Transcript: 176. The Thomas Murders | New Zealand

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Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Some parts are graphic in nature and listener discretion is advised. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones. 

It was shortly before 7pm on a summer’s night in Wellington’s CBD, when a cleaner made his way up the stairs of an office building called Invincible House. Everything was quiet, as most businesspeople had left for the day. 

The cleaner opened the door to Thomas and Thomas, a father-and-son owned and run financial services company and found a bloodbath. He saw 30-year-old Gene Thomas lying in a pool of blood in the reception area. He was not moving and it was clear to see he was no longer alive. The cleaner raised the alarm, and within minutes the building was swarming with police officers.

While processing the scene, they made a shocking discovery – a second body in the boardroom… It was Gene’s 68-year-old father, Eugene. He was slumped in his chair next to boardroom table, clenching receiver of the office phone in his hand. 

Someone had shot both father and son and left without a trace. In Eugene SR’s office, they found his diary, with two weeks’ worth of pages torn out, including the day of the shooting: 16 February 1994. 

Police soon found a plausible suspect: the last meeting for the day scheduled in Gene Thomas’ diary. The man was a business associate of the Thomases, and he vehemently denied any involvement in the murders. After three trials, there still remains some doubt as to what happened to Eugene and Gene Thomas, on that February night…

>>Intro Music

Eugene Thomas was born in New Zealand to Spanish parents and was a self-made millionaire. He took a lot of pride in his success and was recognisable as a wealthy man in a suit driving his blue Rolls Royce. Despite his successful career, Eugene valued family above all else. His four children were his pride and joy and together with his wife Margaret, they ensured the family remained close, even when the grown children had left home to start families of their own. 

In the early nineties, 68-year-old Eugene counted himself lucky to be working with his children. Like his father, 30-year-old Gene was an investment and insurance broker. He worked with Eugene at their office building, Invincible House at 136 The Terrace in Wellington’s city centre.

On 16 February 1994, Eugene met a client for lunch, after which he went home and spent the afternoon gardening. He told his wife, Margaret about an after-hours meeting at the office, donned his suit again and headed back to the office.

Gene Thomas spent his afternoon shopping and paid a visit to the dentist. He was also expected to be at the 5:30pm meeting and made his way to Invincible House. At 5:40, Gene called his brother Martin, to inform him that something has come up and that he would not stop by his home as they had arranged. Gene had asked Martin if he could borrow recording equipment for a meeting at church that night, but Gene never made it there either.

It was 6.30pm when the two cleaners of Invincible House walked into the office of Thomas and Thomas and found Gene in the foyer with a fatal gunshot wound to his face. Police were called to the grisly scene. About an hour into processing the scene in the reception-area, forensic officers discovered Eugene SR’s bloody body on the chair in the boardroom. 

Meanwhile, Margaret Thomas was at home, keeping an eye on the time, wondering why Eugene was not home yet. She called her children, as Eugene often stopped by one of them on his way home. But she couldn’t track him down. When Martin mentioned the phone call from Gene, she felt slightly relieved, and assumed the meeting was running late. But neither Eugene nor Gene would ever leave the office alive again.  

An autopsy of Eugene Thomas showed a bullet wound to his temple. He also had a second gunshot wound in the nape of his neck – believed to have been the second shot, the one that resulted in Eugene’s death. Gene was also shot twice: once in the hand, and once in the face. 

Because of blood evidence and the position in which Eugene was found, investigators surmised that he had survived the first shot. He was seated at the boardroom table, facing his killer, who was standing over him when he held the gun to his face and pulled the trigger for the first shot. Eugene suffered severe injuries to his face, sinuses and mouth, but was still alive. The gunman then turned to Gene Thomas and fired. Gene held up his hand to protect himself, and the bullet went through it, bounced off the shoulder of his suit jacket and landed on the boardroom table. After the first shot, Gene ran into the reception-area, but he was unable to escape as his bloodthirsty killer followed him and fired another shot at his head. The bullet entered Gene’s skull through the nostrils and was fired from close range.

Back in the boardroom, barely hanging on to life, Eugene managed to move in his chair, dragging his feet, to a nearby table and took the receiver off the phone, hoping to call for help. But the killer saw him, went back into the boardroom, pointed the gun to the back of Eugene’s head and fired the second shot, point blank. Eugene died instantly.

