Michael Loses Jimmy To A Homicide

Michael Loses Jimmy To A Homicide- Patreon
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SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: [00:00:00] I have another incredible surviving sibling with me today. It is Michael Tobin. Michael, welcome to the show.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Maya, thank you very much for having me. I'm truly grateful to be here and I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah, my pleasure Michael, and I think this is gonna be such an incredible episode. I am really looking forward to learning more about your dear brother Jimmy, that you lost 33 years ago, and I think you're gonna bring some really great perspective to our surviving sibling community with having three decades of this experience under your belt.

So tell us a little bit, take us back in time and tell us a little bit about you and Jimmy and your family. Tell us a little bit about you guys.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: so, any opportunity to talk about my brother and our family is great. Greatly appreciated. So [00:01:00] thank you so much. So we grew up in the Bronx. I am the fifth of six children. Jimmy was the third. There was one of us for every age group. And we were just a big close family. My mom and dad, blue collar family, living in the Bronx in the eighties.

And we were all, and still are extremely close. So Jimmy was three years older than me. Our birthdays are two days apart. But we again all grew up in this crazy neighborhood in the Bronx in the eighties around the birthplace of hip hop at that time. Break dancing, graffiti, all these things.

And, we all hung out in the neighborhood with our friends. And every when I was thinking about this, every part of this story happened within a two block radius of our home. And there's, literally within two blocks of our house. Every aspect of the story just sitting, thinking about it.

And it's crazy to think 33 years ago, but he was a great kid. He just was, he grew up in the neighborhood. He was break dancing on the [00:02:00] corner in, 1984 when he was a kid on linoleum. He, from a very young age, was always artistic. He loved to draw, he loved to write, and he became a graffiti artist.

He was out in the streets tagging on stuff. He had a great mentor who also unfortunately passed at a very young age named Pauly Zu Knapp, who is like a graffiti legend in the Bronx. He passed away in 1989, and I'm looking at a picture a few minutes ago. He was literally taking Jimmy out when he was 13 years old to go, hit walls and trains and things like that.

So, growing up in the Bronx was such an interesting, an interesting time. And I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, even with, circumstances and what happened. But he was just a happy kid. He was, loved by everybody who ever knew him. He was a loyal friend. He was a wisecracker with everybody.

I was thinking about a story a little while ago, like in, I'm gonna say maybe 1989 when freestyle music was pretty big in New York. There was a song called Spring Love by Stevie B, and I'm up in his room. He always had a stereo, he always had music. [00:03:00] And I'm sitting there singing it and I have no idea.

He's standing behind me the whole time and catches me lip syncing this. And I'm like, how long have you been standing there? He was like, long enough. He was always funny. He was always cracking jokes with everybody. And we were just a typical big Irish family in the Bronx, in, in the eighties and the early nineties.

And he was just loved by everybody who ever met him.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: What a cool time to be in the Bronx,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: amazing. Yeah.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: What a cool time. And that's so cool, and I know you shared some really cool pictures with me, which you guys will see in our social media posts too about your brother and the graffiti and stuff like that. So we will be sure to include that stuff. And I was like, what's the story with this?

I was really excited to like talk about this

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Oh yeah, there's a lot.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: that's very cool. Yeah, so he was very artistic. He was probably so proud when he walked in the room and you were singing along to that song since he was into music and stuff, right?

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: He, I mean he had like, when like the west coast rap came out, he had the tapes, again, we grew up in the birthplace of hip hop. So, but [00:04:00] this was more of like silly, like he caught me being silly and had no idea he was standing behind me. But at the same time, if anybody ever messed with us, I was very lucky.

I was the fifth, outta sixth number five. I never had to fight to anybody in the neighborhood. Like a big part of this story is like my older brothers and the different crews and people that didn't get along. And it's so stupid now when you look at it 30 years later, like geographically a mile apart. But people would be fighting.

And that's pretty much what led to Jimmy's death, unfortunately. But when I, if I ever had a problem, there was one time I was on the bus going to school and, there were kids acting stupid or whatever it was. The next day, Jimmy and his big friend Hector were on the bus to make sure, and I didn't even tell him.

Somehow he knew what was going on and was very protective of me, my sisters, my brothers, he was tough, but quiet and again, like I said, just loved by everybody who ever met him.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah, I love that. I'm the oldest of four, so I get it. I can mess with my siblings all the time, but [00:05:00] nobody better mess with them. I totally get.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Absolutely. And I was lucky I never had to fight anybody in the neighborhood 'cause my older brothers were respected so much.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: That's awesome. I love that so much. So again, you guys are this big Irish family. Such a New York vibe. I love it. I love your accent. Yes. So many of our listeners are gonna connect with you on that for sure. Take us, so again, great memories, but let's go to this horrific day that of course you're never going to forget.

Take us to that moment. Take us to how old were you, take us through it. What happened?

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: So there's actually something a year before that leads up to it. In December of 1990 when Jimmy was 16 years old again, like I said, everything happened around the corner from the house. He went out and I'm watching TV and about 20 minutes later the phone rings and it's the hospital at Lum Bay General.

What happened was, is one of these morons in the neighborhood that was joy riding in a car, picked him up and we lived up, right? The elevated six train was [00:06:00] 50 yards from the house. So these are steel pillars, which also come into the story later along all of Westchester Avenue. So. Basically he was in the passenger seat.

He jumped in the car and within 30 seconds his car crashed directly into a steel L pillar for the New York City subway. And when my mother and I saw the car the next day, I, the entire passenger seat was completely gone. I don't know how he lived through that. His pelvis was crushed, his hips were broken.

He was 16 years old when this happened, and spent the next six, seven weeks in traction with a pin through his leg weights. It was horrific for a kid to go through this. So that's December of 1990. Around the same time I was moving out with my aunt in Long Island in the suburbs to go to school out there.

So right around that time it took him, he basically, within three months, had to learn to walk again. He walked into my cousin's wedding in March of 1991. Somehow [00:07:00] on a cane. I don't know how he did it, but he was in a wheelchair. And that's what plays into the story here is a year and a half later. So it's, he turned 18 in March.

