Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is buried Bones.
Speaker 3: Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you today?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. I wanted to ask you a question
Speaker 1: because you know, you and I come from backgrounds where
Speaker 1: sometimes people don't like us for what we do for
Speaker 1: a living. Sometimes people don't like journalists, and sometimes people
Speaker 1: don't like you know, a law enforcement even like the
Speaker 1: forensic community. Do you think it has made you a
Speaker 1: more cautious, paranoid anything like that, like too much over
Speaker 1: the top. Do you feel like you look over your
Speaker 1: shoulder every once in a while. Have you ever felt
Speaker 1: like that in your career.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 2: In fact, there's a couple of times in my career
Speaker 2: in which I received death threats. What the very first time,
Speaker 2: which is when I first started, I was just a
Speaker 2: civilian toxicologist and I testified against a guy. I think
Speaker 2: it was a manufacturing a drugs charge and he was
Speaker 2: a bad guy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: He ended up being sentenced and put in Pelican Bay
Speaker 2: in California, which is, you know, for the hardest of
Speaker 2: the hardened criminals out there. And then I get my
Speaker 2: boss coming up to me handing me a form saying
Speaker 2: you need to get DMV confidentiality because she had just
Speaker 2: been notified that the guy had threatened to kill the
Speaker 2: chemists that had testified against him. And I was like,
Speaker 2: what what am I getting myself into here?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And then I had an online sleuth type on Golden
Speaker 2: State Killer kind of want to do me harm?
Speaker 1: So over the Golden State Killer.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's several other individuals out there that probably have
Speaker 2: some mental health aspects going on that aren't fans of mine,
Speaker 2: So you know, you do become a little bit more cautious,
Speaker 2: a little bit more paranoid. Fortunately, especially towards the end
Speaker 2: of my career, I had access to resources at the
Speaker 2: federal level that could be deployed if there was a need.
Speaker 1: Well that was very cryptic, and I know as men
Speaker 1: as a scare tactic, but congratulations, I think you did it.
Speaker 3: Let's see.
Speaker 2: You know, there is a what do you want to
Speaker 2: call it? There is possibility do sort of a whack
Speaker 2: of moole aspect.
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go. I tell my journalism students all
Speaker 1: the time. You know, this is a fantastic profession to
Speaker 1: be in, and you are doing so much good. If
Speaker 1: you are a responsible journalist, a good person who wants
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. They're in this business to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. To inform the public. It is dangerous.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, we are in the public and what
Speaker 1: you've done is dangerous too. When you particularly when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with other people's lives and their freedom and everything,
Speaker 1: you are in the public eye and you run some
Speaker 1: pretty big risks. And so I always say, you'll have
Speaker 1: to really think about that. You know, this is something
Speaker 1: that you want to do, because you're going to piss
Speaker 1: people off generally in this business.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, at any time when you're affecting somebody's emotions,
Speaker 2: their livelihood, and sometimes it's just the receiver's perception of
Speaker 2: who you are and what you're doing, particularly when it's
Speaker 2: you know, kind of from afar. It does elevate the
Speaker 2: risk just because you know, ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 2: people out there are good people, but the one percent
Speaker 2: out there is what you have to be concerned about,
Speaker 2: and the point one percent are straight out dangerous. So
Speaker 2: you know, it's just something that in these types of
Speaker 2: professions you kind of have to accept that these are
Speaker 2: the risks. It's sort of that risk versus reward aspect.
Speaker 2: You know, pursue your passion, do what you love, but
Speaker 2: getting into these fields you most certainly just be aware of,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the aspects.
Speaker 1: Well, the main person we're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: in our episode today is an investigative journalist. He was
Speaker 1: a reporter for the Arizona Republic. He was investigating had
Speaker 1: been investigating for years corruption and organized crime in Arizona,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a terrifying beat to be on. He
Speaker 1: was really really good that I will say, just as
Speaker 1: a preview, put him in some pretty dangerous situations. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the murder weapon that we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about has never been a weapon we've talked about before.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Well let's go ahead and set the scene.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy six. I was born two years earlier. I
Speaker 1: was the prospery two year old when this story took place.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do the math. How old were
Speaker 1: you in seventy six?
Speaker 2: I was eight years old. I was living outside of Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. I can remember the bi centennial. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: I distinctly remember nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm thrilled to be doing a story in which
Speaker 1: I was born in this time period. I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that we're going to the seventies. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: as I said, we are in Phoenix, Arizona. It's June second,
Speaker 1: and the main person at the center of the story
Speaker 1: is a guy named Don Bowles, and he's forty seven.
Speaker 1: He's an investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, great newspaper.
Speaker 1: He is very hard working. He has lots of sources,
Speaker 1: really deep sources for all kinds of corruption, mafia. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's really digging around for a lot of different bits
Speaker 1: of information and I think that he is concerned that
Speaker 1: he could possibly be in danger at some point, but
Speaker 1: he's a long term reporter and people like that, the
Speaker 1: investigative journalists, I know, they put their job above their
Speaker 1: own safety. I mean clearly, if you are a reporter
Speaker 1: who is digging into mafia ties and government corruption, you
Speaker 1: know you are dealing with dangerous people. And he very
Speaker 1: strong felt that this was his calling and he wanted
Speaker 1: to help protect the people of Arizona and this was
Speaker 1: his way to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I've got to think there's got
Speaker 2: to be for someone like him. In addition to you know,
Speaker 2: the fear of the people you might be pissing off,
Speaker 2: is there's an adrenaline rush as well, you know, and
Speaker 2: I think that that's just part of that personality. Not
Speaker 2: only is you know, the fact finding and informing the public,
Speaker 2: but I think people who get into that line of
Speaker 2: work truly enjoy, you know, sort of the discovery of
Speaker 2: the information that somebody else is trying to suppress or
Speaker 2: cover up or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, what's interesting about Dawn And I don't know
Speaker 1: if this was his age, if he got tired of
Speaker 1: this beat or what, but he decided he wanted to
Speaker 1: switch up concentrations. So very very recently he decided he
Speaker 1: wanted to move to more day to day state politics.
Speaker 1: There is in the state politics, and he actually had
Speaker 1: a desk in the press room at the Arizona State Legislature.
Speaker 1: I would think good move for Dawn because it keeps
Speaker 1: him out of the crosshairs of danger. You would think
Speaker 1: getting away from the organized crime and mafia aspect of
Speaker 1: it kind of bad news for us because it's going
Speaker 1: to open up his circle even wider, because he's now
Speaker 1: covering all sorts of contentious subjects and people who you know,
Speaker 1: are doing really lazy things, and his job is to
Speaker 1: dig up the dirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, obviously something bad happens to don.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unfortunately. So on June second, he leaves his desk
Speaker 1: for a meeting with a source at the Hotel Clarendon
Speaker 1: in downtown Phoenix. You know, he is a reliable guy.