All four bullets were recovered by forensic investigators and determined to be point-32 calibre rounds. The men were most likely killed by a single gunman, using one firearm.

The media was quick to cover the story of the tragic double murder. Initially, speculation went around that it was a mafia hit, but this theory didn’t hold any water and was soon abandoned.

This kind of violent murder is very uncommon in a city like Wellington, and police were determined to find the killer as soon as possible. They combed through the scene at Invincible House and found a couple of peculiar clues. For one: Eugene’s diary was lying open on the desk in his office, but pages of the previous two weeks, up to the day of the murders were torn out. 

Eugene Thomas’ wife, Margaret, told police that he had a meeting with a business associate called John Barlow in the late afternoon – after office hours. It did not take investigators long to confirm this appointment. Gene Thomas had an entry at 5:30 to meet John Barlow in both his desk and pocket diaries. Although Eugene Thomas’ physical diary missed some pages, his pocket diary also noted the meeting – as did the daily planner at reception. Through analysis, experts proved that the only meeting in Eugene’s diary at that hour was with John Barlow. Gene had planned to meet with Barlow at 5:30 and his father had John scheduled for 6pm. The discrepancy was not deemed significant, seeing as it was after office hours, and perhaps Gene needed extra time to prepare. Everyone else in the office had gone home and father and son had returned for their last meeting of the day. 

48-year-old John Barlow was easy to track down. He was an amateur antiques dealer who used to manage an insurance company. When police learnt that Barlow was a firearm enthusiast who owned several weapons, they descended on his house. Preparing to meet an armed and dangerous man, the Armed Offenders Squad surrounded Barlow’s home in Karori, a suburb west of Wellington. John was at work and his family evacuated the premises. Police searched the home, and they did not find anything to link him to the murders. However, Barlow owned a total of 18 guns. They were hidden all around the house, in locations like a grandfather clock, in the ceiling and a wine-rack. Six of the guns were unlicensed.  

Police caught up with Barlow at his office in downtown Wellington. He was expecting them and calmly agreed to co-operate. Barlow admitted that he had been at the Thomases office on the afternoon of the murders. He had scheduled an after-hours meeting to discuss a business idea regarding reverse annuity mortgages – a fund managed by the Thomases.

According to Barlow, he arrived at 5:45pm, 15 minutes early for the meeting. When he reached the third floor and walked out of the elevator, he was greeted by Gene Thomas. Gene apologised and told Barlow that his father was caught up in another meeting and asked Barlow to wait in the boardroom. Then Eugene SR called his son into his office. Gene left Barlow in the boardroom for a few minutes before returning. He hinted that his father was stuck in conversation and would be a bit longer than expected. The younger Thomas politely suggested Barlow waited in the reception-area, as his father wanted to use the boardroom. Barlow didn’t think anything of it, as he assumed they didn’t want him to overhear their conversation. After 10 minutes Eugene called out to him, saying that he wouldn’t be able to meet, and would call to reschedule. This recount from Barlow’s statement:

“Is that you John? Sorry old boy won’t be able to see you today, I’ll give you a call in the morning. Sorry about that old chap.” 

Barlow thought it was a bit strange, especially the way Eugene called out to him. Eugene was a polished, eloquent businessman, and it would have been more in character for him to have come out of his office and talk to Barlow face-to-face. According to Barlow, there was an urgency to Eugene’s voice, in the sense that he did not sound like his usual relaxed self. Be that as it may, Barlow called out ‘goodbye’ and – without seeing either of the Thomases or the other person, Barlow left. At ten-past-six he climbed into his car that was parked in a garage across the road and set out on his drive home.

He said he did not hear or see anyone on the third floor. There was a cleaner on the stairs and they did not speak when he left. Barlow’s wife, Angela, confirmed the details of his statement, saying that he told her the exact same story. He had told her in the morning that they should expect police, because he had heard about the murders on the news and he was at the office shortly before it must have happened.

A day later, Barlow had a change of heart and went to the Wellington Central Police station to give a second statement. He said that he had not been a hundred percent honest in his first statement. According to Barlow, the first part of his statement was correct: he had arrived at the Thomases office, Gene asked him to wait, then Eugene called out that he’d have to postpone their meeting, so he left. 

