(SIREN BLARING)
(PHONE RINGING)
(OPERATOR SPEAKING)
(MAN SPEAKING)
(OPERATOR SPEAKING)
(MAN SPEAKING)
MAN: To not only lose your parents,
but then to turn around and be accused for it,
I wouldn't wish this on like, anybody.
This is all or nothing. If he's convicted, he gets life in prison.
This young man is literally fighting for his life.
(MAN SPEAKING)
(OPERATOR SPEAKING)
(SPEAKING)
REPORTER 1: We have new developments today
in the case of a teen accused of killing both of his parents
in southwest Houston.
REPORTER 2: Armstrong Jr.
is accused of his killing his father
former NFL player, Antonio, and mother, Dawn, last July.
REPORTER 3: Armstrong claimed he heard shots
and saw a masked intruder in the house.
REPORTER 4: He faces life in prison,
with a possibility of parole after 40 years.
RICK: AJ is accused of killing both his parents.
In Texas, that constitutes capital murder.
AJ's different than most clients.
He was 16 when he got arrested,
so he was a kid. He's still a kid.
He's a young man that's looking at
a long time in jail,
and we're trying to save him.
This is it. Huge accessory.
I've had it for about 18 months now.
I feel that extra weight on my leg.
I'm not allowed to go past my driveway
and I can't go wider than this little plant right here,
and then I can't go wider than the tree.
Just dealing with all the emotions
of just being confined
and not being able to do whatever you wanna do.
It's been like two years
since I've been in a school environment.
I never actually thought I would say it,
but I miss going to school.
I just miss being able to be a normal kid again,
like, that's all I wanna do.
I'm just being patient with the whole process.
I'm not letting my emotions take over
and I'm just staying strong in my faith
and things like that. So, that's all I really can do.
How are you? What's going on? Good to see you.
-So good to see you. -What's up, man? Come on back.
RICK: It's going to be probably by far, the,
one of the hardest things you've ever been through.
The stress, the tension,
the fear, the anxiety is gonna be through the roof.
A good prosecutor will come out swinging,
trying to influence the jury, trying to,
you know, make it an emotional kind of deal.
There's no DNA, there's no direct evidence.
So in my mind, it's a very circumstantial case.
We're shaking our heads in disbelief.
HPD have just pinpointed you and that's the end of the story.
CHRIS: The state doesn't have a motive.
They're going to paint a picture that,
"Hey, you're a bad kid,"
and somehow, that is supposed to translate into,
you picked up a gun and killed your parents.
People are just saying all these things about me
and they have no idea who I am.
-Everyone jumped on what the media said... -Yeah.
AJ: ...when everything first went down
and automatically said I was guilty.
I was at the bail place and like, I was in my room,
signing all my documents and like, this guy was like,
"Yeah, that kid who killed his parents is here."
That's honestly, one of the toughest things
I've had to deal with.
Um, I don't even know how you guys manage it.
I don't think I could, if I was in your situation.
So, we're gonna do everything we can to get you back home,
get you on your path where you need to be,
but make no mistake, this is deadly serious.
We're fighting for your life here.
AJ: Anybody whose life gets put on the line,
it's a scary thing to deal with.
I'm not allowing myself to stress out, panic, or anything like that.
If I sit there and just allow the thoughts to bother me,
the next thing I know, I'll be having an emotional breakdown,
or something like that.
RICK: All right, so we need to start talking about
what we expect the state to present,
as far as the events at the house.
CHRIS: Okay.
AJ says he was going to the restroom
and he heard gunshots
and his parents' door was cracked, which wasn't normal
and he hauled butt into his room,
got into the closet and called 911.
RICK: AJ's in his closet, whispering,
because he believes the person is still in the house.
The police tell him to go get his sister.
He goes and gets his sister. Comes down the stairs.
Police say that they see him unlock the door
and turn off the alarm system,
and that's gonna be huge for them
because they believe that the house was enclosed
and no one else could have come in or out of the house.
CHRIS: Police are saying
they see no signs of forced entry,
and so therefore, they said,
it's gotta be somebody in the house that did it.
AJ made the phone call, he's gotta be the guy.
End of story, that's their whole case.
RICK: The police storm the house, they check everywhere.
They encounter Antonio and Dawn in the bed.
They've been shot.
A weapon is found in the kitchen on the granite counter top.
We know that it was Antonio Sr's weapon.
That's another hurdle we're gonna have, someone had to have
access to the weapon that was in the house.
They found a note in the kitchen area by the weapon,
that says, "I have been watching for a long time."
RICK: They've fingerprinted everything,
DNA tested everything,
gunshot residued everybody
and there's no physical evidence
that links AJ to murdering his parents.
