Three Morticians, Secret Lovers and a Staged Farmhouse Death: Inside the 2012 Killing of Byron Griffy By Christina Coulter

A quiet farming town was upended when a beloved mortician turned up shot inside his home — a killing later bound to secret romantic ties and the unraveling of a business partnership that was far more complicated than it seemed.

The Rocky Mountain Mortician Murder — a three-part Investigation Discovery docuseries airing Nov. 26 from 8–11 p.m. ET, with episodes also available to stream on HBO Max — reexamines the 2012 death of 76-year-old Byron Griffy and the alleged roles of fellow funeral home directors Anthony Wright and the late Charles Giebler, according to the network.

Griffy, a longtime funeral director in Fowler, Colo. was found on Oct. 12, 2012 inside his remote farmhouse with a gunshot wound to the back of his head, per the Denver Post. Investigators found no signs of forced entry and his hands were carefully crossed on his chest.

Authorities later zeroed in on Wright and Giebler, who co-owned the Charles-Anthony Funeral Home and were widely regarded as brothers in the town of Florence — but outed as romantic partners to the community at large after a criminal investigation into Griffy’s death.

“When I learned Charles and Anthony weren’t brothers… wow, it was a sense of betrayal,” Florence resident Georgia Enslow said in the film. “I think a lot of people in Florence felt that way. It was almost like the whole town got duped.”

On the day of his death, Griffy told a friend that his longtime friends Wright and Giebler would be picking him up from his farmhouse for a birthday lunch, per the Canon City Daily Record.

Prosecutors later alleged that the pair killed Griffy together — and the investigation that followed the mortician’s murder uncovered the tangled personal and financial ties among the three men.

In the months before his death Griffy had been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy who worked at his funeral home, a case that led him to hand over large amounts of cash, coins and collectibles to Wright and Giebler after a burglary amid fears of further fallout, per Canon City Daily Record reporting.

Wright testified that he and Giebler transported a carload of items — mostly coins — to a “secure room” in their basement. Griffy’s daughter later told jurors that not all of the property was returned, including a safe she said held about $50,000, per the Record.

Giebler, who once served as mayor of Florence, died in January 2013 before the investigation was complete. A Griffy family member later testified that shortly before his death, he said he expected to be arrested in connection with the case, per the Pueblo Chieftain.

Wright was arrested in August 2013 and charged with first-degree murder in Griffy’s death. His 2015 trial ended in a hung jury, per Canon City Daily Record reporting.

He later pleaded guilty in January 2017 to accessory to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years of probation, according to the Associated Press.

The new docuseries examines how the men’s personal, financial and romantic ties may have shaped the events leading to Griffy’s death and whether the carefully arranged scene inside his farmhouse concealed more than investigators first understood, per Investigation Discovery.