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Dark Side of the Mesa - CBS' Michael Blagg Story
June 14, 2004
(CBS) In the high desert, on the Rockies western slope, the
Mesas tower over the town of Grand Junction, Colo.,
protected from the outside world.
But on June 4, 2002, Grand Junction saw the unearthing of a
shocking secret -at the local landfill.
The decomposed body of 34-year-old Jennifer Blagg was found
wrapped in a red and black plastic tent.
Jennifer and her 6-year-old daughter, Abby, had been
missing for seven months. Correspondent Susan Spencer
reports on this 48 Hours Mystery that first aired last
October.
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What happened inside the walls of the Blagg family house
still haunts the town of Grand Junction. The Blaggs –
Michael, Jennifer and Abby – seemed so happy together.
"Two years ago, I had everything," says Michael Blagg,
Jennifer's husband. "I had a great job, wonderful family,
incredible wife and daughter. Everything was going perfect
for me."
"They're kind of a poster-child sort of a family," recalls
Rev. Art Blankenship, who got to know the Blaggs in 2000
through their small, evangelical church. "They just looked
like an ideal couple. They were friendly, open, and people
seemed to like them a lot."
Both Michael and Jennifer were enthusiastic born-again
Christians, and organized personal prayer groups for the
congregation. The couple met 10 years ago in California,
when he was in the Navy and she was in college. He was a
decorated Gulf War veteran, a helicopter pilot.
Jennifer stayed close to her mother, Marilyn, even after
she married Michael in 1993. "I liked Michael from the
beginning," recalls Marilyn Conway. "He was a very
personable young man. They seemed happy. I thought they
were happy."
Michael's mother, Betsy Blagg, also agreed that the two
were a fairy-tale couple: "In every letter, she'd
[Jennifer] tell me how much she loved Michael. Everything
was marvelous. They couldn't be more happy, and he was
absolutely in love with her."
Their daughter, Abby, was born three years after the Blaggs
married – and Michael and Jennifer seemed to dote on her.
When Michael went out the door at 6 a.m. that one November
morning, the day his family vanished, he says his wife and
daughter were still asleep. He headed off to his job as an
operations manager at the Ametek Dixson Company, a local
manufacturing plant. He says he called around 7 a.m.,
called again mid-morning, and then again at noon. No one
answered.
"Now I'm getting a little worried. I haven't heard from
her. She hasn't called me back on any of these calls," says
Michael, who called her again that afternoon.
Michael says he left for home around 4 p.m. He later told
the police that he sensed something was wrong the second he
walked in and saw the back door open. But he says nothing
prepared him for the horror of what he saw in the bedroom.
"I could see there was a large dark spot on the bed,"
recalls Michael. "I think maybe she's rolled off the bed
and is on the ground on the other side, so I go to the
other side of the bed and there's more blood on the floor,
and running down the side of the bed. And so at this point,
I know I have to call for help."
The 911 dispatcher told Michael to check the garage. The
couple's minivan was still there, but it wasn't until the
dispatcher asked about his daughter when Michael finally
checked Abby's room, and discovered she was gone.
The story of a bloody bed, and a missing mother and child,
rocked the town of Grand Junction.
Jennifer Blagg's older brother, David Loman, has no idea
how many hours he's spent combing the Mesas around Grand
Junction, searching for his 6-year-old niece, Abby. He says
it's the least he can do for his little sister: "We were
best friends."
Sheriff's Investigator Steve King was tried to make sense
of a bloody and bewildering crime scene. The bodies of
Jennifer and Abby were missing, and there was no sign of a
struggle.
Jennifer's purse was on the dresser, the contents,
including her keys to the van, spilled out. An email from
Michael, an apparent apology, was also found in the purse:
"I would love to take some time to talk through the
problems we are having. … Do not give the devil a
foothold."
Jennifer's empty jewelry box was also found on the carpet,
near the blood-soaked bed. "You're struck by the fact that
there was all sorts of other things there that someone that
is in there purely for monetary gain would have taken with
them," says King. "So I'm saying, 'You know, this crime
scene doesn't look right. It looks like it was staged.'"
"I had no idea what had happened," which is exactly what
Michael repeatedly told officers that night in an intense
interview. "I just knew that it was bad …whatever it was,
it was bad."
He didn't have a lawyer present. "But I saw a lot of
blood," says Michael. "A lot of blood."
Michael admitted in measured tones that there were some
rocky times, but his marriage to Jennifer was solid. King,
however, found Michael's calm and collected manner
strangely unsettling. "I said to him, 'If my wife and kid
were missing, I would probably be at St. Mary's Hospital
being medicated at this point because it's so stressful.'"
