JEFFERSON COUNTY - By that point, the interview turned interrogation with Michael Blagg on Feb. 5, 2002 had lasted nearly 10 hours and delved into everything from his past as a helicopter pilot for the Navy to marital problems stemming in part from what he called a porn “addiction.”
In the final minutes, the then-38-year-old put his head on Mesa County Sgt. Wayne Weyler’s shoulders and started crying. Weyler, who had been handling the investigation into the disappearance of his wife and daughter, asked Michael Blagg to tell the truth.
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“I can’t,” Blagg repeatedly said, according to court testimony. He also told investigators he didn’t know where their bodies were, and that “I’m afraid I’m going to say I killed my wife and daughter when I know I didn’t hurt my wife and daughter.”
The next day, Michael Blagg was found in the bathtub of his apartment. He had slit his wrists. In a suicide note, he denied having anything to do what happened to Abby, his 6-year-old daughter, and Jennifer, his wife of 10 years.
Bill Irwin worked at the FBI at the time, and he had been brought to Grand Junction from Denver specifically to try and get Michael Blagg to tell him where the bodies of Jennifer and Abby Blagg were.
He took the witness stand in the Jefferson County courthouse just before the morning break on Thursday — what would be the last day of the third week of Michael Blagg’s second trial for the murder of Jennifer Blagg.
BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE | After juror caught lying, man convicted in wife's 2001 murder will stand trial again
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The now-55-year-old was found guilty of killing his wife by a Mesa County jury in 2004. That conviction was later thrown out after a juror was caught lying on her questionnaire about being the victim of domestic violence. More than a decade into what was supposed to be a life sentence, Michael Blagg is facing a jury once again — this time in Jefferson County, where the case was moved due to its notoriety on the Western Slope.
Before he interrogated Michael Blagg, Irwin was given the facts of the case: at 4:21 p.m. on Nov. 13, 2001, Blagg called 911 and said he came home to find the backdoor ajar, items strewn on the floor of his bedroom and a large splatter of blood on his wife’s side of the bed.
Jennifer Blagg was gone, and there was no trace of Abby either.
His coworkers at Ametek Dixson say the day he reported his family missing, Michael Blagg — a manager — was spotted picking up people’s trash and throwing it into the dumpster. Over the ensuing months, he was caught stealing furniture and a paper shredder from his workplace.
As of Feb. 5, 2002 — the day Irwin interrogated Michael Blagg at the Mesa County County Sheriff’s Office — neither Jennifer nor Abby Blagg’s bodies had been found.
Irwin says the interview started at around 8 a.m. Initially, it was just him, but Weyler and two others from the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office would join him later in the day.
The interrogation continued until after 6 p.m., Irwin said.
The first couple hours were spent during what was essentially an information gathering stage. Irwin asked Michael Blagg about landing helicopters on landing carriers on aircraft carriers for the Navy, as well as his education. This, Irwin said, is part of an effort to determine the person he’s working with is “with it.”
“Mr. Blagg is a very competent individual,” Irwin said on the witness stand.
The conversation would later shift into an actual interrogation. Irwin likened the evidence in the case to a “puzzle” that was beginning to piece together and implicate Michael Blagg.
He says he asked Blagg about a fight he and Jennifer had the weekend before she disappeared. Initially, Irwin says the fight was about a potential job in Longmont. He later admitted it was about his “internet pornography problem.”
Irwin says Blagg admitted that his wife confronted him about the porn. Michael Blagg said the porn was actually him “investigating” and doing “research” — but later admitted that Jennifer didn’t like it, and his use of sexually explicit images was “akin to an addiction.”
Michael Blagg told Irwin that Jennifer likened his porn use to him “cheating on her” and admitted to having a Powerpoint of pornographic images at home.
The next part of the interrogation was a so-called “confrontation,” Irwin said, and an effort to get Michael Blagg to confess by mitigating some of the blame onto her. Irwin said Blagg, who was very religious, repeatedly brought God into the conversation.
“I asked him how honest he was on a scale of one to 10,” Irwin said. “He brought Jesus into this, and said if you’re going to compare me to Jesus, it’s a four.”
But when it came to the general population, he said was about seven or eight, according to Irwin.
Another point of discussion was marital counseling Michael and Jennifer Blagg had in South Carolina, as well as a discussion about separating when they lived in Arizona.
Tina Fang, one of Michael Blagg’s public defenders, was quick to point out the confrontational nature of the 10-and-a-half hour interrogation, and points where Michael Blagg vehemently denied having anything to do with his wife and daughter’s disappearance.
During a five-hour-long interview the day he reported Jennifer and Abby Blagg missing, Michael Blagg said he had some training from the Navy what he should do should he be interrogated.
Fang also brought up how some of the evidence Irwin received from the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office that turned out to be false, including records that later proved to be untrue indicating Michael Blagg was looking at porn the night before his wife and daughter disappeared.
During redirect examination, Mesa County Deputy District Attorney Trish Mahre brought up another thing Irwin says Blagg said during the interrogation when he was asked once again to tell the truth.
“There is no way on Earth to get away from God,” Michael Blagg reportedly said.
On June 4, 2002, Jennifer Blagg’s body was found on the Mesa County landfill after investigators spent 17 days combing through months-old trash and followed a vein of what the prosecution claims was waste from Ametek Dixson.
Abby Blagg has not been found to this day.
Testimony in the Michael Blagg trial will resume on Monday morning. The jury and attorneys were given Thursday afternoon and Friday off due to the length of the trial, which is expected to continue for a few more weeks.