Our birthdays were two, two days apart. March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, 1992. And he hung out in the neighborhood with friends. He had girlfriend at the time. He was first love, just people would stand on the corner. That's what you did in the Bronx back then. You would spend time outside with your friends.

And there's another part that leads into this is about a month before that. So I'm gonna say January, February, 1992, directly around the corner from our house on Westchester Avenue, under the l there was a restaurant there. My older brothers and all their friends would hang out there. It was a Chinese restaurant who was really good.

And one of these stupid fights breaks out, kids from another neighborhood, whatever it is now, I'm only 14 years old at the time, so I am living in Long Island. So I don't know directly what happened here, but it was some kind of fight with kids from another neighborhood and. One of them got [00:08:00] cut with a razor or something.

I don't know the details, but that happened in, I'm gonna say February or March. So, Friday night April 3rd, 1992, Jimmy went to the store for my mom, got her some food. She would always tell that story. And when he was standing on the corner with his friends three cars rolled up from three different directions.

And when I tell you Maya, he was a hundred yards from our front door when this happened. He couldn't run towards her house and he couldn't run from his killers. And basically what happened was they came in from three different directions in cars, with tire irons, bats, whatever else. And Jimmy ran the other way under the L and made it maybe half a block where he was chased down and he was stamped to death, a block away from our house.

And now my part of the story's separate after that. But in the immediate [00:09:00] aftermath of it, there were friends who were there, they were at the restaurant. People knew what happened immediately. This is after midnight. My older brother found him in the street. And then like, this is like, I don't know how to say it.

You can't, I can't imagine. Like, I cannot imagine what happened. And then he has to come home and tell my parents and my, other siblings. So within a half an hour, my parents two of my siblings and the whole neighborhood are out there. If at the crime scene, and my mom, this is the biggest part of this story, is my mother's faith was so incredible to the day she died last year.

She was just a pillar of strength in our family. There was a priest there on the street with her and she would tell the story and he said, please, Eileen don't get mad. And she cut him right off and said, God, I would never, like her faith was that strong that where she saw her son laying dead in the street and you know her never broke her faith.

But my parents and my [00:10:00] siblings literally had to see the crime scene

If you've lost a sibling, trust me. I know exactly how you feel. I'm Maya. I'm the host of the Surviving Siblings Podcast, but I'm also the founder of Surviving Siblings Support. I know that going through this experience is extremely difficult. Whether you've lost a brother like me, a sister, or perhaps more than one sibling, trust me, we know exactly how you feel.

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SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: michael, oh my gosh. Hey, I just wanna pause this here right now for a second. So I'm assuming you guys are Catholic.

Irish. Yeah. I was like, you're Irish, you must be Catholic. 'cause I grew up in the Catholic school system. I went to Catholic school. So even though my parents weren't Catholic, they're Lutheran, which is very interesting.

But we were raised Catholic. It was an interesting thing because my my father Swiss, my mom is Swedish and it's very Lutheran in those communities, but they play nice with [00:12:00] Catholics. So we went to Catholic school if there wasn't a Lutheran school. So I've always hung with Catholics, so I totally get it.

And the Irish Catholics go hard, man. Like, that is, that's big. So I get it. But that's, yeah. Wow. I just wanna pauses here for a second so that we can all digest this. So that's huge. And he had already been through so much your brother, 16 to go through such a traumatic car accident.

A lot of us have had traumatic car accidents and to walk away sometimes we're like, how do we survive that? But to do that at 16 and basically learned to walk again and that's horrific. And then for this to happen, it's, and your older brother to, to find him. So why I gotta ask you this.

So why did, this is the investigator side of me, right? As when you lose a sibling to a homicide, especially, or when there's unanswered questions too, because a lot of you guys who listen will come and say, Hey, I didn't lose my sibling to a homicide, but there were questionable circumstances and we want to know, right?

It's that side of us. So how did your brother know? Because I guess they were at the restaurant, so [00:13:00] your brother was like, where's Jimmy? Right? And

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: because it was a, again, I wasn't there. I was 14, 15 years old. I had just turned

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: young. Yeah,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: And Maya, like, I'm telling you, but I cannot stress enough how close all of this is. It's literally like every aspect of this is within 1,050 feet maybe of our front door. So they were chased down.

Jimmy was with his friends. One of his other friends was stabbed in the shoulder. These are just bad kids. And if, I would say to them now, like, you chase down a kid that, that couldn't run from you. Like, come on. Like that, it's horrible. So. And our neighborhood was very close knit and very tight knit.

So everybody like this within, minutes, everybody was on the street. Once the once the the incident happened, it's, it's a small neighborhood. Everybody knows what's going on. So somebody ran and got him. And again, I can't speak for my older brother. I can't imagine his, pain for that.

But it was all of their friends, like found out what happened [00:14:00] immediately. And where I was in Long Island at the time, at my aunt's house and while this is happening and my phone rings and my aunt that I lived with was much older and her husband, and there was no reason for the phone to ring, I'll put it that way.

These are people who went to bed at seven o'clock at night. So as soon as the phone rings, I knew something terrible happened and I had a weird feeling that whole day too for some reason. And I hear the phone ring and immediately my aunt comes in the room and is like, you need to go home. You need to get up.

Your cousin's gonna be here in, a minute. And it seemed like five seconds. I jumped out bed, threw on my truck, Taylors my jeans, and, hood sweatshirt and was out the door. And as my aunt closed the door behind me, and I found out later, 20 years later that she didn't want me to be told that in her house.

But that's a whole other story. My cousin Jennifer squeezed my hand and very hard and said, your brother James is stabbed to death tonight.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Oh my God. She told you. [00:15:00] Wow.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: And when I looked up, my oldest sister was living out there as well at my older aunt's house to go to school. And it was her boyfriend at the time who was in the car and jumping into the car and she was hysterical.

And I just couldn't I couldn't, I don't know how to accept it. I couldn't accept it. I said, no, maybe he's in the hospital. Maybe we're driving from Long Island to the Bronx, which is geographically 20 minute drive. But it's all happening so fast. I'm holding my sister and I won't accept that the, this can't be real.

What are you talking about? And, we got into the Bronx pretty quickly and there were a hundred people in my house and just running into the house and my oldest brother grabbing me and holding me. And, all of the friends were there. The neighbors were there, there were detectives in the house like, I was a kid.

