HOUSTON – “We’re not going to stop fighting. Whatever, however long it takes, whatever the process that we have to go through to get me back home, we’re going to do that.”
This week, Antonio Armstrong Jr. spoke exclusively to KPRC 2 reporter Rilwan Balogun and Investigative Producer Jason Nguyen in an interview during which he went into detail about key points made during his third capital murder trial in August -- including his family, his brother Josh, and sister Kayra, and how he’s coping with his conviction and new home in prison.
Armstrong was draped in a white Texas Department of Criminal Justice French Robertson Unit shirt and pants for the interview. Surprisingly, the 24-year-old’s demeanor mirrored much of what we saw during his trial -- calm, collected, and optimistic.
Separated by a glass partition and speaking through a phone, Armstrong said he’s finally ready to tell his side of the story after being accused, and now convicted, of murdering his parents, Dawn and Antonio Sr., while they slept in the family’s southwest Houston home in 2016.
“Why did you kill your parents?”
That was one of the first questions KPRC 2 reporter Rilwan Balogun asked during the hour-long interview.
After three trials, the first two of which ended in a hung jury, Armstrong was found guilty during his third capital murder trial in August. He was then sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 40 years.
In the courthouse, when the jurors rang the bell twice signaling there was a verdict, Armstrong recalled his exact feelings at that moment, saying he was excited and nervous about what was going to happen next.
“For me, it was just a matter of, I was excited, honestly. I was like, we’re finally at a place. We’ve got a jury that has heard all the evidence, and they see the truth. And I believed that that was my chance to finally be done with all of this, not to have to ever be in a courtroom again and have to ever sit through another trial. I just felt that I was finally at that point of being able to move on with my life,” he said.
But when the verdict came down as guilty, Armstrong told KPRC 2 he immediately turned to his wife, Kate, and family, who were positioned feet behind him and tried to offer them comfort in knowing things would be okay.
“I turned around immediately when I was walking out to look at her because I just wanted her to know that it was going to be okay. Like I love you, and I wanted them to see me be strong right in that moment because I knew what was coming and it was going to be tough,” Armstrong. said.
Since the beginning, Armstrong has proclaimed his innocence. With his wife, grandparents, sister, and other family members and friends by his side, the father of one is now saying he has been wrongly convicted.
“I didn’t kill my parents. I would say falsely convicted, because I don’t believe the conviction was the result that should have happened. It should have been either another hung jury or a not-guilty verdict. There’s no way ever I would have in a million years imagined being here,” Armstrong told Balogun.
“If not you, then who?” Balogun pressed.
Armstrong said he couldn’t provide that answer and then further explained how he believes the lack of investigation done by the Houston Police Department on the night of the murder, and by the District Attorney’s Office after the murder, possibly stopped his family from ever learning who the true killer is.
“It’s just due to their lack of investigation and them not pursuing anything outside of me from that night. Like they’ve said on the stand, it has put us in a situation where we don’t have anything and we’re probably going to have to live the rest of our lives not knowing what happened to my parents. And that’s unfortunate, but it’s the situation the Houston Police Department and the DA’s Office put us in,” A.J. explained.
When it came to the evidence -- how prosecutors revealed text messages between A.J. and his mom and dad, the alarm system, the shooting days before his parent’s murder, the fire, the blood spatter found a day before the trial was set to begin and the inconsistencies during the interrogation interview - many of the key factors jurors said led to their guilty conviction -- A.J. went into grave detail about it all, leaving no question unanswered.
“I was 16 years old. I was sitting in the back of a cop car for six or seven hours with no sleep and no idea of what was going on with my parents,” A.J. said. “I’m asking these officers what’s going on with my parents and I’m not getting any information. I’m taken downtown now. I’m in this now. I’m being questioned by these detectives. And for me, yes, some things were said that might have looked like I was trying to lie or cover something up, but at the end of the day, I was a 16-year-old kid at the time.”
He said if he could do it all over again, he would have asked for his attorney immediately.