Dawn and Antonio were executed by a coldblooded killer.
It's not AJ.
In my mind, if I'm a prosecutor,
the biggest thing that I'm going to try
to get across to the, to the jury,
is that this is a secure house.
CHRIS: As far as I'm concerned, I think the prosecution's case
can only be built around the alarm system.
RICK: So, we need to figure out this alarm system,
we need to know exactly how it works.
Is there a way to get into the house,
without the alarm going off?
That's my mom. That's me and my dad.
Let's see what else we got.
This is me and my mom.
I'm just very grateful that they took all these pictures,
'cause it was annoying growing up,
'cause my mom wanted to take pictures
for every little thing.
Looking back on it now, I'm like,
I'm really grateful we did, 'cause now we have, like,
all of these memories and we're able to look back.
It kinda makes me feel like they're still around me
and kinda keeps me remembering them.
We work hard at appreciating their life
and celebrating their life.
AJ: I mean, for me, it's just every day,
you just want them there for everything.
Me and my dad did everything together.
He was my football coach growing up.
He was like my best friend.
Just imagine if you were in my shoes
and you were innocent and you just lost your parents
and someone was calling you
on social media, murderer, killer,
how would that really make you feel?
You want to, uh, listen to his statement?
This is the part.
So, it looks like there's a shot from his room down.
CHRIS: Yeah, I can see this getting twisted
-into something pretty bad. -Yeah.
Man, I'm afraid that there could be a, an inference drawn
that he was practicing shooting the gun
in order to kill his parents.
You know, like, that could be a big problem.
We don't know in the background, outside of this room,
what these officers were saying to AJ.
You know, you're gonna go to prison for the rest of your life,
unless you tell us what happened.
Juvenile statements, for me,
have always been kind of a touchy subject,
because they're so easy to influence and,
and, and kind of pressure into stuff.
Those first three months
were like the worst time, like, of my life, you know.
It was not only the fact that I was in jail,
but like, everything I was going through.
Give God the glory, to lift the name of Jesus, to celebrate the life of Dawn...
AJ: That was the first time I had seen, like,
all of my family since everything.
That is AJ coming in, right there, that's him
with the white on, he's sitting down.
I have my hands cuffed, but I was in such shock
and I was sitting there, like, this can't be real,
this has to be a nightmare.
KAY: It was something I never in my life,
ever thought I would experience.
My grandchildren, my family, never.
It was just...
KAY: We all know AJ didn't murder his parents.
Impossible.
Then you have the question, who did?
RICK: We are heading over to Dawn and Antonio's house
right now.
CHRIS: We are going to try to show
someone else outside of AJ could have gotten into the house
and, and committed the murders.
The police statements say
they saw AJ come down the stairs.
They saw AJ turn off the alarm system
and unlock the front door
and allow the officers to enter in
through the front door.
So AJ must have done it,
because he was the one that unlocked the door
and turned off the alarm system.
That's what we got a problem with.
In fact, this garage, there's a code box on the side.
Then, the door from the garage
into the house was always left unlocked.
And in all our conversations with the family,
there was multiple people
that had access to open the garage.
So, would you say
a minimum, five, ten people had the access code?
Yeah, minimum. Yeah.
Based on our alarm expert, he says that, say for example,
that garage door is not fully closed,
if it's barely cracked
and you go set the alarm,
you can still arm the alarm,
even though this thing is cracked.
But what that does is, it bypasses the zone of whatever this door's on
and it happens to be this door
and the front door that sits right here.
Didn't Miss Kay say that because so many people
were coming in and out, that door was left open?
She says that that door pops open all the time.
She goes, "It's not like it's wide open"
but she goes, "You know, sometimes it's just cracked
"and you don't really know it,
"you just walk right by it and it, it is what it is."
So, if this sensor on that door doesn't make contact,
-it disarms that zone? -Correct.
So, then I could just walk in.
I could just open the door, walk in the house,
take a couple of steps and go up the stairway.
So, it looks the expert can say
that there is a way for someone to get in the house,
without the alarm going off.
REPORTER 1: Armstrong Jr. planned and practiced the murder of his parents.
REPORTER 2: Police said his story didn't stand up.
REPORTER 3: Police are still trying to figure out
why the couple's son shot them to death.
AJ: A lot of this stuff wouldn't have happened
if it wasn't because of my dad and, like, the way he was.
I wouldn't have any of this publicity, I wouldn't be on TV.
It's kind of funny how we have the innocent until proven guilty.
We've realized that narrative really doesn't exist.