This was 15 years old. And seeing so many people in the house, it, it was just this in incredibly hectic scene. Nobody was [00:16:00] crying yet or anything like that. They were, I'm sorry, but just to see this many people in the house. Then it hit me like, oh my God, this is real. And. I was walking around the streets of the neighborhood that same night, like to see what happened or what, and that night in the next couple of days were just unreal. And then I realized after seeing my family and everybody in the house that his girlfriend didn't know, and she was at one of my best friend's houses, which was also a block away overlooking the area where it happened. My best, one of my closest friends, Louis, lived on the fourth floor overlooking the l where it happened and they were all having a sleepover.

And I said, oh my God, she doesn't know. And I walked, this is probably at this point, like three o'clock in the morning, and my friend Louis's mother, Marian, God bless her soul, was such an incredible person. Let me in with five of them in the bedroom sleeping. And she had lost [00:17:00] her brother tragically, I believe, in the seventies.

And I'll always be grateful to her because she sat me down and talked to me. She was the first person who said it's gonna be okay. Like just to comfort me at all, I guess you could say. And I'll always be grateful to her for that. And then I had to knock on the door and tell my friends and my brother's girlfriend that he's dead

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: and,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: It was probably nice to go to that house, not to deliver that information, but what a beautiful soul that she took a moment with you. 'cause you've just, you were just thrust into chaos, right? You're a big family, big community. You show up all these people, like you said, some people are crying, some people are in shock.

Some people like, there's so many different, folks processing in different ways and then you have to go deliver this information. And I think it's wonderful that, she was able to sit you down and say, look, it's gonna be okay. This is really difficult, what you're going through. 'Cause she knew exactly what you were going through.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: No, [00:18:00] she knew. And like it's walking into that room and actually talked to one of my friends who was there about it. There were four or five people in the room there, like, and me walking in and they didn't believe me. And I'm like, what am I doing here? I should be in Long Island right now.

Do you think I'd be here at three o'clock in the morning if this wasn't true? And just, that next couple days of, and this was back, we're talking about Irish Catholic, rituals. This is back when wakes were three days and. All this stuff and multiple wakes throughout the day. And when we walked into the funeral home this was Friday night, Jimmy died.

Saturday was getting everybody together to make the arrangements and everything. Not that again, I was young, so, a lot of back and forth and family members getting people in. And then by Sunday we walked into the funeral home. And the sight of seeing my brother in a casket at 18 years old,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: [00:19:00] because that's the first time you've seen him. Right? Because he was probably whisked off to, yeah. So that I can't, what were you feeling at that moment? You're so young.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: It was the most walking into there. And the first person I saw was and like I said before, like Jimmy, my brother, Brendan, my sisters, every, like, we had the greatest group of friends you could ever imagine around us. Like so much support and people that, were around us and we walked in.

One of my brother, Jimmy's close friends Pete, who unfortunately died the same way, less than a year later, which is horrible, was the first person we saw in there. We walk in and when I saw him laid out like that, I couldn't stay in the room. Like it was horrifying to me to see my brother laid out like that.

Just, and that was, there were again, two or three weeks per day. Hundreds and hundreds of people, elected officials, people coming, like throughout that time, that Sunday, Monday, and the funeral was Tuesday. It was so dizzying. And another crazy part of the story is the funeral home was behind our [00:20:00] house.

Like our funeral director is like family to us to this day. They're family to us. Like Jimmy's window overlooked the funeral home, where he was laid out. So I'm in his room looking back, the only in the Bronx, the way these things are laid out, just like.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Oh my gosh. That's why when you say it's like all within two blocks, you are not kidding. The entire heart

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: my. I looked at

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: of this story is, that's wild.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: everything and then his girlfriend lived next door to the funeral home, like the next door, literally walk out. It's the same building. So I was back and forth a lot. Everybody was on me about, I had an overcoat and I wouldn't take it off, and everyone's like, Michael, take the coat off, whatever.

Like, and I just couldn't stay, I guess you could say. I don't know. And I was there the whole time, just our siblings were, in shock. My parents were in shock, but my parents' strength through all of this was like, now is I'm almost 50. Like, I look back and I can't even imagine, I can't even imagine my [00:21:00] mom's, would say.

He laid under my heart when she referred to her son. And this is more of the happy part of the story later, is how my mother's strength never allowed him to be forgotten. But that immediate couple days, the funeral. Another thing was the day of the funeral, our dear friends, Joe and Denise, who were our funeral director, next door neighbors, like family to us, suggested Denise suggested that my siblings and I write a letter. And we did the day of the morning before the funeral the five of us wrote a letter. And this is a moment that I guess shaped my life for the next 35 years, is that somehow I became the one that was nominated to read it. And there were three priests on the altar, first funeral mass. They all loved him.

He was an altar boy in that church. It was completely full, like hundreds of people there. And I was 15 years old and stood up there and read this letter to my brother from all of us. I don't know how, but it shaped that [00:22:00] moment shaped the rest of my life, I guess you could say. And when I stepped off of the podium there is, when it hit me, like what we were really looking at, his casket was standing there, that we were gonna go to the cemetery.

That this is like, that's when it, that's when it became real. After three dizzying days of, madness, I guess you could say.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: So why were you the one chosen? And it's so interesting because here you are 33 years later and you are the one speaking about this because you have other surviving siblings, right? So it's interesting. So why I have two questions about this. Why were you the one, did you self nominate? Did they nominate you?

And then my other part of the question is too, you mentioned how it's shaped your life for the past, 30, 35 years. So obviously I connect with this. Been life changing for me too. And I connected this too because I was the one that spoke at my brother's celebration of life. So I very much connect with this part of your story.

But so, and I'd love for you to share with us how it has shaped, and I'm sure some of that will come [00:23:00] out later, but if you wanna just share a little bit of

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Yeah, of course. It just I can't remember if I volunteered for it. We were sitting in our living room or somehow, I don't know. I think I've always been the biggest ham in the family, I guess you could say,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: get that vibe from you. I get that vibe from you, Michael. I love it. Yeah,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: But it, I don't know if it was, somehow it was, okay, Michael, you'll do it.

