AJ Armstrong: Parent Killer or Wrongfully Convicted?

Who were the Armstrongs?

Antonio Armstrong Sr. grew up in Houston, Texas, one of five children. His family was active in their church, which instilled a strong sense of faith in Antonio from a young age. Antonio also fell in love with football as a child. He attended college at Texas A&M, where he played football, until he was drafted in round 6 of the 1995 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers. After an injury, Antonio was released from the 49ers, but quickly signed with the Miami Dolphins. Antonio also played with the St. Louis Rams before joining the Canadian Football League.

Along the way, Antonio met Dawn Whitely at church. The two fell in love, got married, and Antonio adopted Dawn’s young son, Josh. In March of 1999, Dawn gave birth to a baby boy named Antonio Jr., who became affectionately known as AJ. The family moved from Canada back to Antonio’s hometown in Houston, where Dawn gave birth to their first and only daughter, Kayra.

The family lived in Bellaire, a town right outside of Houston, and opened a gym called First Class Gym. Antonio did personal training, as well as worked as a motivational speaker and an associate pastor at his mother’s church. Following closely in their father’s footsteps, both Josh and AJ played football, while Antonio coached their teams. AJ even wanted to play in the NFL like his dad one day. He was a talented athlete, also playing basketball and running track. 

All three children went to a nearby private school named Kinkaid. Josh, AJ, and Kayra were described as happy, sweet, and well-adjusted children. Family and friends said that Dawn and Antonio were wonderful parents who did everything they could for their kids. A local media outlet later described the Armstrongs as “the All-American family”. In 2016 though, the family dynamic seemed to shift, with everything culminating on a warm July night in their home on Palmetto Drive. 

The Night of the Murders

At 1:40 AM on Friday, July 29th, 2016, the Houston Police Department received a 911 call. 16-year-old AJ Armstrong calmly told the dispatcher that he’d just heard two gunshots in his parents’ room. AJ said that he was hiding in the closet of his third floor bedroom. The dispatcher continued asking AJ questions about what was going on and he asked them to hurry. He told her that he needed to get to his 12-year-old sister whose bedroom was on the second floor. 

The 911 dispatcher asked if there were any guns in the home and AJ told her that his father had a gun that he believed was kept in the nightstand or under the bed in his parents’ room. 

Officers arrived on scene where AJ disarmed the house’s alarm and let them in. First responders rushed into the house and up to the second floor master bedroom. Inside they found 42-year-old Dawn and 42-year-old Antonio both lying in bed, suffering from gunshot wounds to the head. Pillows had been placed over both of their heads. Dawn, who had two wounds, was dead. Antonio was still clinging to life. Paramedics quickly loaded him into the ambulance and rushed him to the hospital.

AJ and his younger sister Kayra were both unharmed. Officers began to look around the Armstrong household to see if there was anything that might indicate who’d attacked the family. A handwritten note was found on the downstairs kitchen counter that read, “I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU FOR A LONG TIME. COME GET ME.” Beside the note was the .22 caliber pistol used to shoot Antonio and Dawn.

There was no sign of forced entry and officers found it strange that AJ had to disarm the alarm to let them in. Officers separated AJ and Kayra and bagged their hands to be tested for gunshot residue. 

AJ called his older brother Josh, who lived in a nearby apartment. Josh’s girlfriend later told police that he’d grabbed his shotgun and ran out of the home when he found out that his parents had been shot. When he arrived at the family home, officers wouldn’t allow him in the home or give him any information. Doctors at the nearby hospital were working tirelessly to save Antonio, but his injuries were too severe. Antonio died. Detectives were now investigating a double homicide.

The Investigation

It didn’t take Houston detectives long to start zeroing in on a suspect. There were no signs of forced entry into the home and some things at the scene just didn’t add up. AJ was brought to the Houston Police Department to be questioned. 

At 7:47AM that morning, just a few hours after AJ had called 911, he was brought to the police department for an interview. AJ told officers that his relationship with his parents was good, that he was really close with his dad. He said that all three of the children had their “little issues” with their mom, but they weren’t anything serious. AJ said that he, Josh, and his father were a really tight-knit group and were able to talk to each other about anything.