People gotta sell a story, that's what it's all about,
at the end of the day, it's about a story,
and just the sad truth is,
is saying someone's innocent
really isn't an interesting story.
It's more interesting to say they're guilty.
Hey, Chris.
-Chris? -What's up?
Come here.
RICK: So, 18 months ago,
HPD did an interview of a witness,
where the witness told the police,
Antonio Sr. was getting death threats.
CHRIS: Death threats?
And we just learned about it in the last couple of hours.
Man, that's, that's, that's huge.
You should probably hear this part.
Kid is charged with capital murder
and we're just learning that there's a person out there
that knows of death threats.
CHRIS: It's almost like, they have something
and they're burying it,
and our guy's life is on the line.
This is pretty disturbing and it's consistent
with someone else being the killer,
which we've said all along.
I'm gonna figure out what's going on.
Looks like it was discovered and they tried to cover it up.
Wow.
RICK: It's been 18 months that they had the audio.
At one point, one of the prosecutors says that,
"This audio is burning a hole in my pocket."
Ties straight into what we believe happened,
that there's someone else out there,
that committed these murders.
To see this up close and personal in our face,
in a case of this magnitude is ridiculous.
If there is a witness out there that knew of death threats,
I mean, think about that,
death threats against Antonio Sr.
I mean, there's nothing more relevant to this case than that.
What if it's true?
RICK: The prosecution has to turn over
any evidence that's exculpatory,
that tends to show that the person did not commit the crime.
We didn't get it until a couple of weeks ago,
so I believe we will never get a fair trial in this case.
That's why we want it dismissed.
RICK: We want what's fair.
My client wants a fair trial
and he's not getting it.
Absolutely.
What happened was, another person was in the house.
This information goes straight into that,
it leads directly to that situation.
They don't want us to know about it,
they don't want us to fully investigate it,
they want to sweep it under the rug.
-We're done, thank you. -MAN: You've got this.
(AJ SNIFFLES)
(BELLS TOLLING)
KAY: Being accused of two capital murders,
how could anything to prove his innocence be denied,
something of this magnitude?
AJ: I can't sit here and dwell on it
and be mad and say, "Oh, I hate these people."
I can't sit there and do that, 'cause at the end of the day,
like, we just have to adjust and move on.
My parents always taught me, no matter what it is,
you have to try and find some good in it.
RICK: In my mind, there's reasonable doubt all over this case.
I'm not gonna accuse anyone else of committing these murders,
but I can you tell that there's some really strong evidence
that points away from, from AJ
and that's what we need to present to the jury.
Our job is not to prove that someone else did it,
our job is to show, you know,
maybe the police didn't investigate properly.
We're going to present evidence about AJ's half-brother, Josh.
RICK: Josh had access to the house,
so, everything that the prosecution
is gonna say applies to AJ, applies to Josh.
We do know that Josh's hands were bagged for gunshot residue
and we have a form from that officer where he asked Josh
where he was at the time of the murders and he refused to answer.
That's something we need to present to the jury
to show them that there is reasonable doubt
about AJ committing these crimes.
RICK: We have medical records showing
that he's been in and out of mental facilities.
The doctors believe he's homicidal, suicidal.
KAY: To have to make a decision to let all this stuff come out,
concerning Josh, you know,
it is hard, and, and it is difficult,
because we love him.
We're praying for him,
for his mental stability,
and, uh, we gonna always be there for him.
RICK: It's a very, very difficult situation
for this family to have to deal with,
because it's another family member,
but the evidence as we see it,
points in a different direction than AJ.
You know, if, if that's not reasonable doubt,
I don't know what is.
Hey, looky there, I found it.
Got it.
RICK: So, what we have
are thousands of text messages from AJ's phone.
It looks like he's having difficulty with Mom.
There's some stuff going on
and it looks like Mom was getting annoyed with him,
so I'm just concerned that
it's something they're gonna bring up.
Name one 16-year-old that you know of
that doesn't lie to parents or have issues with grades.
RICK: Yeah, I think it'll be difficult
for a jury to buy into that as motive.
I mean, a lot of it is with his girlfriend,
"I love you,"
you know, "You're sexy,"
it's, it's a 16-year-old flirting with his girlfriend.
I mean, this is what?
A little over an hour before he allegedly kills his parents
and that's not the mind-frame
-of somebody who... -Not at all.
...is about to kill his parents. It's kind of ridiculous.
I came to the conclusion in life that things are gonna happen.
There are gonna be tough situations.
You're gonna find yourself stressed out.
You remember the heartache, you remember the pain,
you remember the suffering that you've been through
and through all of that, yet and still, you still stand.
AJ: I wish I could just yell at all of y'all, and just be like,
"Look, like, I'm innocent,
"like, let me go, like just, just let me be."