And I got up there. And again, that would, I would say, is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life to get up. And that letter was laminated. My mother had it. In her doorway for the rest of her life. It's still there now. She passed away in 2024. She had the cross that was in his casket. Like my mom never let his memory fade ever.

But that moment of standing up there in the church, it's really sad because when we took my mother back last year for her funeral in the same church that we grew up in, I wrote her eulogy based on her strength, getting us through this for 30 years, that the [00:24:00] worst day of our life was standing here. Even between wakes, she had us in the row in church to stand strong and stand together and they wouldn't let me read it.

I guess things have changed, so I was a little disappointed about that. I was pretty mad actually, but

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Oh, they wouldn't let you read your mother's eulogy

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: not let me read my mother's

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: How interesting. Okay. Interesting.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: so I'm, this priest didn't know us, which is crazy because we were in. That church forever. When we were younger, we grew up there, but it was supposed to be a full circle moment.

The kid who was 15 years old coming back to say, Hey, mom's strength is what got us through 30 years to stand here with her seven grandchildren in front of her on the worst day of our lives. And she was right, her faith was right. And I'm trying to remember the second part of the question, how it shaped things.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah. How it's shaped you've

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: So I just became, a performer later in life. Someone who wanted to chase my dreams. And I lived a lot of my dreams out and [00:25:00] things that, I used to wanna do when I was a kid. And a big part of that was also the incredible friends I've had my entire life, like the guys and girls around me for those rough years, if I can get in front of the church at my brother's funeral in front of hundreds of people, I can go in front of a crowd that's mad at me and with a microphone in my hand. Like that was what shaped, when those times came, when my dad passed 25 years ago, I read in the church again.

Things like that. It's just, we each have a role in the family, like that's how I look at it. And my role was to be the one who, like we're doing right now, talk about it. Like, I love talking about Jimmy's life because I never want his memory to fade. And I was looking at videos you posted the other day about people saying, oh, it's been so many years.

Like, so what? We're never gonna stop talking about our sibling. Like, are you crazy? Like, I'll never, I'll tell stories about Jimmy for the rest of my life. And when I see my nieces and nephews who remind us of them, of him, one of my nephews looks a lot like him, which [00:26:00] is, great. You know what I mean?

But it's also their personalities and. The whole reason I'm sitting here talking to you and I'm so happy is because this is what it's about. Not letting the memory of your sibling die. Like, and it's all at different stages. But to answer your question, standing up in that church in front of everybody I've ever met in my entire life and reading that was like one of the most pivotal moments of my life.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah. Of course it was, and I really wanted to dial into that in your story, Michael, because I think. We've had many people on the show that have lost a sibling. As a child, you were a child when you lost your brother, and he was a child too. 18 is a child, I'm like anything south of 25 these days, I'm like, that's a child.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: How young he was, like, his life hadn't even begun yet.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Right. Exactly. And, I think I just wanna highlight that because I have so many people as that are like, I lost my sibling at this age and a [00:27:00] young age. And it shapes you when you lose someone that young. For me, I was 30. Right. And I, it's still young, I had my life, he was starting to have his life in his twenties.

So it, there are differences, I don't believe in like comparing, this is harder or this is, no, it's all hard. Right. But there are different aspects to it and that's why it's so important that we share these different stories. But losing when you're that. Young, right. It's, it is going to shape your life.

And I think it's really inspiring that, that was a big moment. It was a hard moment for you, but it's also helped you shape so many positive things in your life. I think that's very inspirational for anyone who's listening to this. It's inspiring to me and I think whenever we go through something difficult like this, I think it's good to look at things that way and understand how it's shaped us.

But, and also to go back to what you were saying too. Yeah, I get this all the time. People are always talking to me about you guys listen. Yeah. People are [00:28:00] wondering why I still talk about my sibling and I'm like, I'm nine years into this and I'm not stopping anytime soon. Absolutely. I think, look, I'm sure you feel the same way, Michael.

Like, it was a wonderful thing for you to have Jimmy. It was a wonderful thing for me to have my brother and, i'm gonna talk about 'em and my nephews are gonna know about him. My if I ever have children, they'll know about him. Like I'm gonna keep talking about him. And you're gonna keep talking about Jimmy, which is super, super important.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Absolutely. And I'm I'm so sorry for your loss too. And also, there's also a thing too that, like murder has, my mom would always say like, murder has an edge to it. Like we lose people in different ways, but there's a, there's an edge to it that you can't, you can't understand.

Somebody can't just walk up to you and say, oh, I know how you feel. Like, no, you don't. Like, it's not a, but keeping the memory alive is the most important thing. That's another thing I was gonna tell you too, is like, within a week of Jimmy's death, we had, again, within a half a block of our house his friends and actually a great friend of [00:29:00] ours named Charlie Echo that was his graffiti name.

Gag. There was a huge full wall memorial. Jimmy's nickname was Jimmy Taz. So there was a full, memorial wall in memory of James Tobin with a giant Tasmanian devil that was on a wall for five years. Nobody ever disrespected it. That's another Bronx thing. You would never dare to do that. That was there until the weather got it.

Like we had constant reminders, like he had two tribute walls up within like weeks of his death because that's how much people loved him. And that one that was around the corner from our house was there for many years. Another incredible reminder was the L pillars where, you know, where he lived, where he died, where he crashed into.

He had been tagging those L pillars like months before he died. So there were Taz tags on like one, two, like literally on his route home. Those tags were on those pillars until 2007. He died in 1992.[00:30:00] 

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Wow. That's so cool.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: reminders. Like he was really here, of course it's vandalism, but who cares? Like that's what we did in the Bronx in the eighties.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: it's all good. That's not, we're not gonna, get

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: I'm joking. It's funny. That was the world that we grew up in, so I'm so happy that they were there. Like literally, it was hard though. It's constant reminders too, that this happened and that, nothing was ever gonna make it right. But just seeing those tags and they were there and right before they were gone, my, one of my closest friends, my friend Steve, brought out his good camera and we got great pictures of them.

The MTA finally repainted those pillars in 2007, but I'm so grateful that we were able to get the pictures of them. And again, there's just constant reminders. And to this day, you never let their memory fade and. Like I said before, we don't have, my family was six kids. We didn't have a camcorder.

