When Detective Gregory Pollock received a phone call that a couple had been shot outside of their home in Wichita, Kansas, he knew right away that they were his friends. He recognized their address. “I was sitting there with my wife, and I didn’t want to tell her anything because I wanted to go out onto the scene first,” Pollock said.
When he arrived at the scene, Pollock was deeply affected by what he saw “But let me tell you, it was overwhelming. I knew this would be a tough case.”
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Pollock talked about the case for the Oxygen series A Plan to Kill. Oxygen’s true crime series A Time to Kill, documented the 2013 murders of his friends, Roger and Melissa Bluml, Fox News Digital reports. The series detailed the time Roger and Melissa’s adoptive son Tony and his biological mom Kisha Schaberg spent planning to kill them.
“This is a case that did not go to trial, so there are still bits and pieces that the community doesn’t know about,” Pollock said. “There was work done by law enforcement that people had no idea had taken place. There were actions committed by the suspects that people weren’t aware of. I felt it was a good time to talk about what happened.”
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In the series, friends and family describe the Blumls as a lovely couple that yearned to be parents. The couple was able to realize their parenting dreams with the adoption of brothers Anthony “Tony” and Christopher Bluml, as young children. Pollock remembered the victims Roger and Melissa as pillars of the community.
“They had a lot of compassion for each other, and they were fun to be around,” Pollock said. “I have known Roger for several years. He loved to tell jokes and stories. He was the kind of guy whose laugh you could hear from across the room. And Melissa had a heart of gold. She would help out wherever help was needed. These were two great people who watched our families grow.”
The boys seemed to be thriving in their home with the Blumls. By the time they were in high school, they competed in wrestling and football. Pollock was around when the boys were first adopted and remembers the first conversation the two brothers had with their new parents.
“They were excited about the fact that there was food on the table and that they were going to eat all the time,” Pollock said. “As the boys got older, there was respect for Roger and Melissa. They played sports and understood the rules of the household. They seemed to be doing well.”
Things took a turn, when Tony Bluml entered his senior year of high school. According to Pollock, he got involved with the “wrong crowd of friends.” During this time period, Roger and Melissa caught Tony smoking marijuana and he fought with his parents. He started exhibiting violent behavior and eventually his parents put him out of the home. While he as away from his parents, Tony supported himself by working at fast food restaurants, staying with friends, and selling weed.
Eventually, Tony reconnected with his birth mother Kisha Schaberg via Facebook. Later, Tony Bluml and his friend Braden Smith, decided to travel to California to live with Schaberg. The three often spent days of their lives in a “drug induced haze.” When the three ran out of money, they moved back to Kansas.
During their return to Kansas, Schaberg started saying that they should kill the Blumls so she, Tony, and Chris could reunite as a family. Reportedly, Schaberg was upset Chris wanted “nothing to do with her.” She believed the Blumls had turned him against her.
At the same time, Tony complained about how strict the Blumls were. He reportedly resented them for kicking him out while they doted on his younger brother. When they reached Kansas, they had a plan to kill the couple. Smith reportedly got cold feet but recruited his friend Andrew Ellington to take his place.
Tony Bluml picked the date of November 15, 2013. That evening, Chris was at a wrestling match. Tony Bluml went out to dinner with his adoptive parents while Schaberg and Ellington ransacked the couple’s house to appear like they were the victims of a burglary.
Tony Bluml believed that once his parents were gone, he would receive an inheritance and be with his bio mom permanently.
Melissa talked to Pollock and his wife about the return of her son. “She was still leery of what was going to happen after they met. But he wanted to meet them and go to dinner … Melissa said she’d let us know how the dinner turned out.”
Court documents showed that Tony Bluml texted Ellington telling him that the Blumls had dropped him off at his hotel and were on their way back home. When they arrived, Schaberg shot the couple from the passenger side of their vehicle. She gave Ellington Melissa’s purse and cellphone to get rid of them.
Chris, who was 16 at the time, returned home at 9 p.m., and was confronted by the sight of his injured parents. Melissa died the next day. She was 53. Roger passed five weeks later at the age of 48.
“Through our investigation, we believed that Kisha wanted to reunite her family,” said Pollock. “The only conclusion that she reached was killing Roger and Melissa so that the boys could be all hers again. That’s what she believed. That’s what she told us … That was her motivation.” Pollock said.
Ellington, Tony Bluml, and Schaberg did a lot of planning in an attempt to disguise and hide the murder.
It all unraveled when a former classmate of Tony Bluml’s called the police. “He had received a text message a couple of days before the Blumls were shot, by a friend of his, another 18-year-old named Braden Smith, saying he needed a gun for a job,” said Amy Renee Leiker, a reporter for the Wichita Eagle.
In 2015, Schaberg and Tony Bluml pleaded no contest to aggravated robbery and capital murder charges to avoid the death penalty. They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ellington was also sentenced to life in prison. He, however, will be eligible for parole in 25 years. Smith pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 24 ½ years in prison.
In a 2015 interview, Tony Bluml said he doesn’t blame anyone else but himself. “If I could go back in time, I would have said ‘No this isn’t a good idea,’” he said. He said he thought was protecting his blood mother. He offered an apology to his brother, family, and the community. “I ask God to forgive me and I feel like he has,” Tony Bluml said.
