Detective Jacob Blass
Appearances
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
My name is Detective Jacob Blass. I work with the Fremont Police Department's Cold Case Homicide Unit.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
This homicide occurred April 29, 2007, around 8.53 at night. It was within the area of Fremont Boulevard, Mallory Avenue, and then also Bell Street.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
Remember, April 29th, 2007, so 8.53 at night, right in that general area. If anybody saw anything, heard anything, talked to someone in jail, prison, on the street, friends, whatever, and has some kind of information pertaining to this case, we just want them to come forward and let us know, and we'll meet with them.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
We'll set up a location for us to meet up to talk about the case openly, freely, and, you know, whatever we can do to get this case solved.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
I applied for the FBI. At the time, they were only asking for people that spoke different languages or could do like CPA type financial work.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
I was hoping I could actually find out, you know, who did the whole 9-11 and go after Osama bin Laden kind of thing. But apparently I didn't have enough of that background in schooling for that at that time.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
I actually got involved in it back in 2007 because I was actually in field training with my training officer and we were doing a special operation and we heard this case come out as a possible homicide.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
We get dispatched to a lot of what we call 1053 calls or person down calls. Say someone was hit by a car or someone was intoxicated and they passed out or they fell off their bike. So we'll respond out just to check on that person, make sure no one's hurt, no one's down, anything to that extent.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
So when the officers were dispatched out there that night, they were attempting to locate this downed subject. They found him lying along the street side area and were just checking on him to make sure if this person was OK. He was unresponsive. But, you know, it's dark at night and dimly lit area at nighttime. He was wearing some layers and there was not a lot of blood anywhere on the ground.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
And so when the officer first arrived on scene, he thought maybe this person just may have tripped, may have fallen. He could have been intoxicated.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
That area right there is a busy street thoroughfare. I mean, you're coming off the freeway a few streets up, I mean, a ways, but that general area is a busy intersection. So you could hear car crashes there, horns honking. You could hear a whole lot of stuff. Personally, I think there are people that were probably out on the street, saw what happened and then ran.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
And then we never either found them or they just didn't want to come forward.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
Before that friend could get there, someone either drive by or walked up on him, accosted him and shot and killed him.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
He didn't have any kind of gang relation. There was nothing that led us to believe that anybody was out to get him. He just seemed like a real good kid that was at the wrong place at the wrong time, essentially.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
This particular area in Fremont, I wouldn't designate even as a gang area. I just know that you have a location that you could drive by one of the main thoroughfares and you can look over and see some of their wearing the wrong color. Someone on the street saw that they might redirect and try to jam somebody up or confront them.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
And so the Northerners would usually wear like the red colors, and then the Southerners would usually be wearing around blue. Back in the day, if you talked to someone that was a Norteno at that time, it would be hard-pressed to get any kind of information saying they were part of a gang.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
Back in the day, though, if you talked to a Serrano or a Southerner, they would be all proud about it and say, yeah, I belong to the Southern gang. I'm Serrano from LA. I came up here. This is where I live. So they'd be very apparent and upfront with you and be honest with you.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
I mean, you'd be surprised throughout the United States how many people are just innocent bystanders that just happen to be in the wrong place. Like, they didn't know this was a gang area.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
We had already had a homicide in January 25th, 2007, that we believe was most likely a gang-related homicide. So when this one came out in April, we thought possibly it could be gang-related.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
We had an individual who was believed to have been associated possibly to a Southern or Sereno gang. And it was believed that he possibly was being chased down and he was attacked by, we believe, possibly some Norteño gang members just because he was in the wrong area at the wrong time. He was struck in the head with an object and he later died at the hospital.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
I mean, it happens a lot in cases where you might have that perfect witness that was there present and saw exactly what happened, but because they think there's going to be retaliation or someone coming after them, they want nothing to do with this thing and they just never come forward.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
And that's why pushing this back out to the press, to you guys, to everybody that can see and go, okay, yeah, I was there. You know, I want to help now. I want to be part of this. I want to help this thing out because I should have done that at that time and I just didn't.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
I was able to submit that to the governor's office and Kevin Newsom's office approved it. And I got a $50,000 reward for that. With Debra and the family, they had people that supported saying, hey, we'll put up money to cover whatever additional expenses that someone wants to bring to bump up the reward.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
Imagine if this can go in front of millions of people in other parts of the states, the country worldwide. Say someone's in the military now and they lived in that area at the time and now they're across the seas and they love listening to your podcast. This could drum up something where they're like, hey, I know something.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
Let me relay this to my family or friends or get it back to the police department. Maybe they'll be able to relay a good tip for us to solve this case. Even people that are in jail that might be playing podcasts, believe it or not. If they have a way to listen to it, they'll listen to it in jail and they hear different things.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
And they like cold cases just as much as some of these other people just because they want to figure out how to not get arrested for something later on.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
There is a $60,000 reward for any information, anything that leads to the arrest, identification, and prosecution of this person. And we're willing to go ahead with this and follow up with whatever leads we get until we find out who did this to Anthony as well as to his family.
Anatomy of Murder
Unsolved: Silent Night (Aaron Anthony “Antone” Breaux)
It's heartbreaking. I find myself tearing up whenever I talk to her just because she's such a great person. This shouldn't have happened to her and her family at all.