Over the next few days, the community reached out to
Michael. And Jennifer's mother was right by her
son-in-law's side. Michael's appeals to find his wife and
young daughter were heartbreaking, but investigators were
beginning to have their doubts.
For one thing, the blood evidence was puzzling. DNA tests
confirmed that Jennifer's blood was found on the bed, but
strangely, nowhere else in the house. Even more striking
was the one other place where her blood was found: the
family van, parked in the garage.
King began to meet with Michael on an informal basis. "He
needed information about the case and I needed information
about him and his life and his family," says King, who also
began exploring Michael's claims of having a fairy-tale
marriage.
In late November, Michael privately admitted to King that
he was addicted to hardcore pornography, and that, when
Jennifer found out, she became very upset. But then,
Michael says, Jennifer decided to join him online.
"She told me, 'I don't want you to be doing this, but if
you are going to be doing this, then we should be together
with this,'" says Michael.
He says they used hardcore porn sites purely as an
"educational" tool. "She knew that we were going to have to
find other ways of satisfying each other," says Michael.
"We were looking at it more as experimenting, looking for
alternate things we could do."
Three months after Jennifer and Abby disappeared,
investigators brought Michael back for questioning – again
with no lawyer present. Michael says they interrogated him
for more than 10 hours.
By then, the FBI was involved in this case, and Michael's
interview, unlike the first one, was not taped.
"They were telling me, 'We know you did it. You're the
one,'" says Michael. "There were the people that I was
trusting to find my wife and daughter, and to bring them
home to me. [They were] putting their finger in my chest
and saying, 'You're the one. I know you killed them. Just
tell us.'"
The next morning, police found Michael lying in a tub,
filled with water. Michael, who tried to slit his wrists,
had a picture of Jennifer and Abby, and a Bible.
Investigators also found a suicide note in which Michael
insisted he was not a murderer. But for some, Michael's
suicide attempt was a clear sign of a guilty conscience.
Now, even Michael's mother-in-law, Marilyn Conway, was
beginning to have questions. She agreed to help
investigators by leaving Michael a series of phone
messages. Michael never responded, but King is sure he was
capable of murdering his wife and daughter.
Five months after Jennifer and Abby disappeared, volunteer
searchers fanned out over the highlands and rivers around
Grand Junction.
King says that over a period of 11 days, 200 volunteers
searched 45 miles around the Blagg residence – but Michael
wasn't among the volunteers who looked for his family.
He says that officers told him not to go on the search:
"They said as a potential suspect, they just thought that
it would be bad for me to be out there. And so, I was
barred from being able to search for my daughter and wife."
By the spring of 2002, no bodies had been found, but
Michael was now a suspect. And King had a working theory:
"He shoots his wife. My belief is that he went upstairs and
suffocated his daughter, got the tent out of the garage,
put Jennifer in that tent, put them both in the van and
went to Ametek Dixson, and put both of them in the trash
receptacle there."
But if Michael had put Jennifer's body in his company's
dumpster, then her remains should have ended up in the
county landfill. Using global positioning technology and
landfill logs, a grid system was set up, zeroing in on
quadrants where investigators believed they'd find trash
from Michael's company.
Finally, after 16 days of searching, they found Jennifer's
body. Authorities wasted no time, and arrested Michael two
days later, at his mother's home in Georgia.
Michael's sister, Claire Rochester, arrived in Grand
Junction just as the final jury members are being chosen.
She wonders if a fair trial is possible for her brother.
"The people in this town need to understand that all of
this time and this money and this energy that the police
and the D.A. have devoted towards accusing my brother has
been wasted," says Rochester. "I think it should frighten
the public that there is somebody out there that committed
this crime."
But David Eisner, Michael's lead attorney, says the cops
never considered that: "They chose Michael Blagg as their
No. 1 suspect, and they latched onto him and never let him
go."
Eisner said this resulted in untrue allegations that
undermined Michael's character in the community. Among
these allegations was one that Michael was looking at
hardcore Internet pornography the night before he reported
Jennifer missing. Another allegation, which was widely
reported in the local media, claimed that Michael had
visited an escort service for sex. There were also leaks of
Jennifer seeking advice on divorce from the local legal aid
office.
"It's a question of putting together all the pieces," says
District Attorney Frank Daniels, who will prosecute the
case.
Michael is free on bail until trial. He starts each morning
with church, and then goes to his lawyers' office to help
prepare his own case.