Right. You know what I mean? It's not like now where you have phones for everything. I always say make the memories. I tell people that are my friends, how much I love them. Even one of my [00:31:00] boys, like, I spent 20 years in the wrestling business with my friends, like on the road and this and that.

Love you brother. Like, you have to tell people how you feel about them. That's just, that's how I feel about it.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: I agree. I agree with you completely. It's, it makes life just all that much more precious, I think, when you've gone through something like that. And I love your mom. I'm so sorry you lost your mom last year, but,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: God. Thank you.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: I love your mom. It sounds like her and I would've got along very well. But I love what she says, how murder has an edge because it does.

And we have so many siblings who listen to the show. Because they've lost their sibling to homicide, and some of them are actively you guys listening, this will connect with you. I'm sure some of them are actively going through the core process. Some of them are still without answers. They're all over the place, which we can both connect with.

So I wanna go into that, Michael, because you started to touch on it a little bit, but, so as we know, right, when the dust settles and, family starts to go back to life as it was, you're still left with an open case [00:32:00] and a unsolved crime because this is, this is the part of homicide and murder.

If you've been through it, it's, you don't get like a period at the end after, everyone starts, the wake is done, the funeral's done, celebration of life, whatever you decide to do, right? But in your case, wake funeral Catholic background. This continues on because there's no answers.

And so tell us a little bit about what that was like and, were there any leads in this, because there was such a tight-knit community, did you guys hear, what was the outcome?

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: So as we sit here now, Maya, 33 years later the case is still unsolved. It's not like tv,

It's not like TV where they solve it in a half an hour plus commercials or anything like that. Real life things are, like you said, it's a tight-knit community. Like that's the hardest part is the living with that for 30 years [00:33:00] of like, hey, this is never gonna be resolved. And my mom, I'm so, thank you for bringing up my mom. Like her, I'm looking right now at Jimmy's picture with a necklace that wrapped around it, which was my mom's miraculous medal that she wore, which is really mine that I got when I was 13 years old. And she wore it for 30 years until the day she passed away.

And she gave it back to me. Her life and her strength was unmeasurable and her whole message for the last three days. She fought lung cancer for 15 years and beat it for a very long time. Keep our family together and having to accept that, you know what, this is not gonna be solved. It's not, that's not the world that we live in.

And like, I'll get into it later, turning the corner on that. But she would say, I would rather be James. This is another thing where that Catholic faith and strength that she had was not the same I did. She said I'd rather be James's mother than the mother of the people who killed him.

And I hope that my son is waiting for them. When they pass away. Like that's where [00:34:00] me, I had the anger for 30 years. The hatred for it, like my mom's faith was legit. The real thing. Like she was, her goal was to protect her other five children. She was told you have five other kids and these people are out there.

Like, it's not like, so, and she did it. She protected her other five kids. We all have our own journey of it, our own version of it. But like that doesn't go away. Like I'm sure you feel, like you feel after all these years and you have unanswered questions and you never know the truth or, and there, sorry, kicked something there.

There comes a point and for me it was with a lot of help. Like I said, there were so many incredible friends. Like I have friends that those first couple of years and there were turning points I can get into. I turned things around, but it was probably about two years ago finally, and I've been working with my great friend Chris Page for over a decade who's, worked with me, he's just an incredible friend, therapist, and great guy.[00:35:00] 

On turning that corner where about two years ago, I finally said, it's been 30 years. Like he does not want us to hold onto this hatred anymore. I want to think about how he lived and not how he died.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: I think that's in very inspiring, Michael and I wanna definitely. Talk about this. 'cause 30 years, that's, what a milestone, right? And but it's interesting because so many people, as I'm sure you've seen, 'cause you've been following on social and stuff and we've been connecting, but people will say to me all the time, they're like, when am I gonna get over this?

When am I gonna move on from this? I can't give you that timeline because your timeline is your own. And so I really appreciate you being so raw and open with us about that. Because for me, you're right. You asked, you said earlier, like, you experienced that too, right? I'm never gonna know all the answers.

I'm never gonna know everything. And I really connect with your mom a lot on this too. I feel like she's with us a little bit on this episode. Love

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: I am looking [00:36:00] at her necklace right

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: and she, you know what it is too, Maya is like, she wanted to, she would be happy to talk about him. She would another, and I'm having all these beautiful memories of my mom here and I feel like she's sitting here with me too. She would not refer to, I had five children.

I have six children. She never referred to him as being gone. Not in denial, but literally like, she would not sweep him under the rug. She would not, she would talk about my baby James that laid under my heart. She would tell stories about him, and that's her strength. Like, we don't have the footage, we don't have the audio.

I have memories and my heart. And that all that strength came from my mom. And I feel like she's sitting here with us too, because it's not easy for people to talk about.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: No, it's

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: And you should never have that. When you gonna get over it? When I'm dead, I'll get over it. I'm not gonna get over it.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Right. No. Okay. We're done. That's it. Final words. No. But yeah, honestly I think, but I think it's so valuable and insightful for people to hear this from your perspective, because [00:37:00] at 30 years you were like, look, thir 32, 33 you're sitting here going, I'm never like, when I'm.

Dead, I'll get over it. Right. Because, but at 30 years I love that you're sharing that you turned this kind of corner and you were like, you know what? He doesn't want me to feel this way. And I think it's, I think it's really important that people understand that there's a moment that's different for everyone.

And for me it took me several years and I still struggle with it because I'm only nine years into this. Right. So I feel like a baby compared to you on the grief journey. Right. And so, but it was a moment when I put out this show where I connect with what you're saying about the 30 years. So it was five years for me, but I don't feel like I probably feel it as strongly as you do at thir 30 years.

Right. Where I'm like, I have to. But I realized, I'm like, no one else in my family is carrying it the way that I'm carrying it. That's okay. That was a moment too for me. I was like, that's okay. They're doing their own journey. Maybe they will at 20 years or 10 years or wherever, [00:38:00] have their own turning point.

It's not about them anymore, it's about me and what do I wanna do in honor of my brother and myself and so I really connect with that. But I think it's really awesome that you had that moment for yourself. But it's also okay that we do grieve them. Like I love that

Sides of it, right?

