Tony Lombardi

[LooksLikeCRicci]

I’m here. Days late, I apologize.

Let’s avoid the stereotyping of people, yeah? Making gross generalizations of folks isn’t going to get us anywhere in our discussions...

[mercy1825]

Thanks. I am sorry if my post made it seem like you were remiss in your duties. I just find that stereotyping of "if he was Italian violence is 100 percent inevitable" as the most absurd, ridiculous stereotype I've ever heard.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by mercy1825

Thanks. I am sorry if my post made it seem like you were remiss in your duties. I just find that stereotyping of "if he was Italian violence is 100 percent inevitable" as the most absurd, ridiculous stereotype I've ever heard.

Absolutely agreed and it won’t be tolerated here. Sorry I originally missed it.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by mercy1825

Thanks. I am sorry if my post made it seem like you were remiss in your duties. I just find that stereotyping of "if he was Italian violence is 100 percent inevitable" as the most absurd, ridiculous stereotype I've ever heard.

Have you ever played Super Mario Bros.?

[mercy1825]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Have you ever played Super Mario Bros.?

Lmfao

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Have you ever played Super Mario Bros.?

Well played, friend.

[Latka Gravas]

This TL case appears to be suicide, unfortunately. It's very far-fetched that anyone would break into the house (where he lived with his parents) and kill him - without there being at least some evidence that someone actually did so. And, based on the UM segment - there was never any clear/obvious evidence of a break-in, nor did anyone see anything outside the house at the time (though that admittedly doesn't mean much, due to the lateness of the hour).

It does sound like TL received at least two death threats (one by another driver he had allegedly cut off in traffic, and another a guy who left a voice-message warning TL to stay away from his gf). However, even if they did occur IRL as they were dramatized on the UM segment, that doesn't mean any of these people broke into his house & killed him.

In essence, it does sound like TL had a lot of stressful incidents going on prior to his death. I.e., his driver's license was either going to be taken away from him (or had been taken away), people were threatening him, etc. It's possible that the combination of all of these issues was too much for him.

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

One thing that stood out to me in this case is that he had a citation for a DUI? I know that was a long time ago. That seemed to be just a minor talking point, but something that detectives used to establish a suicide motive. To me the threats made against him seem like a serious thing to investigate. Did the detectives ever talk to that individual?

[LooksLikeCRicci]

I'm not sure.

I'll say this, though. I used to think Tony was murdered.

However, a police report recently came across my desk that I may have talked about here before-- in it, an 18 year old kid with no mental health history got into an argument with his girlfriend. Their voices were raised to the point that police were called by folks standing near the argument. As the police were trying to simply make contact with both individuals to assess what had happened, the male fled the scene in a pickup truck, jumped out of the truck, ran up a hill, and then pulled out a weapon that he had apparently been in the vehicle. He literally shoots himself in the temple in front of the officers, all while they were pleading with him to just put the gun down and that he wasn't in trouble. This kid was merely going to be questioned, and he killed himself.

So yeah. After reading that report and several others like it, I have no problem believing that Tony committed suicide.

[WishfulDreamer]

I find it really hard to believe that this mysterious killer would kill Tony (with a gun from inside the home), leave the weapon, and wait around until he was sure Tony's mom went to bed. Sadly, I think Tony took his own life.

I can't blame his parents for being in denial, and considering he apparently had two death threats right before, it would be natural for them to initially assume that this was caused by one of those who made the threats. But I find this to be very implausible. It's kind of similar to the Tommy Burkett case, where his parents believe people broke in and killed their son (with a gun from inside the household) rather than that he took his own life.

Tony was laying naked in bed. This intruder would have had to have broken in, found the gun, and then walked in on him (with the light on) and shot him. In this scenario, Tony would have been oblivious to the break-in and not even have moved when his bedroom was entered. Seems pretty unlikely.

[dcguy80]

He was murdered. I am 100% certain. First, as his mother mentioned, he was found nude and would not have wanted to be seen that way, as most of us wouldn't. Also, did they even say where the gun was? I missed it if they did. Unless the gun was in that room, very close to his body, he could not have killed himself. Some police departments are just lazy and want to label a person's death as suicide when they can't be bothered investigating it. Either that, or they are covering for one of their own.

[cordwainer1453]

Pretty obvious suicide. the gun was found right next to him and was apparently a gun from his own house, based on the lack of info on UM on where it came from. These type of cases are always suicides. Just like the "Final Appeal" segments, they were presented in an extremely one sided manner.

[Corky Kneivel]

Originally Posted by cordwainer1453

Weird reading the earlier posts in this thread, with the later ones. All the earlier ones are convinced on murder, but the latest are the opposite. Wonder what caused such a change in perspective?

Not ALL the earlier ones, lol.

[RobertStack]

has it been confirmed that the gun was his or someone in the house ? if so then what else is there to debate .. it's pretty much suicide .. unless you wanna theorize someone came in and used the gun in the house which in that case it has to be someone familiar to them who knows the house well and where the gun would be .. if that's what happened, they sure pulled it off

[UMFan1981]

I'm honestly not sure what to think of this one. I could easily believe either the murder or suicide theory -I think there is compelling evidence to support both

To the posters who ask why a drink driving incident would leave to a person deciding to take his or her own life, I think other posters have quite eloquently provided some possible context or explanation why this might have tragically been the case. I sometimes think that you are younger that you take things that later in life you may be able to deal with much more adeptly much harder. It's possible that he may have overestimated the impact that such a conviction would have on his life and future prospects. It's also possible that he might have felt deeply ashamed or embarrassed or angry at himself or depressed or who knows? People react to different things in different ways

As for him being nude, I don't think it proves one thing or the other. If it were suicide, it could have been a case of him wanting to go out of this world the way he came in or something like that (I'm saying this in all seriousness, people sometimes have rituals and ideas they follow when they take their own life which may not make sense to us). Conversely, it could be that the killer had a reason for stripping him naked. Perhaps it was to humiliate him. Perhaps the killer was motivated by jealousy or anger over one of Tony's girlfriends and thought it was an appropriate way to pose the body in order to make some sort of statement about that relationship or something. Or maybe to dispose evidence or maybe he disturbed an intruder while he was naked and that's how the murder took place

I tend to think that the first suspect (the guy who followed him home after the road rage incident) had nothing to do with the murder. I know there are some weird people out there (just look at poor Dick Hansen's murderer) but it seems unlikely that someone would be so enraged over another motorist cutting him off that he'd wait a few weeks and then return and kill Tony over such a trivial incident.

I do find the bruises and gash to the left eye that they found on Tony's body disturbing but it's not necessarily proof of murder. Perhaps he got into a fight elsewhere beforehand, perhaps it was in the aftermath of that fight that for some reason that he decided to take his own life. Still, I agree it is perhaps the most compelling evidence that he was murdered

I also got a bad vibe from the detective being interviewed about the case. He seemed both a little too overconfident and complacent about the whole situation, as if he'd sort of made up his mind early and was not open to new evidence. I could be doing him an injustice but it did seem to me that there was some indication that the police investigation was a little sloppy and that potential leads weren't followed up, perhaps because they were too convinced of the suicide theory.

The county coroner, the Sheriff's Department and the District Attorney all agreeing with the ruling does tend to support the suicide theory but I do think that sometimes when one agency reaches a particular conclusion, there may be a tendency for other agencies to base their conclusions on the one that has been reached. I'm not necessarily implying this is the case here -again, I'm genuinely undecided on this one