However, when he was halfway home, he turned back. He knew Eugene was leaving on a fishing trip the next morning and did not want to miss out on the opportunity to talk to the Thomases about his business idea. Barlow decided it was worth the shot, and to try – at the very least – to see them and reschedule their appointment. He was back at Thomas and Thomas Limited at 6:25pm.

In his second statement, Barlow claimed that Gene Thomas’s blood-drenched body was in the reception-area when he returned. Then he saw Eugene Thomas Senior’s body in the boardroom. Barlow decided to get out of the office as quickly as he could and walked passed a cleaner on the stairs on his way out, around 6:35pm. Barlow did not raise the alarm or seek medical assistance for the Thomases, he simply went home. He mentioned to his wife that he had been at the office before the murders the following morning.

When asked why he didn’t tell police what he had seen in the first place, he said that he was in a state of extreme shock and was afraid that he would be blamed for the murders. He described his state of mind, saying it was like he was in a horrible dream.

Police did not know what to make of Barlow’s statements. It was strange for sure – and even if he was in a state of extreme shock – surely, he would have had the presence of mind to ask his wife to call the police. He saw the cleaners on his way out of the building, why did he not ask them for help if he felt unable to deal with the situation? 

Suspicious of Barlow’s two versions of events, investigators extended their search to his personal vehicle. In the glove compartment, they found a $3 receipt from Happy Valley landfill, dated 17 February – the morning after the murders. He must have stopped there before going to work, because his co-workers attested to him arriving at the office as per usual.

Police asked Barlow if he went anywhere else besides his home and his office between 16 and 17 February. Barlow mentioned that he had popped into a greengrocer but said he didn’t go anywhere else. Police gave him a few opportunities to come clean about the trip to the landfill, but he insisted that he had not been anywhere else. That is when they knew he was lying, as the date on the receipt clearly stated 17 February.

Investigators arrived at the landfill three days after the murders, hoping to find whatever it was Barlow had discarded there. In a tremendous stroke of luck, the dump’s compactor had broken down and trash from three days before had not been processed. 72 recruits from the police college set out to find any suspicious items that could link John Barlow to the Thomas Murders. What seemed like an unsurmountable challenge, soon yielded an invaluable clue. In a bag of household garbage, was a leather holster containing a Czechoslovakian pistol, a CZ-27. In the same bag was a homemade 300mm silencer, sawn up into several pieces. A box of Geco brand 32 calibre lead-nose ammunition was also found as well as an envelope with Barlow’s name and business postal address on it. The box of 50 bullets only had 43 in it when it was found. The CZ-27 was registered to none other than John Barlow.

The case against John Barlow was coming together, but at this point the evidence was mainly circumstantial. Results from the forensic lab came in, after testing Barlow’s clothing and shoes – and no traces of blood or gunshot residue was found on any items in Barlow’s wardrobe. No clothing was found at the landfill either. 

After the search at the landfill, police informed the media that they had a suspect. Barlow heard the press conference, held at the landfill, and feared that he was the suspect they had referred to. In a desperate attempt to state his case publicly, Barlow went straight to the media and gave a radio interview, naming himself as the suspect and insisted that he was an innocent man. 

After hearing about the murders on the news, one of Barlow’s friends and business associates contacted the police and offered his co-operation. This person remained anonymous to the press throughout the years, but he was instrumental in gathering evidence against Barlow. Known only as Mr B, the informant agreed to wear a wire and record his conversations with Barlow. At first, police thought the sting would not pay off. Barlow stuck to the second version of his story, and that seemed to be the end of it. But then, there was additional information…

In a third version of events, Barlow told Mr B that, in the months leading up to his murder, Eugene Thomas had confided in him that he was concerned for his safety. Eugene allegedly said that someone had threatened him and he feared for his life. Barlow then lent him the CZ-27 pistol and added the silencer so that Eugene could try it out. Barlow claimed that, when he discovered the bloodbath at the Thomases’ office, he noticed his firearm at the scene. He panicked, and realised the weapon was registered in his name, so he took it and disposed of it, fearing that would be implicated in the murders if police found it. 

At this point, investigators no longer felt there was a chance that Barlow was an innocent bystander. He was arrested on the 23rd of June 1994, 18 weeks after the shooting, and charged with the murders of Eugene and Gene Thomas. His wife, Angela, refused to believe he was a killer and promised she would stand by him. During a television interview in 1996 she said:

“I think that when you’re arrested in this country, everybody thinks you’re guilty because the police have arrested you. And they wouldn’t have arrested you unless they thought you had done it. And once you get into the system, you just can’t seem to get out.”