Like I think that's

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Absolutely. When I'm in New York, I make sure to go pay my respects to my brother, my mom and my dad. When we went back last year. To, bury my mom with, bringing her back. She had been in Florida for 20 years, like it brings it all back, but another huge turning point there is like, for all those years, for 30 years, April 4th, the day he died was horrible for us. Like you relive it all, you think about it all. And then my mom passed away on, on in March of 2024. And we, I can't speak for anybody else, but the sense of there were pictures of my dad, my brother, everybody in the room knowing that they were reunited, and I know in [00:39:00] my heart, like, like that April 4th, 2024, like was another huge turning point of like, they're together again. We had mama for another 30 years, but they're reunited. And, but the big thing is letting go of and not letting go. We never forget what happened is horrible. Again, I'll say it earlier, I'm gonna say it again.

To those who did that, you chased down a kid who couldn't run from you, like a block away from his house. There's no like forgetting that or anything like that. But to carry that hatred around for so many years, which affected every aspect of my life, and you don't forget to be able to turn that corner in 2023 or 24, 20.

It's like, I can't describe, and that's why I'm here talking to you is like for those other people out there that it's never gonna be gone, but it can get better, and if you have the right people around you and support and like, I always say, like you said, when everything's over and [00:40:00] the masses are over and the celebrations of life and all that stuff, it's six months later when you need to call somebody

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yes. Thank you for saying that, Michael. Yes, I agree

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: a year later, Hey, you doing okay? And we still, like I right now, I don't like, we lost my three-year-old goddaughter a year ago.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Thank you very much. But it's just like walking that walk with my best friend and his wife and like, all you can, we talk every day. We talk every day. Like for the past year.

Like it's one of those things like if you know someone who's going through it who lost their sibling or anybody else, it's, when everything is happening. Okay, of course. But six months later, a year later, check in on them.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Be that person that calls when everybody stop calling. Yeah.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Exactly. And it doesn't, like even years later, like, Hey, how you doing? You doing okay?

I try to be a good friend like that.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: It will mean as it means the world [00:41:00] to people. They're like, how do you even remember how I went through this? That's how I remember. I know because I've been through it and I will never forget the people that still call me on my brother's birthday on the death. Never forget them.

Never forget them, and it's not always the people you expect.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: A hundred percent. And another, thing again our neighborhood and our friends are so close knit that first couple years and we're in that first couple years, that first five years. One of my best friends, my friend Dana, who like lived around the corner from me, we've been friends since we're 13 years old. were those first couple of Christmases where we couldn't, we were horrified. We couldn't celebrate anything and her family would have me over a big Italian Christmas Eve every year, and the, until from 92 when Jimmy got killed to the birth of, and this is a beautiful, such a beautiful thing.

The birth of my niece, Chila, and my nephew James, in October of 95 and March of 1996 [00:42:00] changed everything for us. The birth of the kids and having that, bringing us together and, they were the greatest gifts in the world, and then the rest of my nieces and nephews afterwards. But those years in between where we couldn't celebrate, like I'll never, all of my friends, all of my friends for all those years who pulled me out of every bad situation I was ever in, in those bad years.

And, friendship is the most valuable thing in the world. And nobody is luckier than I am to have incredible friends around me my whole life.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah. I think it's interesting. You're not the only person this season to bring up Ha. Like having children as like a light in the family. So it's interesting because every season we have some similar themes that come through. So it's, I'm always smiling 'cause I'm like, okay, I feel like it's our loved ones being with us, guiding things.

But it's interesting because I feel very similar. My one of my nephews I'm quite close with and he has the same name as my brother. And so I do not feel like that's by mistake. And I definitely have felt like a [00:43:00] lighter, more connected feeling. Right. And there's a joy that's in that. So it's interesting.

I wanna ask you this Michael as we're moving through the story, how have you, and this is something I went through personally, but so many of you guys who listen, go through this as well. If you've flossed a sibling to homicide. Or you've lost a sibling in another way and there's unanswered questions.

How have you dealt with that over the years? Like you shared with us about how you finally were able to release that and then also with your mother's passing, like they're together again. And I get that because of your religious and spiritual beliefs. Totally. But there's been 30 years where, was this case investigated and it was just like, because it was in the early nineties, like there's not, there's not the kind of, it, look, there's just not the kind of investigative stuff, right?

Like research and things like that. Then, even now, 10 years later, after my brother's homicide, right? Things are always progressing so fast and there's also things that happen, right? Like where it makes it very difficult to solve a case. Like that's, we could do a whole episode on that, [00:44:00] Michael, right?

It's like a whole other thing. But how did that look for you? So like, was there an investigation or was just, it's, it's open, right? So I guess if

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Exactly to this day there. Of course there was back then I'm sure afterwards. And, but when you get to like the 10, 15 year, there's actually, and nothing happens, and a certain point you stop holding your breath that it will happen, and that's, yeah, it was, but nothing literally, no.

It didn't, nobody was ever technically like held responsible or anything like that. I know they tried for a long time and at different points in the 30 years, but it just was not, never technically resolved. And it's, also, and again, there were a lot of people in those cars, 

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: which makes it even more complicated, which is I is similar to my brother's story too. It was very difficult to pinpoint. I know now, as you guys know from my story, I know now, but that was through years of people giving little information here, and then it becomes so diluted. So I'm sure it was very [00:45:00] similar in your situation because the community, I'm sure there was a lot of rumblings and talk about

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Of

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: it might be and like Yeah.

Yeah. I've figured.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: And again, like when I look at it now, how stupid it all is, like one neighborhood, a few blocks over or here and there, like somebody died for that. You know what I mean? It's like now when you look back at it 30 years later, like, it's so stupid. But it's also, that was the world that we grew up in, like, and another part of that is that people, don't talk about stuff and that's how it goes.

So, yeah, it was a, they, it just never, it never panned out, and I stopped, holding my breath about that a long time ago. But, but that is very frustrating for many years and for my mom, my dad passed about 25 years ago, more for her than anybody else. I would've loved to have been, for there to have been some type of closure, but there really is no such thing as closure.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: That's the title of one of my episodes. That

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: I know, [00:46:00] right?