The two detectives asked AJ what happened the day prior, leading up to him calling 911. AJ said that he’d woken up around 10AM, but stayed in his room watching Netflix and that his parents were in and out of the home throughout the day. Antonio had hurt his knee, so he’d been working from home most of the time. Dawn came home from the gym that the family owned around 5PM. AJ said that his parents got dressed and went out with one of his father’s friends, getting home around 8PM.

AJ then reported that he went to pick up his younger sister from their grandmother’s house, and that they arrived back at the Armstrong household between 9 and 10PM. Kayra went straight to bed. AJ said that his parents were laying in their bed and he went up to his loft room on the third floor to watch Netflix. Still awake around 1AM, AJ told detectives that he’d turned off his television and walked to the bathroom, preparing to go to sleep. 

As he left his bathroom, he said that he’d heard a door open. He believed that it was one of his parents getting up to go get a snack or drink. AJ said that he hadn’t been feeling well lately, so he decided to walk downstairs and ask whichever parents that was for some medicine. As he descended the steps, AJ heard gunshots. He immediately turned around and ran back upstairs, into his bedroom, and into his closet, shutting the door behind him. This is when he made his 911 call.

AJ told detectives that he didn’t understand how “they” got out of the house without setting off the home alarm. He suggested that they might have used a window to escape as that wouldn’t have activated the alarm. As he continued explaining what he’d heard and seen, AJ mentioned that he saw someone running out of his parents room before he ran up and into his closet. 

The detectives stopped him to make sure they clarified…AJ had actually seen an intruder? AJ said that yes, he’d seen him running. He described him as about 6 feet tall, definitely being a male because they didn’t have long hair, likely a black male, but wearing a black face mask that only showed his eyes and mouth.

This claim immediately struck the detectives as very odd considering AJ hadn’t mentioned ANYTHING about an intruder in his 911 call. Detective Dodson, one of the men interviewing AJ, later said, “We knew that he never mentioned the masked intruder in the 911 call. If you actually saw that, that’s the first thing you would say when you call 911. ‘There’s a guy in my house, there’s a murderer in my house! I hear gunshots!’ That’s not what he says.”

The interview continued and AJ told them that he wasn’t 100% sure, but believed that he heard 2-3 gunshots. Detectives asked AJ if there were any guns in the home, and he said that his father had one that he kept somewhere in his room, either in the closet or nightstand. He added that his parents’ room was off limits to the kids, so he only saw the gun when his father brought it out. AJ said that the only time he’d ever used the gun was when he was 8 years old when he and his father went to a gun range. He also mentioned that his parents typically slept with their bedroom doors locked.

It wasn’t very far into the interview when detectives began to let AJ know that they weren’t buying his story. One detective said, “There are some issues, and I’d be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that there were some issues and we…gotta go over them and get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

Detectives advised AJ that they’d swabbed both him and his sister’s hands for gunshot residue, so if either he or she had fired a gun that night, they’d know. They told him that if something different happened that night, now was the time to tell them. Detectives also told AJ that his mother was dead, but that his father was still in the hospital, fighting for his life. 

AJ wouldn’t budge. He said multiple times to the detectives that he was telling them the truth, that nothing else had happened. The detectives told AJ that one of the officers on scene had found something strange: a bullet hole in the ceiling of the study, which was on the second floor. The bullet had come through the ceiling from the third floor loft, which was AJ’s bedroom. On the floor of the study, they found the discharged round and dust from the sheet rock.

AJ sounded surprised when detectives told him this. Confronted with obvious evidence contradicting one of his former statements, AJ admitted that he actually HAD recently fired his father’s pistol. AJ said that a week or so ago, he and one of his friends were playing around and AJ asked him if he’d ever fired a gun before. He told his friend that he’d show him how to. AJ then described how he went and checked the places that he believed his father’s gun might be, found it, and brought it up to his bedroom. He placed a pillow and blankets on the gun, then fired the bullet through them. 

Detectives pointed out how strange it was that Dawn and Antonio hadn’t seen the bullet or the hole in a room that they were frequently in, IF the bullet was fired several days ago. AJ reiterated that he hadn’t fired a gun that night, and that he didn’t know how his parents hadn’t seen it before. 