John Barlow would eventually stand trial three times. During the first trial, which commenced in May 1995, he pleaded not guilty. The Thomas family wanted justice for their much-loved father, husband, son and brother… Barlow on the other hand, saw the trial as an opportunity to clear his name.

The prosecution set out to logically present the series of events that lead to the Thomases’ murder and Barlow’s guilt. No less than five diary-inscriptions proved that John Barlow had an after-office hours appointment with Eugene and Gene Thomas on Wednesday the 16th of February, at their offices at Invincible House.

Gene Thomas called his brother, Martin, at 5:40pm to say something unexpected had come up and that he would not be able to come around as planned. It was unlike Gene to change plans at the last minute and Martin knew something significant must have prevented his brother from leaving the office on time.

At 6:35pm, the cleaners saw John Barlow leaving the offices with a briefcase. Curiously, in his second statement, Barlow told police that when he returned to the Thomases office, he did NOT have his briefcase with him, seeing as he was only going to make an appointment to meet with them another time. Shortly after seeing Barlow leave, the cleaners from the stairs found the body of Gene Thomas. It was also interesting that Barlow did not use the elevator, but elected to climb three flights of stairs when he left.

John Barlow’s three different statements – two to police and one to Mr B – about his involvement in the murders, did not do his defence any favours. The fact that he tried to withhold information about his trip to the landfill also made him appear deceitful.

The Prosecution theorised that Eugene and Gene Thomas met with John Barlow in their boardroom, as planned around 6pm on February 16th 1994. Fingerprints from a legal pad on the boardroom table belonged to John Barlow, placing him at the scene. 

The prosecution further alleged that a disagreement ensued which resulted in Barlow pulling the CZ-27 out of his briefcase and shooting Eugene and then Gene. He then ripped out the pages from Eugene’s diary after seeing his name in plain sight. The position of the prints was consistent with someone tearing pages from the diary. Fearing that someone would see him, he took the stairs instead of the elevator, but unfortunately for him the cleaners were there. 

Barlow then went home; did not mention the horrific scene he had allegedly just walked into to his wife. Sometime before the next morning he altered the CZ-27 pistol, by fitting a point two-two barrel in place of the standard point-three-two barrel. A firearms expert testifying for the Crown demonstrated how quickly and easily this can be done. He disposed of the pistol and the sawn up, homemade silencer at the Happy Valley landfill before going to work the next morning. Barlow hinted that he had thrown the original 32-barrel away, somewhere in the Wellington Botanical Gardens. Police were never able to locate the 32.

Because the original barrel was never recovered, ballistic experts could not definitively conclude that the CZ-27 was the murder weapon. The magazine was also replaced and the firing pin in the pistol and the cartridge extractor claws had all been filed down. These further modifications made it impossible to prove the CZ-27 fired the bullets that had killed the Thomases. 

Crown witness, forensic scientist, Peter Wilson testified that the gunshot wound to Eugene Thomas Senior’s temple showed traced of rubber. This indicated that a silencer was used when the pistol was fired: the bullets did not only travel through the barrel, but also through the silencer. Barlow admitted that he recovered a silencer from the murder scene. If the CZ-27 was in fact the murder weapon, the rubber traces would match the rubber inside the silencer. However, they were not able to prove this conclusively.

The Prosecution agreed that a silencer must have been used, seeing as four shots would have rung through the otherwise quiet office building, but no one in the building heard anything. The sawn-up silencer found at the Happy Valley landfill, suggested that the CZ-27 was most likely the murder weapon. 

The prosecution felt that Barlow had tampered with the pistol so it would not be identified as the murder weapon. However, he could not alter the bullets, and the bullets found at the crime scene, matched the bullets recovered from the landfill. Ballistic experts working on the case sent one of the crime scene bullets, as well as a bullet from the landfill, to the manufacturer in Germany. The Geco ammunition company confirmed that the crime scene bullet was chemically identical to the batch found in the landfill.

Something to consider is that even though Barlow had several unlicensed handguns in his house, he only disposed of the CZ-27. He also never explained why he altered the firearm by swapping barrels. The only explanation he offered as to why he threw his gun away, was that he found it at the murder scene and did not want to be implicated. 

