defense jurors deliberated for over 19 hours over the fate of Antonio Armstrong Jr over three days while they deliberated the jury passed multiple notes to the judge stating that they were hopelessly deadlocked the verdict uh and if that the court declares a mistrial the state did not drop their case against AJ Armstrong after the mistrial they issued a statement almost immediately of their intention to retry the case did you kill your parents no never never being in the situation and just that being a consular minded that someone would even think that is something that I would do like it's just like it hurts it's frustrating the second trial was delayed due to the pandemic and would not commence until 2022. by that time AJ was 23 years old and had become a father himself his son Hendrix was also given the second name Antonio after both his father and the grandfather that he would never know his girlfriend Kate had stood by him since 2016 and would again take the stand to testify in his defense there were changes this time around the security video of the burglars breaking into the Armstrong's gym after the murders was excluded from evidence however AJ's defense had gained support of their theory that it was the other son Josh Armstrong that was the shooter medical records from the Elder son had been obtained and presented to the jury the records showed that Josh had claimed to have witnessed his parents murders his own words placed him in the room that night to the defense this was tantamount to a confession but the prosecution interpreted these statements as nothing more than a symptom of his mental illness for these murders in their interpretation the murders had served as the trigger for Josh's schizophrenia he had not been severely mentally ill prior to July 2016. and there was no way these murders were the act of an individual under psychosis much of the focus in both trials was placed on the timeline as pieced together by phone records and the hotly disputed security system reports the alarm had been set at 9 52 PM by Kara that was an Undisputed fact AJ was active on his cell phone primarily texting with Kate until 102 am at which point it was placed on a charger likely in his third floor bedroom the phone was lifted from its charger at 108 am but not unlocked for use one minute later the motion detector on the second floor was activated the phone screen was turned on and off over the next several minutes giving off ambient light perhaps to navigate the dark house argued the prosecution Don and Antonio were shot with Antonio's gun between this time and the 9-1-1 call placed at 1 40 AM the only period of time all day that AJ was not active on his cell phone during that period at 1 25 am the living room motion sensor was activated it is assumed that this is when the note and gun were left in the kitchen between this time and the 9-1-1 call the prosecution speculated AJ was cleaning up the scene and himself the front door sensor was activated at 1 57 am when AJ disarmed the system to allow law enforcement to enter then as though to prove the accuracy of the sensors two minutes later the system report also showed the kitchen door opening exactly in line with when responding officers performed a check of the property the security system expert called by the prosecution a man named Tim Raider from the home security company ADT faced an intense cross-examination by Rick De Toto the defense team had found what they deemed to be 77 distinct errors in the security report for the house in the month of July 2016 alone in the period from June to July of the same year they identified over 120 failures in the system detecting movements the majority of which they said related to the opening and closing of external doors we know what this is this is a garbage can foreign records are that garbage they are gorgeous they further pointed to statements from Kara and others that the garage door Would Not always completely close the security panel by this door could nonetheless be armed by using a key fob it's about Reasonable Doubt now I'm going to give you hypothetical let's just let's assume that Tomb Raider is a doctor and someone goes to Dr Raider the ADT guy says doctor I have this pain in my back the doctor does tests he has you meet with other people and the day comes and Dr Rader calls you and says come on in I need to talk to you you have a cancer mass on your spine if you don't have surgery you're gonna die if you do have surgery you could be paralyzed for the rest of your life I think we'd all agree that that's a serious decision much like deciding life in prison when you say doctor thank you I'm devastated by this I'm going to get a second opinion and you get all Dr Raiders tests and everything he did and you take it to another doctor the doctor says let me get back to you I'm going to review these the doctor calls you back and says sure man I've looked through all these records and there's at least 77 errors in those records I've also found out that Dr Raider State failed to talk to anybody that you talked to about food poisoning there's some notes in here that say you could have food poisoning we need to look at it they should ask the patient what he had to eat what he or she had to drink Dr Raider ignored that and the second doctor says look I just think you've had a case of food poisoning and let me show you all the errors in his records how many people in here would have that surgery raise your hand raise your hand prosecutors core staff how many people in here would have that surgery why Sergeant dagnal didn't even raise his hand he's sitting right there why would you not have that surgery because you have a reasonable doubt prosecutor John Jordan argued that AJ had slipped up at one point on the 9-1-1 call in a barely audible segment played for the jury AJ complains of a ringing in his ears and there's this amazing thing is if you fire a gun without ear something happened that wouldn't happen if you're in another room the whole reason why we have ear protection is there's like a high pitch or a ringing that goes on in your ears when the dispatcher asked him do you hear any noises what does AJ Armstrong say um [Music] [Applause] it's not even like he's talking to her he's Whispering it slowly wrote himself he's saying his high pitched in this one statement is a concussion there's only one reason why you would have a high pitch in your ears is because you just fired a firearm inside of a home the state also emphasized what they argued was a foolish and unbelievable story told by AJ five full hours had passed before he told the HPD that he had seen a masked man in the house on the 16-minute call to 9-1-1 he told the operator only that the door to his parents room was opened a crack he was telling a story like one from a movie all signs seemed to point to AJ as the killer but just like a movie plot there was an unlikely twist it was the one-armed man that did it argued the prosecution now he sees someone running you would think during a 16 minute 9-1-1 call if he really saw someone home running he would have said man I saw someone running in my house please get here my sister's down the hallway wouldn't you wouldn't he have said someone's here please my sister is down the hallway I see him running that way but he doesn't do that homicide investigators if you're the only one in the house if you're the one that committed murder you've got to invent somebody we all know from movies the one armed man that's what this is like in the first mistrial in 2019 the jury had deadlocked eight to four eight jurors voting to convict and four believed AJ was not guilty in November 2022 the jury deadlocked again this time the numbers were in the reverse favoring the defense it's time to free AJ six years it's been two trials it's been 40 50 Witnesses it's been probably millions of dollars of expenses by the District Attorney's Office it's time to let this young man go Rosie will be ready you're prepared to do this again yes ma'am I told you we'll never stop fighting for AJ speaking to the media afterwards while maintaining their anonymity a handful of jurors spoke about how difficult the deliberation had been inside the Jury Room when he said that he saw something run someone running down the stairs it was clearly made up it was dark he said he was African-American wearing a mask well it was dark and if it truly was your brother Josh wouldn't you recognize his physique again I did hear everyone saying we believe he did it but we have doubt the state has made clear their intention to try AJ Armstrong for a third time jury selection is scheduled for the 24th of February 2023 with opening statements and testimony expected to commence in later March the judge in the trial filed in order to change venue in part due to the scrutiny the case has received in Harris County and how this may impact the delivery of a fair unbiased jury trial it's unclear how these pre-trial proceedings may impact the timeline but according to the state of Texas since July 2016 one fact has seemed certain Antonio Armstrong Jr is guilty of murdering his parents eight years later they still need to prove it that was the story of Antonio Armstrong Jr and the murder of his parents Dawn and Antonio senior thanks for watching I'm Kevin this is just thought lounge and I'll see in the next one

Channel: JustThoughtLounge

Views: 805,576

Keywords: True Crime, Just Thought Lounge, JTL, Coffeehouse Crime, That Chapter, MrBallen, twisted minds, true crime documentary, true crime youtubers, free crime documentary, true crime stories, murders documentary, AJ Armstrong, Antonio Armstrong, one-armed man defense

Id: cpj0x-OLdcI

Length: 37min 41sec (2261 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2023