“I was trying to help, in my eyes. At that time, I thought I was helping, giving the information that I felt would be able to best help. I mean, just answering the questions that they had for me, honestly,” he added.
Prosecutors said in the days before the shooting, A.J. “test fired” his dad’s gun in the family home. Shooting it from the floor of the third floor to the second. During his interview with detectives the night of, he said he shot the gun with a friend – showing it off. A.J. told Balogun the incident happened weeks before his parents were murdered, and his parents were aware of it.
“It was able to be blown into something big that, ‘Oh my gosh, he was test firing and that’s what he was doing, and that was his whole plan, when, in reality, it was just a 16-year-old kid playing around with the gun,” A.J. said.
Another key point during the trial was the masked man A.J. told investigators he saw from the staircase. Prosecutors constructed an entire makeshift stairwell, which A.J. said was completely inaccurate, implying that if A.J. saw the masked man, then they had to see him as well.
“It’s just not accurate. You don’t have to walk all the way down from my third story. You probably could have walked down two or three steps and peeked your head and been able to see the door,” A.J. explained. “It’s not hard at all. But again, they have to make the narrative of, ‘hey, no, you have to do this, this, and you got to walk down.”
He then went on to discuss his relationship with his parents, saying, that the way it was depicted by prosecutors during the trial was not how things were in reality.
“I mean, I thought I had a great relationship with my parents despite, you know, I was a 16-year-old kid. It’s hard to look back because, after going through those three trials and hearing all the things that they’ve said, it’s kind of just caused my mind to almost kind of forget some of the good things because it’s been pushed on me --nothing but negative. And I, you know, it’s just it sucks. It really does. But at the end of the day, I know how my parents felt about me and I know how I felt about them. And that’s what I just choose to hold on to regardless.”
Another relationship he said prosecutors tried to tarnish was his relationship with his brother Josh. During all three trials, A.J.’s attorneys constantly brought up A.J.’s older-half brother Josh Armstrong and his battle with mental health.
For the first time, A.J. spoke out about his relationship with Josh.
“I love my brother more than anything. Best big brother you could ever ask for,” he said before touching on his brother’s mental health battle.
Josh was one of the key focal points in A.J.’s trial, prosecutors spent nearly an entire day going through his medical records and speaking with witnesses about his mental state.
A.J. said when his brother returned from college he was “different,” and not himself. He said Josh’s issues had gotten “really bad” up until about two years ago.
“He was not the guy that I grew up with, not the guy that I knew, that I know today. That wasn’t Josh. So for me, it wasn’t looking at him, the person. It was looking at that disease, what he was doing, things that he said, the things that he did at that time. It was scary. So, to take the leap to say, okay, maybe when he was really going through it and the things that were going on with my parents, it could have been. It could have been Josh. But, you know, I know my brother and I separate the two,” A.J. said.
As for now, he says Josh is doing great and is back to his old self.
A.J. also talked about receiving support from his wife and family throughout this entire process, even becoming teary-eyed when discussing his younger sister, Kayra, and everything she has been through.
When he’s not talking to family, A.J. said he’s adjusting to his new life. He shared that for the first time since being incarcerated, he’s no longer in confinement for 23 hours a day, and now has a cellmate.
He also talked about his prison job, saying he works Thursday - Sunday.
“I work in the kitchen, so I’m just busy,” A.J. said. “You have to work four days and you’re off three. But you know, I just keep myself busy. I do like to. I feel like I spend a lot of time, you know, keeping up to date on my sports because that’s my, that’s my love right there. But, you know, outside of that, just keeping my mind occupied, you know, because it’s a process.”
Adjusting to prison life has been no easy task, according to A.J., who shared that his faith and optimism about his future are what’s keeping him afloat.
He says his story isn’t over, and he’s currently appealing the conviction.
“I can’t tell you the time. I can tell you the date. But I want to walk out of here, and I believe I’ll be acquitted. I believe that this thing is going to work itself out. I have no choice but to keep my faith in God,” he said.
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