Despite a mountain of circumstantial evidence, the Defence insisted that Barlow was not the killer. They contended that a third party was at the offices, perhaps the person who had threatened Eugene Thomas before. Realising that his life was in danger, Eugene produced the CZ-27 that he had borrowed from Barlow. Thomas SR had gun residue on his hands, which proved that he had fired a gun shortly before his own death. 

Barlow’s defence also pointed out that there were no cartridge cases found at the scene, and that the Thomases could have been shot with a revolver. A revolver does not expel cartridges like a CZ-27 pistol does. However, the prosecution referred to tests at the crime scene, proving that all shots were fired in close proximity to each other and collecting spent cartridges would not have been a difficult task. 

The Defence was undeterred and highlighted the lack of motive for the murders. Barlow had invested $86,000 in a super fund managed by Invincible Life – which was one of the Thomases’ funds. Barlow then borrowed $70,000 from the fund some years later, and his finances showed that he was in a position to pay it back. The Thomases had worked out a low-interest payment plan, and it was a friendly arrangement.

Barlow’s defence posed some questions to the jury: Why would Barlow make an appointment to kill someone? Why would he kill someone who was helping him? Why would he join a pistol club a month before the murder, knowing that it would be on his public record? 

The Defence also reminded the jury that there was no blood on Barlow’s clothes or his shoes. This is puzzling, seeing as his second statement placed him at the scene after the murders had been committed. If he had walked around and retrieved his gun, why was there no blood on his clothing. Unless he disposed of the clothes elsewhere, and it had not been found. Like the original barrel of the CZ-27.

The Crown did not buy the Defence’s theory about someone else being responsible for the killings. Eugene and Gene were done for the day but returned to the office once all staff had left. It would be highly unusual for someone to drop by without an appointment, seeing as neither of them was typically at the office at that time of the day. Furthermore, this person would have had to be able to access the CZ-27 Eugene had borrowed from Barlow, take control of it and fire four shots. The same weapon Barlow disposed of the next morning. 

After deliberating for two days, the jury could not reach a conclusion, and the trial was deemed a mistrial. 

All the while, Barlow was on remand. Two firearms were found hidden in his home, after he had told Mr B ‘police would never find it’. Barlow’s views on firearms also caused concern for law enforcement. He told police that American firearm owners hardly ever used them and that QUOTE hardly anyone was ever shot UNQUOTE. When asked if he often lent out his firearms, he confirmed that he did. Then he shrugged it off by saying it was a minor offence, on par with speeding. Because of the hidden weapons and his attitude towards guns, it was decided that Barlow should NOT be granted bail.

The second trial took place just over a month after the mistrial, in July 1995. This time, the defence called an Australian ballistics expert, Robert Barnes who suggested that the bullets found in the body of Eugene Thomas were not necessarily from a CZ-27. 

The prosecution still did not have a strong motive for Barlow to have murdered the father and son, and again, the trial ended in a hung jury. It is unusual to press ahead with a third trial – but considering the seriousness of the crime and the high profile of the case, the justice department was adamant to have the case presented yet again. Barlow was granted home arrest at this time.

Barlow’s third trial took place three months after the second one, in October 1995. This time, the prosecution called in the help of FBI expert, Charles Peters. He had tested the ballistic evidence and concluded that one of the bullets from the crime scene was unique. The other three bullets were a perfect match to the ones recovered from the box of 32 calibre bullets discarded at the landfill. In fact, they were from the same batch and were likely packaged on the same day.

Another FBI expert also conducted tests on the CZ-27 and bullets and concluded that the bullets were NOT fired by the pistol in question. Yet he changed his statement later on, aligning with his colleague, saying that ‘the possibility does exist’. He never appeared in court to clarify.

The defence’s expert, Robert Barnes disagreed with the FBI expert’s findings, but Charles Peters would not sway. This deadlock did not bode well for the trial, and when the jury was left to deliberate, it was feared that there would be another deadlock. However, this time, after 27 hours of deliberation, they returned a guilty verdict. Barlow was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 14 years.

Margaret Thomas, Eugene’s widow and Gene’s mother made her first public statement:

“We are relieved, very relieved. We are very pleased to have it over, it’s been so long. I don’t think it was a surprise, it was what we wanted, because I believe he is the person who did it.”