Speaker 1: He's married to a woman named Rosalie. It's the second
Speaker 1: marriage for both of them. Between the two of them,
Speaker 1: they have seven children, four from his previous marriage, two
Speaker 1: from hers, and then they have one together. He's a
Speaker 1: family man, seems to be a great guy. So eleven
Speaker 1: fifteen am on this June second, he goes to the hotel.
Speaker 1: He waits in the lobby for a little bit and
Speaker 1: then a receptionist calls him to the front desk. He
Speaker 1: talks on the phone to someone there for about two minutes.
Speaker 1: She said I have no idea who he was talking to,
Speaker 1: but that she could tell from his end of the
Speaker 1: conversation that this meeting with the source was being postponed.
Speaker 1: He told the other person on the line to just
Speaker 1: come down to the State House. You know, he has
Speaker 1: that desk at the State House, and that was it.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like it was a meeting involving his
Speaker 1: politics beat, not his former mafia you know, corruption beat.
Speaker 1: So now this timeline is important. He's in the hotel
Speaker 1: for a total of fifteen minutes, so he's parked his car,
Speaker 1: He goes to the hotel, he comes back out, he
Speaker 1: gets back to his car, which is parked in the
Speaker 1: hotel's parking lot. Now we took about witnesses to what's
Speaker 1: about to happen. There's a guy named Lan Reid. He's
Speaker 1: on a ladder and he's working on an HVAC system
Speaker 1: in a neighborhood building at eleven thirty, so fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: later from when Dawn had entered the hotel lawn. Here's
Speaker 1: a massive explosion, and it is powerful enough to shake
Speaker 1: the entire building he's working on in this HVAC system.
Speaker 1: He climbs down from you know, whatever floor he's on.
Speaker 1: He walks outside and he sees the direction the noise
Speaker 1: came from a massive plume of white smoke. It's coming
Speaker 1: from the parking lot of the hotel. He hears a
Speaker 1: man screaming, and he and other workers start running. Now
Speaker 1: I can pause, or I can tell you what more
Speaker 1: I know. I told you we've never talked about this weapon.
Speaker 1: We haven't had a car explosion before. I don't think, no,
Speaker 1: we haven't.
Speaker 3: I in my career did not have a bombing.
Speaker 2: I reviewed a case that had happened in my jurisdiction
Speaker 2: like a couple of years before I started, which was
Speaker 2: a bombing a car, a vehicle bombing that resulted in
Speaker 2: the death of an individual. And of course I've through
Speaker 2: my friend pathology studies have seen what happens to the
Speaker 2: human body as a result of bombings, including during the
Speaker 2: early days post ninet eleven, attending some of the law
Speaker 2: enforcement based training provided by the FEDS in terms of
Speaker 2: the various bombings that had occurred across the world and
Speaker 2: seeing the devastation that bombs can do to not only property,
Speaker 2: but to the people that are impacted.
Speaker 1: Well, this is very graphic what happens with Don. He unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I will say, does not die immediately, and there are
Speaker 1: some heroes in this story. What it sounds like happened
Speaker 1: is he was just starting to pull his car out
Speaker 1: from the parking space when part of it, the right
Speaker 1: part under his seat, seemed to have exploded. I have
Speaker 1: photos of the interior and exterior of the car. Don
Speaker 1: is not in it. We don't see any of that.
Speaker 1: I can so tell you what state Dawn was found
Speaker 1: in and what they were trying to do to save him.
Speaker 1: So do you want to see the photo? What do
Speaker 1: you want to see? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I definitely want to see the photo. This
Speaker 2: is the crime scene.
Speaker 1: Some may if you need me to zoom in on
Speaker 1: any of this.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm taking a look at the photo of
Speaker 2: the driver's side of a light colored four door Sedan
Speaker 2: vintage nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is.
Speaker 2: Looking very much like a dots in import vehicle. I
Speaker 2: can't say it for sure if it's a dots and
Speaker 2: from this photo and the driver's door is open, the
Speaker 2: hood of the vehicle is slightly bent up.
Speaker 3: But from this photo I can't really discern much more.
Speaker 2: What I think what I am surprised by is I
Speaker 2: was expecting the vehicle to be much more damaged externally
Speaker 2: than what I'm seeing.
Speaker 1: Let me show you a couple more angles, and then
Speaker 1: there's an internal one.
Speaker 2: So the top phot is showing basically that almost the
Speaker 2: same view of the car from the driver's side, with
Speaker 2: the driver's side door open, I can see three plane
Speaker 2: closed investigators, one which is crouched down at the front
Speaker 2: of the car by the front bumper with a device
Speaker 2: that probably is a mirror on a handle, looking at
Speaker 2: the undercarriage of the vehicle. There is some debris that's
Speaker 2: on the ground on the driver side, and the hood
Speaker 2: itself is showing I would almost call it like an
Speaker 2: it's been uplifted from probably the blast internally, but it
Speaker 2: still looks like it's engaged. It's not like it's flipped open.
Speaker 2: Maybe the front driver's side tire might be flat, but
Speaker 2: I can't tell from that photo. And then the bottom photo.
Speaker 2: The car has obviously been transported. The previous two photos
Speaker 2: were black and white. Now this photo is color, and
Speaker 2: it appears that this car has been put I don't
Speaker 2: know if that would be the investigating agency's impound yard
Speaker 2: or if this is just a junk yard ank junk yard,
Speaker 2: but it's showing the kind of the left front of
Speaker 2: the car. So I can now see the front of
Speaker 2: the car. I can almost make out that it's a
Speaker 2: dots and but I'm not entirely sure about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's a dots and I say it. Here's
Speaker 1: the big photo, I think now now right underneath him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now this is the critical photo. So now I'm
Speaker 2: seeing a photo of the inside driver's front seat, shows
Speaker 2: the steering wheel, the front dash. There is a massive
Speaker 2: hole that is directly under where the front seat cushion
Speaker 2: should have been, but that is completely gone in this photograph.
Speaker 2: The floorboard itself has been blasted through with the edges,
Speaker 2: showing that the force came from underneath the vehicle to
Speaker 2: the inside of the vehicle. You know, there's been This
Speaker 2: photo is showing that there has been processing of the vehicle.
Speaker 2: So the kind of the dash components have been removed.