Detectives brought up the next inconsistency in AJ’s story. Why would an intruder have taken the time to place the murder weapon on the kitchen counter and write a note? If the intruder was trying to quickly escape after firing the gun, why would he do those things before apparently escaping out of a window? There was no evidence to show that anyone had disturbed any of the windows, blinds, or curtains. AJ said that he just assumed they’d escaped from a window because there was no other option.

They pointed out how strange it would be for an intruder to enter a home unarmed, search through the house and find a hidden gun to use. Most intruders who had to find a weapon on the fly would grab a knife. Why would an intruder enter the bedroom of two sleeping adults, one of whom was an ex-NFL player, and snoop around until he found a gun?

Detectives again told AJ that now was the time to tell them the truth, that they’d be able to run a handwriting analysis on the note and compare it to his handwriting. They even told him that they were hopeful that Antonio would pull through so he could tell them what happened, but AJ’s story didn’t change. He denied having anything to do with the attack.

Detectives were becoming more and more direct, telling AJ that even his 911 call was suspicious. About seven minutes into the call, AJ said to the dispatcher, “This is all my fault”. AJ was quick to defend himself, saying that he said that because he’d seen the intruder running away and that he didn’t do anything about it. He had no idea who’d want his parents dead or who’d want to hurt them. 

It seemed clear that AJ wasn’t changing his story and detectives were frustrated. One said, “No one else got in that house tonight…did Casper come in and do it? Is there a trap door somewhere?”

There were only two options: someone inside the home, either Kayra or AJ, shot their parents, or one of them let someone in the house, then let them out. 

They confronted AJ about a dark spot on the carpet that appeared to have been burnt. AJ said that he’d been playing with matches and walked away, but that the carpet had caught on fire. His father had found it and been angry with him, but AJ said that they talked about it and were okay. One of the detectives asked AJ if he’d poured anything on the floor to light it on fire, but AJ said he hadn’t. A detective on scene told them that the area smelled like accelerant and that they’d found an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol in AJ’s room. He said he’d taken it from his father’s room because he’d needed it.

AJ then said something strange: “I’m not saying that my dad put a hit out on my mom and the dude like went bad and shot my dad, I’m not saying anything like that.”

Detectives referred back to when AJ told him that he’d shot his father’s gun through pillows and into the floor. AJ said he’d seen it in movies and “thought it like, stopped bullets”. 

The detective brought up a strange coincidence…”kinda weird man, both your parents had pillows over their heads before they were shot.”

Again, AJ immediately had an explanation. He said that his dad always slept with a pillow over his eyes and that his mother slept with a pillow folded over her head. Detectives said that the pillow hadn’t been folded. “You see how convenient that is? Every time I present you with something, you’re trying to explain it away.”

The final thing that detectives brought up during the initial interview was something they’d heard from a family friend. They told AJ that they’d heard he’d been caught with drugs recently and his parents had been upset. AJ said that it had been a while ago, like three months. AJ seemed to brush it off. He finally told the detectives that they might as well just end the interview now because he didn’t have anything different to say. Shortly after, AJ was charged with the capital murder of both his mother and father.

As investigators continued to look into the Armstrongs, they found that there’d been problems in the family for a few months. AJ had failed out of his private school. His mother accused him of drinking, lying, and smoking marijuana. Dawn and Antonio had even taken AJ’s car away from him and gave it to his older brother because of AJ’s behavior.

The fire that he told detectives about in his interview happened differently from AJ’s account. AJ had reportedly put gasoline in a bottle of rubbing alcohol and set a fire in the stairwell just outside of his parents’ bedroom. His father put the fire out and Dawn texted a photo of the carpet to her oldest son, Josh. This happened just two days before the murders.

The Trials

On April 2nd, 2019, AJ was tried as an adult for the murder of both of his parents. He pleaded not-guilty. Less than a month later, a mistrial was declared due to a hung jury.

A second trial in October of 2022 was AGAIN declared a mistrial after the jury deliberated for 18 hours and STILL could not decide on an unanimous verdict. The defense team said that eight jurors believed AJ was innocent and four believed he was guilty. The first trial was the opposite. 

In the summer of 2023, now in his early 20’s, AJ stood trial a third time for the murder of his parents. His defense team did their best to provide another suspect to the jury: AJ’s older brother, Josh. Now, seven years following the murders, Josh had developed PTSD and struggled with his mental health. Though there were no medical records indicating any mental health problems prior to his parents’ death, the defense brought witnesses to the stand to testify that Josh showed signs of paranoia and schizophrenia in the weeks leading up to the murders.