The next year Barlow appealed his conviction, stating that a third trial was unfair according to the Bill of Rights. Too many people knew about the case and finding an impartial jury would have been impossible. And his defence also said that the unavailability of a second FBI witness to explain a discrepancy could not be overlooked at a murder trial. The appeal was dismissed.

Subsequent reports have concluded that matching bullets’ chemical composition to actual batches of bullets has become a somewhat outdated practice. Manufacturers aim to have the same standard across all their bullets, which means it would not be such a rare instance if the bullet from Eugene’s body matched one in the box Barlow threw away. There is no conclusive way to determine whether bullets came from the same box or if they were packaged and loaded on the same day by the manufacturer.

Interestingly, Barlow’s case was quoted during a trial in Arizona some years later. The same FBI agent then said on record that the bullet from the Thomas crime scene was ‘indistinguishable’ from the one in the lab in Washington. He did not mention this to the jury in Wellington, which could very well have brought a different perspective. 

Perhaps the truth has been muddled by facts about bullets and barrels, when one has to bear in mind that John Barlow was not a trained assassin or a criminal mastermind. Before February 16th 1994, he was a businessman with a passionate interest in guns. He made the appointment with the Thomases, and something went wrong; they did not see eye to eye. Barlow lost his temper, pulled out his pistol and fired. His actions that followed were not that of a professional hitman, but rather of a suburban businessman who wanted to conceal a crime he had committed in the heat of the moment. As for the motive: only three people knew what the meeting at Invincible House was about, and two of them are dead. All of this, of course, is only speculation. 

Barlow refused to give up and pressed for appeals in any, way, shape or form possible. In 2006, the Governor General denied Barlow’s request of a Royal Pardon. July 2008, Greg King, who represented Barlow, took his case to the Privy Council, who agreed to hear the appeal. King used the opportunity to point out that the expert testimony of Charles Peters was flawed and that the jury was overly impressed by his position as an FBI agent, which clouded their judgement. A statement by metallurgist, Dr Rick Randich claimed that it would not have been possible to determine the bullet’s manufacturer, with the tests conducted by Peters. However, he conceded that metal fragments at the crime scene proved to be ammunition manufactured by Geco.

In the end, all that can be said for sure is that the compositions of lead fragments from the bullets found at the scene are consistent with the Geco ammunition Barlow left at the landfill.

The Privy Council agreed that, perhaps the FBI agent’s evidence could have deceived the jury. But the council still felt that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence against Barlow to dismiss his appeal.

At the end of 2008, Barlow applied for parole and psychological testing was suggested. The report stated that Barlow had…

“…a superficial elitist interpersonal style that is usually characterised by an internal strong focus and entitlement beliefs.”

He was deemed to have a controlling nature and fearing dangerous behaviour on his release, he was denied bail. This was the statement from the parole board:

“Given his intelligence and quite dominant personality, there would seem to us to be no real chance of anyone in his close vicinity alerting the appropriate authorities if an unsafe situation were to arise following his release.”

Angela Barlow, always loyal to her husband John, defended him:

“It is absolutely made up. He had guns but that was just because he collected everything. The comments about his attitude – I have been married to him for 39 years and he is not like that to me. It offends me.”

In 2010, after spending more than 15 years in Rimutaka prison, John Barlow was released on parole. The Thomas family told the press that they did not have the heart to go through it all again and would not request any further legal action. Eugene’s daughter, Dianne addressed the media for the first time since Barlow’s incarceration and said that… 

"It's taken its course."

Eugene’s eldest daughter Vicki, agreed, and said:

"It's a process that's gone through."

John Barlow's daughter, Keryn, is steadfast in her belief that her father was wrongfully convicted. She felt that his release from prison, after serving his full sentence did not right the wrong. Keryn, a qualified criminologist wrote a book about the case, pleading her father’s case.

To this day, John Barlow maintains his innocence. If he is in fact innocent, who then committed this heinous crime? Like so many cases where there is a question of miscarriage of justice, one has to keep asking: has justice been served for the victims? 

The Thomas family values their privacy and over the years, steered clear of the public eye. Little has been published about Eugene and Gene’s personal lives before their murders, and in researching this case, we respected that. A family lost two beloved members on the same day, and nothing will ever bring them back. This case is a tragedy, with many unanswered questions – the most prevalent one being: why? Perhaps we’ll never know…

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