Speaker 2: I can see where the various electrical sockets have been
Speaker 2: individually unplugged, so this must have been that item must
Speaker 2: have been collected during the processing of the vehicle. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Don sitting in this seat with this explosion going off,
Speaker 2: would have suffered immense lower body injuries, and that potentially
Speaker 2: could account for why he survived for a period of time,
Speaker 2: as the sea cushion itself would have received the initial
Speaker 2: blunt of the blast, but that would not have prevented
Speaker 2: Don from sustaining significant injuries from such a large blast.
Speaker 2: You know, the percussive forces from an explosion can also
Speaker 2: damage the internal organs. And you know, I would not
Speaker 2: be surprised that not only were Don's legs and you know,
Speaker 2: lower part of his body be you know, completely mangled,
Speaker 2: if not somewhat severed from his body, but he may
Speaker 2: have also suffered from various blast injuries to his upper
Speaker 2: body and internal organs.
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you about the injuries. Because these workers,
Speaker 1: including the man who you know initially heard the blast lawn,
Speaker 1: are trying to save his life. They run over they
Speaker 1: find him lying face down halfway out of the car
Speaker 1: with extensive of course injuries. His legs are basically destroyed.
Speaker 1: As you had predicted. Blond ties his bell around one
Speaker 1: of Don's legs at the thigh sinching in as tight
Speaker 1: as he can to make a tourniquet. He yells for
Speaker 1: someone else to give him another belt. He does the
Speaker 1: same thing with Don's other leg. I mean, Don is
Speaker 1: gravely injured. There's blood spurting from his leg. Why this
Speaker 1: is important that somebody responds this quickly to Don. Don dies,
Speaker 1: We know that Lawn becomes a witness because Don is
Speaker 1: trying to say some things before he dies. So he
Speaker 1: says a name, John Adamson. The firefighters in the emergency
Speaker 1: personnel arrive at the scene within four minutes of the explosion,
Speaker 1: and he's rushed to a nearby hospital. He's still conscious.
Speaker 1: He keeps saying, over ago, over again, this name John Adamson.
Speaker 1: And then emergency personnel hear him say that he's an
Speaker 1: investigative reporter working on a mafia story. He repeats to
Speaker 1: them the word mafia, and then he says the word
Speaker 1: m prize E M p R. He's unconscious after that,
Speaker 1: and then that's it. The final words we're working with
Speaker 1: here are John Adamson in Mafia. An imprise sounds cryptic.
Speaker 1: Some of it is, And this is a man who
Speaker 1: is very much trying to tell people who might be
Speaker 1: responsible for his murder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a dying declaration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so there's in some ways there's a
Speaker 2: level of veracity given to this type of statement because
Speaker 2: this person doesn't have jeopardy or consequences moving forward, so
Speaker 2: there's no reason to lie. So now, I mean, this
Speaker 2: is golden for the investigators. There's a name, the fact
Speaker 2: that it's associated with the mafia, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: something they probably would have figured out just looking at
Speaker 2: the victimology of Don. But then this word emprise. I
Speaker 2: don't know that word.
Speaker 1: Some of this is confusing what he says, and you know,
Speaker 1: and then part of it is Don doesn't know maybe
Speaker 1: who did this. Yeah, a family friend picks up the
Speaker 1: youngest kids and brings them to the hospital, but the
Speaker 1: police say get them out of here, and they're under
Speaker 1: police protection from then on twenty four hour police protection,
Speaker 1: which doesn't surprise you, I'm assuming considering this is does
Speaker 1: this feel like a mob hit? I mean, is this
Speaker 1: like a signature mob hit mafia?
Speaker 3: Well, I think that you know, this is where obviously
Speaker 3: this is a.
Speaker 2: Very unusual type of crime, but it does happen, and
Speaker 2: it does happen without some sort of organized crime aspect
Speaker 2: to it. This is where now it gets into, in part,
Speaker 2: the physical evidence investigation. You know, what is the level
Speaker 2: of sophistication of this bomb. Obviously nineteen seventy six, most
Speaker 2: certainly using radio triggers, there could have been a remote
Speaker 2: detonation of this bomb once the offender saw that Don
Speaker 2: was in fact in the car, but most likely this
Speaker 2: bomb was placed after Don went into the hotel. It
Speaker 2: was only in the hotel for fifteen minutes. They linked
Speaker 2: it to the electrical system for when Don started the vehicle.
Speaker 2: Now there's the electrical signal that is triggering the detonation
Speaker 2: of this this bomb. What's the chemistry of the bomb?
Speaker 2: You know, what are the components of the bomb? Is
Speaker 2: this looking like something that is showing a level sophistication
Speaker 2: where now you're dealing with a highly sophisticated, knowledgeable bomb
Speaker 2: making individual. Does it look like it could be state sponsored?
Speaker 2: Does it look like it's juvenile? You know, is this
Speaker 2: merely a pipe bomb that they were able to put
Speaker 2: an electrical detonation device on and they bought all the
Speaker 2: components from a hardware store, you know. So that's that's
Speaker 2: all part of the assessment of who the offender might be,
Speaker 2: and that's through the crime scene evidence.
Speaker 1: Well, let me get to the bomb part. I'm going
Speaker 1: to skip down because you just asked about the device
Speaker 1: and I was wondering how professional this setup is because
Speaker 1: I am clueless. So this is what they said. So
Speaker 1: the first law enforcement officers on the scene are from
Speaker 1: the bomb and arson unit, not the homicide investigators, so
Speaker 1: they are assessing, which is well, I mean, but that's good, right,
Speaker 1: because there's nobody there to muck up the bomb scene.
Speaker 2: No homicide investigators are staying two hundred yards away from
Speaker 2: this until your bomb guys clear it. There's no way
Speaker 2: in hell, as an investigator, you're going anywhere near this.
Speaker 2: You know, some of the tactics of bombers, and we
Speaker 2: see this, you know over in the terrorist organizations, is
Speaker 2: they will have a bombing and then all the first
Speaker 2: responders respond, and then they have a second bombing to
Speaker 2: kill all the first responders. So the proper way to
Speaker 2: handle this type of thing is to get your bomb
Speaker 2: arson guys to clear this scene, and they're trained to
Speaker 2: be able to do that without contaminating the homicide evidence
Speaker 2: side aspect too much.