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: is the most, it was one of the most freeing things to have somebody tell me that and the new detective that I had found that I got on the case. I'll never forget him telling me that, Michael, he was like, Maya, can I tell you something? After I, we got all the information, we found out who really did it, and there's, all these laws around stuff.

And he's like, Maya, lemme tell you something. He's like, I've been doing this 25 years. I've delivered the information I've prosecuted. Like, there is no closure. That was when I started the show. 'cause that was life changing for

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: yeah, of course.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: to be given. Like, I still get chills whenever I talk about this with someone because it was, you get it and you guys listening might be at a point where it clicks for you.

It might not click for you until a week later. It might not click for you until a year later. It might not click for you until 10 years later. But there's no such thing as closure because Michael, you're never gonna know exactly what happened that day. I'm never gonna know exactly what happened that day.

And so, just like, I don't really believe in justice either because it won't bring our brothers back and that's a hard thing to learn to,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: [00:47:00] Yeah.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: but what advice

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: earlier, it's not like tv.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Right. It's not like tv, but I'm curious because you have so much more time under your belt with this, and I feel like that doesn't make it easier, but it does give us more perspective.

Right. And I say that all the time, like time doesn't heal all wounds, but time does allow us to heal and process and be more, more knowledgeable about the process. But I would love your kind of advice to those of us who are listening that get stuck, right? So get stuck in the I want justice or I need closure.

I need like, what perspective would you give on this, Michael? Because it's been a journey for you too. Like, 'cause I feel like sometimes we get stuck in that. I did. I

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: yeah, a hundred percent.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: But I

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: still happens sometimes. I would say that, it's okay that it happens, like I would, that was like, I had a hard time going to church for years. 'cause I'm sitting there going, I'm sitting there praying when I have this like, hatred for these people who did this.

And, this frustration of, it's never, it's never gonna be resolved. It's still out there. [00:48:00] These people are still out there. Like all these things. I would say that, it's okay to feel that way, but it's also's. I hate to say it, but a very real possibility that's never that what you are looking for is never gonna happen.

And you have to find a way to unfortunately either accept that or, learn to, like again, for me, it took literally 30 years to turn that corner to go, oh my God, I need to focus on how he lived and not how he died. He does not want us to feel that way, like, because it's so dark and it's so, like, my God, he was laying in the street a block away from our house.

And at a certain point that's not what it's about anymore. You have to, before there's no memory left, you have to focus on the time you did have. Again, like we said earlier, murder has an edge and unfortunately it doesn't go away. And I would just say, I would hope for those people to find some kind of comfort in.

Their loved ones around them and work through it, because I'm still working through [00:49:00] it every day. And it's 33 years later.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: And

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Like, I look at his picture and I'm like, man, like, so stupid. Like, it didn't have to happen. Like he was a great kid who, like everybody loved. And I think about what he would've looked like now, what he would be like now, what do you know?

Like, and the anger comes back sometimes, but also I would say to anybody, it's just, it's a nonstop journey in that aspect.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: I think that's great. Yeah. I agree. And people ask me all the time too, they're like you're not angry about it anymore. I'm like, I never said that. It doesn't control me anymore or rule my entire experience. It doesn't mean that emotion doesn't come up or that I don't feel, of course it does.

Of course. Like my, I have a sibling who she's about to have another child, like, he's gonna miss that. Right? Like, there's things like the, it's okay. It's normal. And I think that was a big part of it too. So I'm really glad you, you tapped into that because it's, I think we want to just know, like, we're never gonna feel that again.

We're human. We're gonna feel those emotions again.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: [00:50:00] Of course.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: It's not about that. It's about whether or not this is consuming us and taking over our life, which in the early years, like it's normal and that's okay, but how do we shift that? So I think that's, yeah, I think that's really, thanks for sharing that because I think it's just, it's so insightful and so helpful.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: It took 30 years to turn that corner. Believe

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: but here

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: know, it's.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah. Yeah. It, yeah. No, it's, but it's good. It's very good. So Michael couple things I wanna ask you before we close out. So tell us a little bit about where. So, family dynamics I is so fascinating because in our community, our Facebook group, our Patreon group our monthly group, our people that come to our summit, that is actually the number one thing.

They're wanting more information on these days, which I understand, but. You have such a big family. I'm curious how this loss of your dear brother Jimmy, how did it shift your family dynamics? Because I think you have a little bit of a unique [00:51:00] scenario here because it seems like your family was close prior.

Of course, you're Irish Catholic. That's your tight knit, but your mother was able to really dial this in and say, you guys are important. It's important. We're the nuclear unit. This, we're gonna stay close. And I had a wonderful guest on my show in the second season the first season I started interviewing folks and she explained to me what a grief bubble was.

'cause I didn't experience that. 'cause my family dynamics were very very complicated. And I found that the loss put a magnifying glass on that. And I feel like it does it both ways, whether it's dysfunctional or if it's functional. And if it's functional and you've got someone incredible, like your mother and the family that is like, we're gonna, I have faith.

Like she had strong faith, she had strong family values. It, this grief bubble is creating the bubble around the family so that you guys can grieve together and create this. And I'm feeling like that's what happened in your family. But I'm curious if you could share a little bit about the family dynamics and [00:52:00] also how have your other siblings, of course it's their story to tell, but how have they grieved and has it been differently from you?

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Yeah. Like would there, we're all different. It's, i'm the one who's most comfortable speaking about it, openly or again, my, with my mom we talked about it a lot. Everybody has a different, like, I can't compare, I can't imagine what my brother and my sister went through seeing what happened.

They literally saw what happened. My older sister and I were in the journey together from Long Island to the Bronx after that. My youngest brother is, was very young at the time, maybe 12 years old. So, he was really a young kid. It's we just, my and I, again, even until last year, my mom's last words to all of us over and over again were, stay together.

That's what got us all through it. So they, we do talk about it more now than we used to. Back then. It was a totally different, there was a great group that's still in existence called Parents and Murdered Children that had vocal, it's a national organization

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Yeah, I'm very

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: local [00:53:00] Yeah.