Otherwise, the Blagg family rarely goes out. There are too
many stares, and they have few friends in this town. "He
did not kill his wife," says Rochester. "He did not do
anything to harm or take his daughter. It did not happen."
The murder trial of Michael Blagg begins, and the families
of Michael and Jennifer, once very close, now find
themselves on opposite sides of the courtroom.
The prosecution lays out its case and argues that the fatal
weekend began with a fight on Friday – a fight that
Jennifer noted in one of her religious books.
The weekend ended, says District Attorney Frank Daniels,
with Jennifer's murder late Monday night: "That night, as
Jennifer lay in bed, Michael got his gun, he loaded a round
into the chamber and he shot Jennifer in the face."
Daniels suggests that Michael murdered his wife because his
addiction to Internet pornography had destroyed his
once-solid marriage. He then shows the jury the apology
email from Michael that said: "I'm sorry if I've given the
devil a foothold."
Daniels argued that the devil was lurking in Michael's
computer – which included nearly 700 pornographic images.
The prosecution, however, insisted that Michael was a
murderer, and that he transported Jennifer's body in the
family van after he shot and killed his wife.
The defense has trouble explaining what happened that night
– and how blood was found in the family van. "If it weren't
a challenge, we wouldn't be here," says Eisner, who
maintains that finding Jennifer's blood in the van proves
nothing.
Family friends take the stand to praise Michael's marriage
and his character. But the defense has difficult time
dealing with Michael's first taped interview, where he
seemed detached.
"There is no emotion, no passion, no 'Where is my wife and
daughter,'" says Jennifer's brother, David Loman. "It's not
there. It doesn't exist."
More damaging to Michael's case than his demeanor, however,
is surprise testimony from his mother-in-law, Marilyn
Conway. Her testimony would shock the defense.
"Michael hurt her in Corpus. He hurt her in Corpus, yes, he
did," said Marilyn on the stand. "She called home one night
and said that Mike had cornered her in the bedroom and was
obviously drunk. I understood that he was trying to choke
her."
Marilyn says it happened 10 years ago, and it was an
incident that was forgotten until now. "I wasn't even aware
it was gonna come out of my mouth," she says. "It just came
out."
But Eisner says she got on the stand and lied: "I think she
saw the D.A.'s case faltering and having serious problems.
And I think she felt she would do whatever she could to
help that case out. … She made it up."
With his murder trial coming to its close, Michael is
sticking to what's become a morning ritual -- a friendly
nod and smile for the jurors, day after day.
"While they hold incredible power, they're interested in
seeing me as a person, too," says Michael. "And I think
it's important to make the eye contact when possible."
His sister, Clare, waits and worries. "My family is not
prepared for a guilty verdict," she says. "We're looking
forward to this being over. And at the same time, it's very
frightening because 'over' may not be the outcome that we
know should happen."
Since Michael won't be speaking for himself, Eisner uses
Jennifer's words from a letter found in Michael's desk just
days after her disappearance, to show that Michael would
never have harmed her.
Eisner then tries to convince the jury that Michael loved
Jennifer: "Is he a cold-blooded murderer, or a loving
family man and husband? You decide."
The prosecution tries to bring the jury back: "Your job is
to bring justice," says Daniels. "The evidence is
overwhelming."
The verdict comes in just over 24 hours: Guilty.
"I am innocent of these charges and I have nothing further
to say," says Michael, who is sentenced to serve a life
sentence.
Unless he wins an appeal, Michael Blagg will spend his life
behind bars, without the possibility of parole.
"He's a narcissistic pig as far as I'm concerned, and
deserves the sentence he got," says Daniels. "I guess the
jury just didn't have the courage they needed," says
Eisner.
But the jury's verdict doesn't answer the looming question:
Why would a man who seemed to have it all commit such a
heinous crime against a loving wife and daughter?
"Everybody would have to draw their own conclusion," says
Jennifer's mother, Marilyn. "I believe Jennifer was going
to leave him."
"The bottom line is that Michael Blagg's gonna have a long,
hard life. And then he's gonna have to face God," says
King. "And Jennifer and Abby will be sitting on God's lap
that day and that's when justice will be served."
Faith also comforts Jennifer's brother, David Loman, who is
keeping up the search for his niece, Abby.
"It's the idea of putting mother and daughter together
again," he says. "Anybody who's been married understands
anger – not that kind of anger. But a child, whether it be
your child or someone else's child, it doesn't matter. It's
a child."
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