Speaker 1: Well, the way that this all unfolds, you know, is
Speaker 1: so mysterious. It's to me very cloak and dagger. But
Speaker 1: let me tell you about this device. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: bomb and arson guys get there, and this is what
Speaker 1: they figure out. The bomb under the driver's side of
Speaker 1: Don's door had been made with six sticks of dynamite,
Speaker 1: and you're right, it had a remote control. It was
Speaker 1: attached to the bottom of the car under the driver's
Speaker 1: seat with a magnet. Now, they miscalculated Don was six
Speaker 1: foot two, and so I don't think they realized that
Speaker 1: he pushed his seat back, so they made an estimation
Speaker 1: of where he would be sitting. That's why he put
Speaker 1: his seat back or his seat was back, and they
Speaker 1: didn't know this, I guess. And they figured out that
Speaker 1: this is why it hit his legs more than anything else.
Speaker 1: Had he been more forward, he would have been killed instantly,
Speaker 1: is what they're saying. So I don't see an assessment
Speaker 1: of whether or not this is considered professional. Six sticks
Speaker 1: of dynamite with a remote control in the seven What
Speaker 1: do you think about that? Does that signal anything to you?
Speaker 2: That's showing a level of sophistication in my estimation. Now,
Speaker 2: the positioning of the bomb underneath on you know, the
Speaker 2: offender not taking into account his height or the exact
Speaker 2: position of a seat. I don't think that that's a
Speaker 2: factor at all. They're attaching this bomb using a magnet.
Speaker 2: You think about being underneath the vehicle, You're just kind
Speaker 2: of going with six sticks of dynamite. I just need
Speaker 2: to get this under the driver's side and this is
Speaker 2: going to kill Dawn. Now, you know, with the forces
Speaker 2: of the blast, there's so many just weird things that
Speaker 2: happen under these extreme weird.
Speaker 3: Phenomena, you know.
Speaker 2: So the idea that if he had just been six
Speaker 2: inches fourd that this would have just absolutely devastated his
Speaker 2: upper body, Well, no, you have this intervening object of
Speaker 2: the seat cushion, you have the floorboard, you possibly have
Speaker 2: cross members underneath the vehicle, and this is all deflecting
Speaker 2: and having all sorts of weird aspects to these forces.
Speaker 2: The offender is just going, I'm placing these six sticks
Speaker 2: of dynamite underneath the driver's side door, and I am
Speaker 2: confident this will kill down. And now the offender, whether
Speaker 2: it's the bomb maker, slash bomb placer, or it's a triggerer,
Speaker 2: you know, somebody who's you know, we don't know what
Speaker 2: kind of conspiracy we're dealing with, but now you have
Speaker 2: somebody who has a vantage point to be able to
Speaker 2: know when Don is in that vehicle in order to
Speaker 2: do the remote controlled detonation. You know, this is showing
Speaker 2: this is not most certainly you could you could have
Speaker 2: some very intelligent, criminally minded teenagers that might be able
Speaker 2: to pull this type of thing off, but we don't
Speaker 2: generally see that. You know, they they're the ones that
Speaker 2: use the little pipe bomb stuff. This is to me
Speaker 2: telling me, okay, you know there is a level of
Speaker 2: expertise and sophistication. I can't say to what point yet,
Speaker 2: you know, but it's something that's like I am a
Speaker 2: little bit concerned about who might be behind this.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to tell you about Don's most active investigations.
Speaker 1: We know he's been digging into mafia, corruption, government stuff
Speaker 1: for years, but remember he's on this political beat. So
Speaker 1: this is what they figure out happened with Don. The
Speaker 1: day that this happened Now I will say Don lived
Speaker 1: for a while, several days, and he was trying his
Speaker 1: best to give information. He does end up dying, but
Speaker 1: he is able to confirm some things. I mean, he
Speaker 1: really wanted to help figure this out, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: he didn't have any illusions that he was going to
Speaker 1: survive this. It must have been a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: pain that he was in. So this is what happens.
Speaker 1: That morning. He had gone to the state Legislature to
Speaker 1: cover a Senate session on that morning before his appointment
Speaker 1: with this source at the hotel. Before he left, he
Speaker 1: jotted down a note on a colleague's typewriter, and it
Speaker 1: was a reporter named Bernie Wynn. So Bernie turns this
Speaker 1: over to the police, and the note says, I've gone
Speaker 1: to meet that guy with the information on Steiger at
Speaker 1: the Clarendon House. Then to Sigma Delta Kai back about
Speaker 1: one thirty bulls. So Steiger is referring to Congressman Sam Steiger.
Speaker 1: So Sigma Delta Chi refers to a luncheon held by
Speaker 1: the legal branch of the Society of Professional Journalists, which
Speaker 1: is held at the Phoenix Press Club. What Dawn had
Speaker 1: said was that this source that he was meeting was
Speaker 1: a sleazy bastard, as he said, from San Diego, who
Speaker 1: had told him about a tip about a dirty land
Speaker 1: deal involving this Congressman Steiger, and the first contact had
Speaker 1: happened about a week before, on May twenty seventh, right
Speaker 1: before Memorial Day weekend, and that person had also implicated
Speaker 1: Senator Barry Goldwater, who was the sixty four Republican presidential nominee,
Speaker 1: and another politician named Harry Rosenwig. So now it starts
Speaker 1: to feel a little bit like a political cover up
Speaker 1: if these are connected. Dawn had said, I'm not I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm that interested in this. I was
Speaker 1: going to turn it over to the paper City desk,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't sure anything was going to come of it. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it sounds like he decided to go ahead and meet
Speaker 1: this source anyway, even though he's like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is the right story for me. On his
Speaker 1: own desk, he had written a note that said John
Speaker 1: Adamson Lobby at eleven fifteen Clarendon House fourth in Clarendon.
Speaker 1: And we don't know if he left this for somebody
Speaker 1: else or if this was a note and he didn't
Speaker 1: take it with him. But John Adamson never shows up,
Speaker 1: he never makes contact with him, and then he's in
Speaker 1: this car explosion. So that is his day. He's looking
Speaker 1: into political corruption, a dirty land deal involving a congressman,
Speaker 1: and you know, he ends up in this terrible, terrible
Speaker 1: accident slash murder scene.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's interesting thoughts an investigation I was doing
Speaker 2: out in Stockton related to Golden State killer. I had
Speaker 2: a dirty developer, this Eckhart Schmidts, who was a child
Speaker 2: molester who had a connection to Barry Goldwater and the
Speaker 2: land based aspects. Not saying that mister Goldwater had any
Speaker 2: criminal aspects going on, but when you said that Barry
Speaker 2: Goldwater had some sort of connection with this Steiger and
Speaker 2: a bad land deal or a dirty land deal, that
Speaker 2: just was like, you know, bells are going off in
Speaker 2: my head, you know, and that seems like that would
Speaker 2: be kind of an interesting topic to dig down into
Speaker 2: in the future. Now, the question I have it sounds
Speaker 2: like this John Adamson, or the observation I have is
Speaker 2: it sounds like this John Adamson. Is this source at
Speaker 2: least Dawn thinks John Adamson is a source. So now
Speaker 2: is Adamson legitimately a source and just coincidentally, you know,
Speaker 2: backed out of the meeting at the hotel. Or was
Speaker 2: John Adamson sort of the loure and had been hired
Speaker 2: to bring Don out to this hotel right now? Don't know,
Speaker 2: it could be it could be either way. But obviously
Speaker 2: you have to identify John Adamson and go talk to
Speaker 2: this guy.