Meetings there. And when it first happened, we would go there. There was a hospital in the Bronx that had facilitated the meetings. They actually had invited me in 1993 when I was 16 to speak at Hunter College at some lecture or something about it. And I, again, I'm the one gets nominated to do that, but we didn't stay with them very long, so everybody, my siblings and I all went our own way with, and again, it's different comfort levels.

I'm more comfortable talking about it than maybe my brother or my younger brother, or again, I was also very young when it happened too. So there's things that I don't know, I'm sure everybody dealt with it differently, but while staying together at the same time, like there's no, we're tight enough where.

If anybody's ever needed, we're there immediately. There's not. But I guess everybody's journey is different. We don't talk about it as much as, you would think we would. [00:54:00] But there's also beautiful things too where my sister's daughter, who was the first, my niece, Jolene, who was the first kid born in my family, just got married in May in Lisbon, Portugal.

And it was one of the most beautiful weddings I've ever been to. And when we walked into this venue, we looked down and the chair was in the front with the cloth on it. Mama, dad, who was my father, uncle Jimmy. And my nephew's two grandmothers, like we keep him with us wherever we are. And when I saw that tribute, that chair, I lost it.

So, my siblings are more comfortable now. We do talk about it. 'cause we're never gonna let him be forgotten. I'm just a little more comfortable speaking about it than maybe the rest of them. But, they all have their families around them, which is beautiful. And we have seven nieces and nephews and they like, we see Jimmy in them all the time.

That's the beautiful thing for me. I don't have my own children yet, but I see my brother alive in my nieces and [00:55:00] nephews and that's such a gift.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: It is such a gift and yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think it's something I talk about a lot because in my journey I have a different experience than you, like our family was. Dysfunctional. And there was different dynamics and I was very angry at everybody grieving it in different ways. I wanted everybody to be like me, be like the spokesperson, the advocate.

And I tell my story from a cautionary tale now I'm like, you can't expect people to be that way. And it does not mean that they're not grieving. And so I think it's really beautiful. I think that's a big testament to your mom too, that she was like, you guys stay together. Like you stay together, you're a unit.

I think it's, that's really amazing. Thanks for sharing that with us,

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: yeah, of course.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Anything else I haven't asked you that you wanna share in the episode before we talk about where people can find you?

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Yeah, of course. Two, like recent, there's these great opportunities that come up to, talk about Jimmy or [00:56:00] celebrate him. So last year, Charlie Echo hadn't spoken to her three 30 years, who did the original tribute wall to Jimmy, around the corner from our house. Called me up after 30 years and then spoken to him.

He's like, Hey, Mike. My brother's mentor, Pauly Zoom. They found this incredible archive of all this graffiti that he did in the eighties. He died in 1989 and Charlie's his best friend and found this incredible pictures, negatives, all these, this beautiful. Resource of all this material.

And he said, I want you to write something about your brother, and I want you to send me pictures. And so this is a 300 page book, and Jimmy got six pages in it with a little piece about him, about the tribute walls, about the pillar. The funny part is that Charlie thought I was my brother Brendan in the picture, and he put his name in it.

But just so amazing to have that opportunity to, tell Jimmy's story in that format that he loved so much for a person [00:57:00] in a book that's about his mentor, who absolutely he loved and and admired. And then when we were at my niece's wedding in May, my wife Jessica and I went on vacation afterwards and we were in Barcelona.

And one thing I loved about Europe was the graffiti scene is so big over there that it felt like I was home. Like I was back in the eighties and we were walking to the Seg Familia, the basilica. And there's this graffiti shop. And I was like, come on, we gotta go in. And I'm also a big Keith Herring fan and everything.

And my wife translated for me and said, his brother was a, graffiti writer and he passed away many years ago and this and that. And they were like, put his name in the book. And we took out the black book like the writers used to trade and in memory of Jimmy Taz Tobin, I wrote it like he did on the Pillar Bronx, New York, 1974 to 1992 and closed it.

And I said his tag is in Spain now. He's international.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: I love that. How cool.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: it's really cool. Like [00:58:00] just a beautiful opportunity there. And then one other thing I would love to share with you is I, like I love art. Like I was talking about being a big Keith Harry fan and I had a dream like less than a year ago.

I don't have a lot of Jimmy Stings. I don't have, but I have a few. And I had this dream that, art is in the eye of the beholder and I forgot that I have. A piece of paper that Jimmy wrote on with his football picks. 'cause another thing about the Bronx is you would, pick your pick your picks for the games on Sunday.

And it is in his handwriting, week 9, 19 91 of all his picks for that week in his beautiful, unique style, which I have right here. And it's got a spray paint on it and it's in a floating frame. I don't know if you could see it there, but he had the best handwriting out of all six of us. And I just put it in a floating frame and it's in my house now.

And I just hadn't forgotten I had it until until I had that dream. So I know he's there. I know he's always there.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: That is so cool. He was like, Hey bro, you have this. Here you go. I [00:59:00] love that.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Yeah. Yeah.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Michael, thank you so much for sharing Jimmy with us and your family. And I also feel like you shared your mom with us today too, which is just a bonus. Right? That's so awesome. Tell me where folks can connect with you.

Where are you comfortable? What's is it email, is it social? What's the best

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Yeah, I'm on. I'm, I have the same name across the platforms, Michael Tobin, bx, and, I'm, I love to share things about passions like that. That's what this, if I'm passionate about something, when I was younger, it was about wrestling, chasing my dreams. Now it's about, seeing things.

I wanna see, like the Keith Haring murals I saw four or five in the last year. Things like that. Like, I'm out there, Michael Tobin, bx, and that's how we met. And I'm so grateful that that you had me on to talk about my brother because his, it doesn't matter if you don't have audio or video.

You have the love that never dies and you keep their memory alive. To everybody, and if anybody ever needs to talk to me, I'm here. And thank you Maya, for giving me the opportunity [01:00:00] to share his story.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: Oh it's my pleasure. And we will we'll tag those in the show notes so people can reach out to you and I appreciate you doing that. That's very generous of you and thanks for being here, Michael.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin View: Thank you.

SS Season 8, Episode 4- Michael Tobin Maya View: And thank you guys so much for listening to the Surviving Siblings podcast. I.