But nobody wants to hear that the kid
that they tried to say killed his parents is actually innocent.
ANTONIO: You made it through all those situations
and you're gonna make it through this one as well.
As long as you don't quit.
RICK: The mood is good, we're excited, um, we're ready to go.
We're ready to get this case in front of a jury.
It, it's kind of like combat, you know, you get in the mix
and all kinds of crazy things happen
and people say weird things and you gotta figure out,
you know, how you're gonna recover from that
and what we're gonna do, and that applies to the state as well.
They're gonna argue that,
you know, AJ was the only one in the house
that could have committed this offense.
Um, they're also gonna say
that the alarm was a closed system.
Um, the alarm in this case
is gonna be a throw-down knockout, you know, brawl
regarding the experts talking about
what happened in that house.
We feel very comfortable
with what we think we can prove regarding the alarm,
um, but that's gonna be their case.
If it's a closed environment,
you know, it had to be AJ or Kayra.
They arrested AJ within ten or 15 minutes,
they put him in handcuffs, before they had any evidence.
Most jurors, they're gonna wonder, what caused this?
You know, there's no motive for,
you know, getting grounded and then executing your parents.
KAY: We all are gonna be supportive of one another.
We have to be sensitive to each other's
feelings and emotions, because the prosecution,
they're gonna say a lot of negative hard things.
It's gonna be an emotional battle.
It's gonna be a fight.
They're coming to say,
"You're the man we've said was guilty
"and you're not gonna make us look bad."
They're not coming for justice.
They are coming to tear you down,
break you up, shred you into pieces.
AJ: It's a lot of nerve.
It's obviously, like, really scary
to have a jury of 12 people
about to like, decide my freedom forever.
KAY: My concern is,
what will these people choose to believe?
Everything is circumstantial.
AJ Armstrong maintained his innocence,
but detectives are convinced the facts just don't add up.
COURT OFFICIAL: All rise. 178 District Criminal Court is now in session.
Honorable Judge Kelli Johnson presiding.
JUDGE: Court, please be seated.
JOHN BREWER: On July 28th of 2016, the alarm was set
in the home of, uh, Dawn and Antonio Armstrong.
We're safe, we're sound, protect us from the outside.
Could not protect 'em from the inside.
The alarm never went off.
Dawn Armstrong, the defendant's mother,
she was shot twice in the head.
She probably never knew it was her son that killed her.
And I'm sure never in their wildest dreams did they,
did they imagine that, you know, the alarm couldn't protect 'em,
'cause it, they're gonna be killed by their own child.
-Thank you, Your Honor. -JUDGE: Thank you, be seated.
Within 11 minutes of going into that house,
they made up their mind,
he did it.
There is no DNA matching AJ on the weapon.
There is no evidence of his parents' blood
anywhere around him, on him, or in his room, or anywhere.
You're gonna hear about a lot of people
who had access into the house.
Josh is AJ's brother,
you're gonna hear evidence that he's suicidal,
you're gonna hear evidence that he's homicidal.
That's reasonable doubt.
And we anticipate after hearing all the evidence in this case,
you will find Antonio Jr. not guilty. Thank you.
JUDGE: Thank you, Mr. Detoto.
State, call your first witness.
REPORTER: What was your reaction
to listening to that 60-minute interview
between officers and AJ?
What about the back and forth between him saying,
"I've never shot a gun. Oh, yeah, actually I did, it was a few weeks ago."
You can hear detectives say a few times,
he changed his story.
RICK: Well, I mean, it's a 16-year-old
whose parents have just been shot.
He's scared to death,
he's been in police custody for what, seven or eight hours,
in the back of a patrol car?
He's a juvenile.
There's gonna be some inconsistencies.
That doesn't mean he killed his parents.
CHRIS: We knew it was coming,
and there's not much you can do
to really prepare yourself for it.
I can look at crime scene photos all the time,
I can look at autopsy photos all the time
and I have in the past on other cases.
But this particular case,
because it's so close and it's so personal,
it was, it was difficult.
At the end of the day,
that's AJ's mom and dad up there.
The judge stopped the trial and said,
"You know, do we need a minute for y'all to collect yourselves
and take a break?"
This and that.
We stayed out in the hallway
and AJ had to go back in,
and I told AJ, "You have to sit through it,
"but don't, don't look at this stuff."
AJ: For me, it was just,
it was a real raw emotional moment.
You get so swallowed up in everything,
you kind of forget the real reason, like why we're here.
My parents are gone.
That is the toughest pill to swallow.