Speaker 1: Well, luckily police do. He is in San Diego, he
Speaker 1: is well known to the police. He's considered a low
Speaker 1: level street hoodlum, and they find him eventually in Lake Havasu,
Speaker 1: which is about two hundred miles away from Phoenix. So
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like John Adamson was actually ever present
Speaker 1: at the hotel lobby when he was supposed to meet Don.
Speaker 1: But when they show a picture of John Adamson to Don,
Speaker 1: you know, Don says, yeah, this is the person I've
Speaker 1: been talking about. Now, I don't know how he knows
Speaker 1: what this guy looks like. He is confirming that this
Speaker 1: is who he thinks that he's supposed to be meeting.
Speaker 1: So two days after the bombing, Don is still fighting
Speaker 1: for his life and the police speak with a lawyer
Speaker 1: named Neil Roberts. There are a lot of names in
Speaker 1: this story, now, Paul, because this this is a big
Speaker 1: conspiracy at this point, yea. You know, now we're talking
Speaker 1: about deep government stuff and lawyers, sleazy lawyers, no less.
Speaker 1: So Neil Roberts says that he was with John Adamson
Speaker 1: at the time of the bombing, so alibying him. Police
Speaker 1: are also tracking down John Adamson, like I said before,
Speaker 1: and he comes back to Phoenix, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: Neil Roberts actually bought the plane tickets for him to
Speaker 1: come to Phoenix to talk to the police. So then
Speaker 1: this helpful, we think. Attorney Neil Roberts not only says listen,
Speaker 1: you know, John Adamson had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 1: He was with me. Here he is, I'm bringing him
Speaker 1: to you. He's leading police to two more guys. One
Speaker 1: is a real estate developer named Max Dunlop and the
Speaker 1: other one is a man named Kemper Marley. So they
Speaker 1: are linked to the dog racing industry. To me, what
Speaker 1: Neil Roberts sounds like is an attorney for corrupt people,
Speaker 1: for reputable people, is what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 1: So I can continue talking about this more or you
Speaker 1: can comment, But clearly Don has been getting into all
Speaker 1: different kinds of investigative roots here that are leading him.
Speaker 1: He reports on the dog racing industry also.
Speaker 2: Well you know, the dog racing is gambling, and this
Speaker 2: of course, you know, has probably mafia associations all over it, right,
Speaker 2: especially during this era. This Neil Roberts, you know, is
Speaker 2: he is he an attorney for the mob?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Is there anything along those lines or is he is
Speaker 2: he just an attorney? I forget what you said. Was
Speaker 2: he an attorney for Steiger?
Speaker 1: He's an attorney who was I don't know if he's
Speaker 1: directly representing John Adamson, the hoodlum guy who's supposed to
Speaker 1: be the source, right, but he's definitely facilitating him talking
Speaker 1: to the police. And then he's pointing out these two
Speaker 1: other men. And then I can kind of get to
Speaker 1: where we're going with because imprize comes into play at
Speaker 1: this point. This is a deep story. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is not your typical murder story here. This is a
Speaker 1: journalist who was digging into some places where people thought
Speaker 1: he needed to stay out of it.
Speaker 2: Well, if this John Adamson is a just your typical
Speaker 2: street level thug.
Speaker 3: You know how and why is.
Speaker 2: What sounds like a fairly highly priced attorney, this Neil
Speaker 2: Roberts representing him. Somebody is paying Neil Roberts to represent
Speaker 2: John Adamson.
Speaker 1: Well, let me keep We'll keep digging and see what
Speaker 1: we can come up with. So Dawn Bowles has some
Speaker 1: notes that are discovered, and reporters look at these notes
Speaker 1: and figure out that people in the racing industry would
Speaker 1: have been really pissed off about this, the dog racing
Speaker 1: industry that he was really digging in on another story.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't sound like he's going completely you know,
Speaker 1: boring state legislature stuff. He's still staying within corruption. He
Speaker 1: used that phrase. Remember the weird one we talked about Imprise,
Speaker 1: which is the it turns out of a gambling operation,
Speaker 1: dog racing gambling operation based in New York, but it's
Speaker 1: nationally known. It's still in business, actually under a different name.
Speaker 1: One thing that is confounding is that there doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be a link between you know, this guy Kemper
Speaker 1: who I had mentioned, Keimper Marley, who is linked to
Speaker 1: the dog racing industry and this Imprise. So he's mentioning Imprise.
Speaker 1: It looks like this sleazy attorney is pointing to, well,
Speaker 1: you should really look at these guys who are involved
Speaker 1: in the dog racing industry. But it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: Don is reporting on these particular people. So it's almost
Speaker 1: like this jigsaw puzzle that's been thrown up in the
Speaker 1: air and there's answers here somewhere, but nobody's been able
Speaker 1: to put it together just yet.
Speaker 2: Well, Don, over the course of his career, probably has
Speaker 2: made many enemies. However, his dying declaration seems to be
Speaker 2: focusing in on this aspect of why he thinks he
Speaker 2: was targeted to be killed, and so I think there
Speaker 2: has to be a lot of weight put on Imprise.
Speaker 2: And then what Don was discovering about Imprise? Now, was
Speaker 2: he focusing in on any particular individual or was he
Speaker 2: focusing in on aspects of Emprize that could have potentially
Speaker 2: shut down aspects of its operation that would have financially
Speaker 2: hurt people and now they are protecting their livelihood. You know,
Speaker 2: that could kind of open up the suspect pool a
Speaker 2: little bit. But right now we have John Adamson, Mafia
Speaker 2: and Imprise, So at least investigators can kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: put their resources down that path to see where it leads.
