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Florence was shocked when a major blow to the community, the killing of Byron Griffy, happened
Byron Griffy, the day before his 77th birthday, was shot dead in 2012, and the little town of Florence, Colo., was overwhelmed with grief. “He was a pillar of the community,” ex-Otero County Sheriff’s Captain Carol Coates says in the new series The Rocky Mountain Mortician Murder, by Investigation Discovery, which will be aired on Nov. 26. It was quickly understood by the officers who arrived at the scene that they were dealing with a difficult and confusing case.
Funeral director found shot and deliberately staged in vacated farmhouse
Byron Griffy, the director of a funeral home, was shot with a single bullet in the head on Oct. 12, 2012, which was the day before his 77th birthday. His daughter and her wife found his body in an empty room of the family farmhouse, the house they had recently left after a series of alleged break-ins, the daughter and her wife having made the discovery.
Police have said that no defensive injuries were found and that there were no signs of force being used to gain entry. According to Otero County coroner Bob Fowler, the blood spatter was something that he had never seen before, and Otero County District Attorney James Bullock pointed out that Griffy had been “laid out, almost like a body in a casket, face up,” which suggests that the scene was staged.”
His Family Was Worried About His Safety — Suspicious Meeting Right Before His Death
In the series, the daughter of Byron, Linette Griffy revealed that her father was collecting coins, old currency, and antiques that he kept in a “secret room with I don’t know how many safes.” Daughter-in-law Gina Griffy shared that when they moved from the farm, he was “very scared” and “adamant that someone was trying to steal his money.” Therefore, it was “kind of a shock,” according to Linette, that her father had made a plan to meet Anthony Wright and Charles Giebler, funeral home owners from Florence, Colo., at the farm on the day he died in order to “we didn’t live at the farm anymore”.
What you should know about the shocking case:
What Do We Know About Mortician Byron Griffy?
Byron Griffy was a mortician who was born in Ninaview, Colorado, on Oct. 13, 1935. He graduated from the Dallas Institute of Mortuary Science in 1958 and later started the Griffy Family Funeral Home. He was known as the person who “took care of everybody” and bought a farm for his daughter Linette and her family, where he lived until late 2011. He was a coin and antique collector and became so afraid that someone was after his money, that the family decided to move after break-in attempts and finding a noose in their barn. His daughter-in-law Gina said that his father-in-law’s greatest fear was that “someone was trying to steal his money.” The new ID docuseries, The Rocky Mountain Mortician Murder, is an investigation of this background.
What was the fate of Byron Griffy?
On Oct. 12, 2012, Anthony Wright — co‑owner of Charles‑Anthony Funeral Home — and his business partner Charles Giebler went out to Byron Griffy’s farm with the intention of taking the local funeral director to lunch. When they got there at about midday, Wright remembered in the interview pieces that were utilized in the series, that the gate was shut.
Detectives also uncovered that there were two calls that were not answered by Byron, with the first one being from Charles at 12:43 p.m. Wright told the Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents that after he and Giebler could not find Byron’s new house in Fowler, they briefly drove around looking for it, so they decided to return to Florence. When Byron did not come to dinner, his daughter Linette and her wife Gina went to the farm to look for him.
Byron Was Found by Gina—Byron Was Murdered, His Scene Was Staged and He Was Laid Out “Like a Body in a Coffin”
It was Gina who found Byron lying in a death of a single gunshot wound to the back of the head an empty room of the old house of the family. “There wasn’t much blood at all,” former Otero County Sheriff’s Captain Carol Coates remembered in the series. “I think my words were, ‘It’s weird.’” District Attorney of Otero County James Bullock said that Byron’s body looked like it had been intentionally staged, turned up as if laid out in a casket.
Charles and Anthony took care of the funeral arrangements; Gina said “almost the entire town” was present at Byron’s funeral on Oct. 19, which was the occasion when Charles — who was also a church deacon — gave the eulogy.
Byron’s hidden treasures and unreturned phone calls led to their investigation
The probe revealed that Byron had instructed Charles Giebler and Anthony Wright to hide parts of his coin collection and other valuables; Anthony subsequently informed the police that he had stored those things in a specially secured room in his basement.
Byron had made a deal with the two men to meet at the farm on the day of his death but didn’t show up, and his phone was showing missed calls from them. Relatives of the family informed the police that after Charles and Anthony had allegedly told them that they were “always busy,” Byron had called “several times” to verify the items as he was being told.
Since the two had control of Byron’s valuable collection, were among the last people to see him, and gave statements that the investigators found to be contradictory, the police started considering them as suspects.
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Investigators Grew Suspicious of the Funeral Directors After Disturbing Revelations
Ex-ward Otero County Sheriff’s Capt. Carol Coates told the series that detectives suspected funeral directors Charles Giebler and Anthony Wright—who also ran a guitar shop and a local restaurant—of possibly hiding something after their interviews. At Anthony’s 2015 murder trial, he said that Byron had asked them to keep his money because he was afraid of being sued by the 15-year-old he had sexually molested and wanted to “hide it away.”
Documents indicate that Byron entered a plea of guilty in May 2012 to one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust; the alleged abuse took place over a two-year period while he was at Griffy Funeral Home. He was given a sentence of four years’ probation and 150 hours of community service. The revelations, as well as the directors’ possession of Byron’s valuables and several discrepancies in their versions of events, made the detectives’ examination of the case more intense.
Couldn’t Have Been More Different — In the End They Turned Out to Be Lovers
The police got to know in January 2013 that for a long time Charles Giebler and Anthony Wright who were representing themselves as half‑brothers to the town were actually a couple. Both were well-known and active in the community (Charles was even the mayor of Florence), and Anthony informed the police that the two of them hadn’t been a couple for years when the truth came out — this fact being the last thing they expected and adding another dimension to the case.
Giebler Passed Away While the Murder Investigation Was Still Underway — Coronary Artery Disease Made Known in the Report
As a matter of fact, Charles Giebler died of coronary artery disease on Jan. 25, 2013, when a detective team was looking into Byron Griffy’s murder. In a report, it was mentioned that he had only a few days before his death talked with Laura Anderson, Anthony Wright’s then‑girlfriend, and told her that he and Anthony had been lovers. Later on, Anthony characterized Charles as a “very vindictive” person and said that he was scared that the disclosure might cause him trouble in the future while he kept his fingers crossed that it would help him find a solution.
Anthony Wright Indicted for Murder of Byron Griffy
In August 2013, the local police wrapped up their investigation and charged Anthony Wright, co‑owner of Charles‑Anthony Funeral Home, with first‑degree murder in the death of Byron Griffy. He entered a not guilty plea. The court hearing in 2015 was interrupted by the announcement of a mistrial when the jury informed the presiding judge that they were unable to reach a verdict after two days of deliberation.
Anthony Wright Pleaded to Accessory Charge and Was Given Probation
In the face of a new trial and the possibility of a life sentence, Anthony Wright in January 2017, made a plea of guilty to accessory to first‑degree murder and a probation sentence of 10 years was imposed, as per the Daily Record. Wright who claims that he is innocent, in an interview with the ID series, said that his lawyer had warned that after a mistrial “very rarely goes in the defendant’s favor,” and that he “didn’t see a way out” so he “just had to take the plea.”