KAY: My family's a victim to a viscous crime
and what I don't understand is,
because we don't agree with the theory of the prosecutor,
we are treated like enemies to them.
We're the people that are alive and living,
that was harmed.
So who is the State of Texas fighting for?
REPORTER 1: Court's still going on right now.
I will get back in there
and I'll have another update for you, coming up at five.
REPORTER 2: And we'll update you here
and of course online, at Click2Houston.com.
Though, for now, we are reporting live
from the Harris County Criminal Justice Center.
I'm Brandon Walker, KPRC.
The State's theme in this whole case is basically,
there was no signs of forced entry,
there was an alarm set,
so therefore, that house was sealed.
Well, the problem is, where's the evidence?
Where's the DNA, where's the gunshot residue?
Where's the blood splatter?
Today showed that you could enter the house
through the garage door,
without setting off the alarm
and we showed that conclusively today. Thank you.
REPORTER: Thank you.
So far, I think we're fighting really hard.
But at the end of the day,
we don't know what those 12 people are thinking,
we don't know what they're hanging their decision on,
so it's kind of a crazy deal.
I've spent a lot of time with AJ in the last three years.
He's a little bit like an adopted, you know, son,
that I'm trying to get through this storm.
I'm gonna do my job and, and try to kick ass and,
and, you know, do everything I can to get him back home.
You know, credibility matters.
He is a liar.
I don't know what it is,
but there's something wrong with him.
The people in the house
that restricted his freedom, they were killed.
These people took everything from him and he didn't like it.
He planned it
and he practiced it
and he lied about it.
JOHN: The defendant's guilty, ladies and gentlemen.
An impenetrable fortress.
This is the absolute foundation of the State's case.
If there's no way in the house and no way out of the house,
where's the evidence?
It is not an impenetrable fortress
as the State would have you believe.
RICK: Who do you think is more likely to be involved in this case?
AJ, or Josh?
Josh Armstrong lived minutes away.
He had complete access to the house.
They never attempted to find any evidence related to Josh.
That has reasonable doubt written all over it.
With all due respect,
find AJ not guilty in this case.
REPORTER 1: You rested your case, how is everyone feeling?
CHRIS: AJ's been absolutely fantastic though this entire ordeal.
I don't know how he's done it.
Um, but I guess when you're innocent,
you know, you have faith and hope
and, and you stand your ground.
REPORTER 2: AJ decided not to testify, can you walk us through
why he decided not to do so?
AJ wanted to testify, he wanted to tell his story,
but based on our training and our experience of doing this for 21 years,
we told him, they haven't proven their case,
uh, things have gone well and we feel confident.
-KAY: AJ? -Huh?
How do you think today went?
I don't know.
There's nothing anybody else can say,
there's nothing anybody else can do.
Like, everything's done like, it's simply out of our hands.
There's about to be a lot of argument,
like, in that room.
It's very scary.
I still believe they will not find you guilty.
One way or the other, just be done.
It's hard in the face of all of this, to stay positive.
It's the not knowing.
Well, is this the last time I'll be in my bed?
Is it the last time...
I'll see my sister at home,
like, where's, there's, it's real life.
COURT OFFICIAL: Court come to order, remain seated.
All right, good evening, everybody.
Ladies and gentlemen, I did receive this last note.
And the note states, "We are unable to arrive at a unanimous verdict,
"without causing some members of the jury
"to do violence to their conscience."
The court finds, it is improbable the jury can reach a verdict,
and, and accordingly, because of that,
the court declares a mistrial.
We didn't win. We do know what's ahead of us
and all the pain and suffering and hard work that's coming,
but he got to go home,
and in our business if your client gets to go home
to fight again, that's a good day.
So, I think I was very happy with what we did
but you know, I feel like we need to gather our strength again
and get back to work and get this kid home for good.
We've got some tweaking to do,
some adjustments to make, and you know, try it again.
There's doubt in this case.
There's doubt all through this case.
It's just a matter of getting them to see it clearer.
REPORTER 1: In 2019, a jury could not decide
if AJ really did it,
and now he's going to be in a courtroom
to prove his innocence
in his capital murder re-trial.
COURT OFFICIAL: All rise for the jury.
REPORTER 2: The defense now saying someone else was there
when Dawn and Antonio Sr. were murdered.
AJ could not have committed these crimes.
It's been unfair. It's been wrong.
I'm so ready to get my life back.
We've been waiting six long years
to get a not guilty verdict.
RICK: We have this young man's life in our hands.
It's really scary.
What does a murderer look like?
It's time to let this young man go.
REPORTER: Just another twist in this AJ Armstrong case.
I know I'm innocent so it just has to work out for me.
We, the jury, find the defendant...