Speaker 1: Well, what they're figuring out is they're trying to make
Speaker 1: that connection between Imprise and the mafia, and they figure
Speaker 1: out that the company is trying to conceal an ownership
Speaker 1: of a hotel that would result in like a big
Speaker 1: restructuring within this company and would reveal that Imprized have
Speaker 1: ties to the mafia. So all of this is wrapped
Speaker 1: up in and around this attorney, Neil Roberts, who now
Speaker 1: seems to be representing John Adamson. So you know, Neil
Speaker 1: Roberts is not doing this out of the goodness of
Speaker 1: his heart. You know, John Adamson is tracked down and
Speaker 1: might not have ever been tracked down had number one
Speaker 1: Don not left that note. And number two of course
Speaker 1: he said that name. So you know this was all
Speaker 1: Don solving his own murder here. So Neil says the attorney,
Speaker 1: He says, listen, John Adamson, Yes he was in Phoenix.
Speaker 1: Yes he was with me. Yes we were five minutes
Speaker 1: from the hotel where Don was murdered. But we were
Speaker 1: together the whole time for that fifteen minutes leading up
Speaker 1: to it. There's a discrepancy and police are able to
Speaker 1: prove that. They can't say we were definitely where we
Speaker 1: said what we were. There's evidence that if these two
Speaker 1: people were involved with the bombing, that they were able
Speaker 1: to But then, you know, what I had thought was, well,
Speaker 1: why don't they could have planted it the day before
Speaker 1: or days before? It's a remote control right, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not something that had to happen that day,
Speaker 1: is it but held by a magnet? I don't know, well.
Speaker 2: Right now, I think it's it's hard to assess why
Speaker 2: that day that time, And I think I go back
Speaker 2: to was John Adamson just a lure, you know, in
Speaker 2: order to be able to get down to this hotel
Speaker 2: and there must have been confidence that his vehicle would
Speaker 2: be accessible in order to plant the bomb. If that
Speaker 2: was the case, you know part of this and I
Speaker 2: don't know if you have any information on this, but
Speaker 2: you know, going back to the physical evidence in the case.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes with bombings the like this remote control device, depending
Speaker 2: on what it is, but sometimes you have the components
Speaker 2: even through this explosion, that survive and the investigators are
Speaker 2: able to recover like serial numbers and trace them back
Speaker 2: to where you know, where this device will is purchase
Speaker 2: from Layton. Prints can survive explosions, and so sometimes you
Speaker 2: can get the bomber's fingerprints, you know, off of you know,
Speaker 2: the various components or fragments, you know. So that's part
Speaker 2: of what I'm wondering is is do they have any
Speaker 2: further forensic evidence, you know, that can also point to,
Speaker 2: you know, who the bomb maker possibly was.
Speaker 1: Well, they do not seem to have forensic evidence that
Speaker 1: that can you help us with the bomb maker.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: What they do though, is they are lucky that it
Speaker 1: looks like the main player here is not particularly smart.
Speaker 1: So this is what ends up happening so far, so
Speaker 1: there's no reliable alibi. This leezy lawyer cannot be trusted,
Speaker 1: and John Adamson is on the hot seat because they
Speaker 1: go ahead and search his apartment, the apartments in San Diego.
Speaker 1: They find, i mean, magnets, firecrackers, electric wire tape, and
Speaker 1: a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook, which I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, which includes instructions on how to make bombs.
Speaker 1: Have you ever looked at that? I've never looked at
Speaker 1: it before. I've read about it in many stories, but
Speaker 1: I've never looked at it. Actually, I've read it, Okay,
Speaker 1: you find it valuable?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, you know I had a hard copy,
Speaker 2: or I should say my Sheriff's office lab library had
Speaker 2: a hard copy of that. And you believe it or not,
Speaker 2: the same publisher has a book that's titled, in essence,
Speaker 2: how to Become.
Speaker 3: A Professional Hitman.
Speaker 2: So you know, these are people that are putting out,
Speaker 2: you know, how to commit crimes. And the Anarchist Cookbook
Speaker 2: has legitimate aspects to it. Now, some of it probably
Speaker 2: isn't as accurate as others, but I would not be surprised.
Speaker 2: Like if this John Adamson wanted to learn how to
Speaker 2: do a bomb, yeah, he could have turned to such
Speaker 2: a publication.
Speaker 1: This will come down to once we start really thinking
Speaker 1: about John Adamson. This is really going to come down
Speaker 1: to what we think of Don's last words, what you
Speaker 1: called the dying declaration that he made. Okay, so let
Speaker 1: me tell you more. We have this evidence against John Adamson,
Speaker 1: and as soon as Don dies, which unfortunately happens. Let's see,
Speaker 1: the explosion happened on the second and he died on
Speaker 1: the thirteenth, So the amount of pain he must have
Speaker 1: gone through. So that's eleven days. He dies in the
Speaker 1: hospital and they arrest him. They arrest Adamson for murder
Speaker 1: a few hours later, so there is a preliminary hearing
Speaker 1: to determine whether he can be tried. That prosecutors call witness.
Speaker 1: This is an associate of Adamson's named Robert Lettier, and
Speaker 1: they're connected through this greyhound racing industry. So Robert flips
Speaker 1: and says that five days before the bombing, he and
Speaker 1: Adamson were driving around and they went to the Arizona
Speaker 1: Republic offices to look for Don's car. They didn't find it.
Speaker 1: Adamson said something, well, I couldn't do anything here anyway,
Speaker 1: That's what he says. And then they went to a
Speaker 1: dots and I mean, god, this guy. They go to
Speaker 1: a dots and dealership and Adamson looks underneath a Dotson
Speaker 1: that's similar to the one that Don drove and ultimately
Speaker 1: the one that he was fatally injured in. So this
Speaker 1: is pretty good testimony, I'm assuming. I mean, he is saying,
Speaker 1: let me give you one more line, Paul. On the drive,
Speaker 1: Adamson alluded to an upcoming job and asked for help
Speaker 1: following the target around. He said he'd be getting twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars, and he promised Robert to cut up
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars, but Robert said, no, he does not
Speaker 1: say I'm going to kill this guy. He's just saying
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to just kind of follow him around. There's
Speaker 1: a job coming up. But he's doing all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: This does not sound like a smart mafia guy to me.
Speaker 3: He's a street level thug that's been hired. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: question is is who hired him? Now?
Speaker 2: Is it somebody connected to the mob, is it, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody else. If Adamson is offering or saying he's getting
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand dollars, I mean, this is a pretty
Speaker 2: decent paycheck for somebody like him, you know. So you
Speaker 2: have somebody that's hiring him, that has money and has
Speaker 2: an interest in shutting Don down, you know. So that's
Speaker 2: that's the thrust of the investigation. Needs to figure out
Speaker 2: who that is. I mean, Adamson may be the yeah,
Speaker 2: the actual bomb maker and placing the bomb, but you
Speaker 2: still need to go after the people who employed Adamson
Speaker 2: to do this homicide.