Both Kayra and Josh’s grandmother described him as “different” when Josh moved back to the area after college a few weeks earlier. They said that he “neglected basic hygiene” and would often be found staring into space or spending hours in the bathroom talking to himself. His parents had even kicked him out of their house after they found out he’d thrown a party there while they were out of town. Following his parents’ murder, Josh had a stay at a psychiatric hospital. Despite this, it was initially reported by the detectives during AJ’s first interview that they’d confirmed that Josh was at his own apartment that night after speaking with his girlfriend.

When Kayra testified, she described her oldest brother Josh as being odd. “He was there, but he wasn’t there. He was distant. He acted like he was the black sheep of the family. He acted like our parents loved us more because we were biologically related to both of them.”

Kayra said that AJ’s relationship with their parents seemed normal. She also said that the alarm system in their house didn’t seem to work properly. “Sometimes the alarm would set when a door is still open. Or sometimes it would go off unexpectedly. It was really finicky.”

The prosecution had a lot that they felt clearly pointed to AJ being behind the murders. They explained how AJ admitted to firing the murder weapon through his bedroom floor, and how this wasn’t uncommon for people to do prior to a murder or suicide, especially if they were unfamiliar with guns. 

Attorneys brought up the inconsistencies in AJ’s interview and 911 call, as well as the fire he’d set outside of his parents’ bedroom. It was found that AJ had searched ‘how to make a car bomb’ on his iPad. Prosecutors emphasized how AJ had no emotion when he was told that his mother was dead, and that he’d never even asked about her condition. Based on the layout of the house, AJ would have had to have walked by his parents’ bedroom to get his sister out of hers. He continued to ask the dispatcher if he could go get his sister, but never asked about check on his parents. 

Cell phone records showed that AJ’s phone was being used just before the murders, at 1:09AM, and that his cell phone and motion sensors in the house showed him moving around the home between 1:09AM and 1:40AM, when he finally called 911. Finally, they said that the alarm showed that no one entered or exited the home that night, though the defense claimed that the alarm had a history of being faulty.

Arguing against the defense’s accusation against Josh, the prosecution presented text messages between Josh and his mother, which showed that they had a very close relationship. Dawn often confided in him about the struggles she was facing with AJ. Josh was supportive and tried to comfort his mother often. Josh’s longtime girlfriend was also brought onto the stand and testified that she never saw any signs of mental illness in Josh until after his parents’ murders. 

A new piece of evidence in the third trial was blood evidence that was reportedly discovered just before the trial began. In the box of evidence collected from AJ after the murders, there was a sticky name tag badge that had been placed on AJ’s shirt when he went to the police department to be interviewed. Two spots of blood were found on the sticky part of the name tag. The blood belonged to Antonio. 

A lawsuit was later filed against the Houston Police Department by AJ’s defense attorney alleging that the police department had planted the evidence, particularly because the officers had testified in court that they hadn’t seen any blood on AJ that night. The defense later said that they were prepared to go ahead without the blood evidence, but when it was found just before trial, they felt it was their duty to test it. 

After 10.5 hours of deliberation, 11 days of trial, and hearing from more than 30 witnesses, the jury finally returned with a unanimous verdict. Guilty. AJ was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 40 years. Because of his age at the time of the murders, he received this sentence rather than the death penalty. 

Prosecutors later said that they believe Dawn was the intended target of the murder. One said, “His animosity for his mother was so evident her realization of who he was, was evident. In his statement, he said something that’s odd. He says I’m not saying that my dad put a hit out on my mom and something went wrong. That show an intimate knowledge of that crime scene because that’s exactly what it looked like. There’s a real possibility when he entered that room, he was planning on killing one person, but by the time he left that room, he’d killed two.”

Many of AJ’s family members believe he’s innocent, with his paternal grandmother being the most vocal about it. She said that she has absolutely no doubt that AJ is innocent. AJ is currently in prison at the George Beto Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas. He will be eligible for parole in August of 2063 at the age of 63. His attorney has filed an appeal and a motion for a fourth trial.