Speaker 1: Well, just so you know, twenty five and seventy four
Speaker 1: is about one hundred and forty thousand. Now, so that
Speaker 1: is not insignificant. I mean real coniflation, I mean real
Speaker 1: So well, yeah, that's not insignificant. And he was offering
Speaker 1: this guy, Robert almost half of that and Robert it down.
Speaker 1: So we've got a couple of other witnesses before we
Speaker 1: get to who might have been responsible. Here there's a
Speaker 1: woman named Gail Owens. She dated John Adamson. She says, idiot,
Speaker 1: he took her to go buy remote control the kind
Speaker 1: that fly model I mean, why is he taking people?
Speaker 1: He's getting a remote control that flies model airplanes and
Speaker 1: he's just like taking friends along with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it just speaks to his lack of sophistication,
Speaker 2: you know, on that front. But he is doing it
Speaker 2: in a way, you know, as I talked about earlier
Speaker 2: about assessing the bomb itself. You know, he is getting
Speaker 2: the instructions from somebody within that anarchist cookbook that is
Speaker 2: very sophisticated, you know, so you at least have him
Speaker 2: being able to follow instructions. But how many times has
Speaker 2: he done a bombing in the past, how many times
Speaker 2: has he committed a homicide in the past.
Speaker 3: Probably he had.
Speaker 2: You know, he's probably not a professional hit man, but
Speaker 2: he's somebody that for money, is willing to commit this
Speaker 2: type of crime. But he's not covering his tracks very
Speaker 2: well at all.
Speaker 1: No, he's not. And you know, this case goes on
Speaker 1: and drags on and on and on until nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: He ends up ultimately pleading guilty and in the process
Speaker 1: prosecutors say, who are you working for? He says, this
Speaker 1: guy Max Dunlap, who is a real estate developer, who
Speaker 1: is close to this guy Kimper Marley, who's in the
Speaker 1: racing industry. Down had reported on Kimber Marley in the
Speaker 1: racing industry. Right, so this seems to tie up some
Speaker 1: things for investigators. This seems right. Dunlap is charged with
Speaker 1: Don's murder. He's found guilty. The issue is is that
Speaker 1: and that I think is an interesting point is Dunlap's
Speaker 1: family says, listen, you know, yes he's this leazy real
Speaker 1: estate developer, and yes he's connected to a guy who
Speaker 1: Don reported on because of the dog racing industry, but
Speaker 1: he's not connected to Imprise. And Don was pretty specific
Speaker 1: about what he was saying. So they think his family
Speaker 1: of course, this is his family. But Max Dunlap's family
Speaker 1: says we think he's actually been set up by other
Speaker 1: figures in the Arizona underworld. Adamson says that I can
Speaker 1: tell you who the person who hit the remote control was.
Speaker 1: It's this guy named James Robinson. I mean, I told
Speaker 1: you there's a million people. James Robison. He said. Robison
Speaker 1: was the one who watched Don as he exited the
Speaker 1: hotel and triggered the bomb when he got into the car.
Speaker 1: There's not enough evidence against Robeson and he's acquitted, but
Speaker 1: you know, there's just a lot that Dunlap's family and
Speaker 1: other people were saying. Those last words of him. Mafia
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense with Max Dunlap, and neither does Imprise
Speaker 1: because neither of those guys have dealings with Imprise. So
Speaker 1: how much do we rely on on what Don is saying?
Speaker 1: Does he even know what's happening? You know, when his
Speaker 1: legs are blown off essentially and he's bleeding out.
Speaker 2: Well, what we can say is Don knew what he
Speaker 2: was looking into, and he knew that it probably was
Speaker 2: a risky venture as an investigative journalist to start digging in.
Speaker 2: He probably is making a guess as to why he
Speaker 2: was targeted, and it's his most recent venture, you know,
Speaker 2: and he's giving a specific name, John Adamson, who obviously
Speaker 2: is the bomb maker the idea of mafia and imprized.
Speaker 2: Don must have had some knowledge that was going to
Speaker 2: really disrupt this imprize aspect, you know, whatever that would
Speaker 2: have been. So in some ways, you know, I can
Speaker 2: see where the Dunlap family is going on. Hold on,
Speaker 2: you know, at least with what what Don is saying.
Speaker 2: The victim is saying. That doesn't add up with with
Speaker 2: Max Dunlap, you know. And and when you get into
Speaker 2: these types of corrupt and organized crime aspects, you know,
Speaker 2: this is where things The higher up you go, the
Speaker 2: more murky it gets, right, And this is where the FBI.
Speaker 2: I mean that they are good at pursuing these types
Speaker 2: of investigations, but they've also got decades of understanding the
Speaker 2: structures and who are the shot callers and you know,
Speaker 2: who has interest in let's say this mprice. You know,
Speaker 2: my perspective would be, you know, there's just no way
Speaker 2: with you and I talking to sort out this type
Speaker 2: of you know, who really was the one that called
Speaker 2: the shot here there's just no way, right. But that's
Speaker 2: where you know, the FEDS, that's their area of expertise,
Speaker 2: you know, and so that's where like, if if I
Speaker 2: were involved in a case like this at the local level,
Speaker 2: it's you know, automatically, you need to get the FEDS involved. Yeah,
Speaker 2: even if it's just an isolated local jurisdiction crime, you
Speaker 2: need the people who know how to handle the investigation.
Speaker 2: It's just like if if there's a homicide on federal land,
Speaker 2: you need to get a local homicide investigator involved, because
Speaker 2: they actually investigate homicides. The FEDS don't for the most part,
Speaker 2: you know. So there is recognizing where the expertise and
Speaker 2: experience lies, and that's in this type of scenario, that's
Speaker 2: what the FEDS.
Speaker 1: Well, to wrap this up, we are going to go
Speaker 1: back to the sleazy attorney, Neil Roberts. Neil Roberts is
Speaker 1: connected to everyone in this story, every suspect imprize. He's
Speaker 1: represented people within that company. He is the one I
Speaker 1: think you remember who pointed to Dunlap to begin with.
Speaker 1: In the racing industry. He apparently paid for Adamson's defense.
Speaker 1: It seems like I think it sounds like that Neil
Speaker 1: Roberts was the middleman here between his client, whoever his
Speaker 1: clients are, and Adamson, who is the muscle in all
Speaker 1: of this, and that bastard Neil Roberts was given immunity
Speaker 1: from being charged as an accessory after the fact, even
Speaker 1: though it turns out there were a couple of convictions
Speaker 1: out of this and that was basically it, and we
Speaker 1: don't even know if these were the right convictions aside
Speaker 1: from Adamson.
Speaker 2: So my thought is, with this level of organized crime
Speaker 2: that appears to be involved, Mprize has a nationwide footprint
Speaker 2: and appears to have a connection back to New York,
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that an arm of this organized crime entity,
Speaker 2: maybe it's mafia, would commit a homicide like this without
Speaker 2: somebody from way up authorizing it because they want fly
Speaker 2: under the radar, because you know, a bombing of an
Speaker 2: investigative journalist is going to bring a lot of attention
Speaker 2: from law enforcement as well as media, and people in
Speaker 2: the mafia don't want that. So whatever Don was digging
Speaker 2: into must have been serious enough to wear a very
Speaker 2: high up shot caller, likely out of New York said
Speaker 2: take him out.
Speaker 1: But why hire an idiot? Like John Adamson, some street
Speaker 1: hood from San Diego. Why not get somebody more experienced,
Speaker 1: you know, well, this is where they are they're employing.
Speaker 1: In some ways, this is like your plausible deniability. There
Speaker 1: are so many layers from the people that are saying
Speaker 1: take down out to whoever's hiring Adamson, that there's never
Speaker 1: going to be You're never ever going to be able
Speaker 1: to connect all those dots. And so now Adamson, who
Speaker 1: doesn't appear to be mafia associated, he's not a made guy,
Speaker 1: you know. So he's the one that is tasked with it,
Speaker 1: and they're paying him good money, right one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars in today's money, in order to do this.
Speaker 1: There is a risk, I mean where he can flip
Speaker 1: and say well I was hired by so and so
Speaker 1: of course, but they've shielded themselves because there's probably several
Speaker 1: steps of intermediaries in which there isn't going to be
Speaker 1: that obvious connection that can that law enforcement can trace
Speaker 1: back all the way to the top. And then I
Speaker 1: was thinking, well, why would John Adamson turn on Dune
Speaker 1: Lap unless it was done lap? But obviously Adamson, if
Speaker 1: he's going to flip. It's not going to be on
Speaker 1: the real estate developer that probably doesn't have any serious ties.
Speaker 1: He's not going to flip on Mprize, which clearly has
Speaker 1: lots of ties and would have him murdered in prison.
Speaker 1: So now, at as we conclude this, does it sound
Speaker 1: more and more like you that maybe Max Dunlap is
Speaker 1: not responsible for this and it's just much deeper than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my guess, and that's all I can all
Speaker 2: I can give. Adamson pled guilty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he pled guilty, and that's when he flipped and
Speaker 1: said it was done lab Okay.
Speaker 2: So again I'm just speculating here, But if you have
Speaker 2: an entity like New York based mafia that's calling the shots,
Speaker 2: and this Neil Robertson is an attorney, you could see
Speaker 2: where now there's communication to Adamson going keep your mouth shut,
Speaker 2: point fingers at Max Dunlap. You'll serve X amount of
Speaker 2: time and there could be threats both either to him
Speaker 2: or to his family.
Speaker 3: However, it's like when.
Speaker 2: You get out, you will be rewarded with X amount
Speaker 2: of money, something like that. You got twenty five grand
Speaker 2: up front. When you get out, we'll give you two
Speaker 2: hundred grand just stay quiet and do what we say.
Speaker 2: So I would not be surprised that there's some sort
Speaker 2: of arrangement like that with Adamson.
Speaker 1: Well, you have an investigative journal I mean, just to
Speaker 1: wrap this up, you have an investigative journalist who is
Speaker 1: doing so much overtime work to try to make people's
Speaker 1: lives safer and better. He has put himself in danger
Speaker 1: and it has happened, you know, statistically, something unfortunately would
Speaker 1: have happened to him at some point. Boy, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're poking enough people out there, we need journalists
Speaker 1: like that who will help protect us. That's part of
Speaker 1: our job as journalists. You know, you're going and you're
Speaker 1: putting yourself out there, just like people in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: You're putting yourself out there knowing that you can get hurt.
Speaker 1: And don did. And now we have like a big
Speaker 1: conspiracy and we don't know who is in prison for
Speaker 1: what reason and why and who's responsible for it. But
Speaker 1: we've never really done him offia conspiracy type story on
Speaker 1: this show before, so I thought it was interesting or
Speaker 1: a car bombing.
Speaker 2: No, you know, these types of cases are They're fascinating.
Speaker 2: There's no question about it. It's just a it's a
Speaker 2: different world than like what I lived in when I
Speaker 2: was working within law enforcement. You know, My experience, I
Speaker 2: would say, is more or you know, reading some of
Speaker 2: these books, you know, agents that have gotten under cover
Speaker 2: within organized crime entities, you know, and kind of getting
Speaker 2: the inside information on how these entities think and why
Speaker 2: they you know, carry out the types of crimes that
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: But well, certainly something like this case Don's homicide, even
Speaker 2: though it sounds like they got convictions, they didn't solve it.
Speaker 2: They got the low level players, but there's very powerful
Speaker 2: people in my estimation that are behind this, that are
Speaker 2: you know, living scott free and probably have committed similar
Speaker 2: crimes across the nation.
Speaker 1: You know what this is interesting there I mentioned this
Speaker 1: guy really briefly, Rubison, James Albert Robison. So he was
Speaker 1: the guy that John Adamson had said was the trigger guy,
Speaker 1: the guy who pushed the button. So this was a
Speaker 1: plumber he was charged initially with. John Robison said I
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with this. I didn't trigger a bomb.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything. Adamson pleaded guilty as I said,
Speaker 1: and served twenty years and two months in prison, so Dunlap,
Speaker 1: Max Dunlap, and Robison, whom Adamson had had implicated, they
Speaker 1: were tried together and Ross and Custon's case was based
Speaker 1: on Adamson's testimony who said that Dunlap and Max Dunlap
Speaker 1: approached him about killing Dawn and they reached out to
Speaker 1: a friend, this guy, Robison, and that Adamson was paid
Speaker 1: about six thousand dollars for his role in the crime.
Speaker 1: Both of these guys were convicted, both were sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: So they were convinced the courts and the law enforcement
Speaker 1: was convinced Max Dunlap and John Albert Robison were responsible
Speaker 1: for this, these kind of low level guys, and actually
Speaker 1: Robison didn't have a record at all. So in February
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the convictions,
Speaker 1: saying that the court improperly denied a defense motion to
Speaker 1: strike Adamson's testimony and so so later this year. Later
Speaker 1: that year, their murder charges against Dunlop and Robison were
Speaker 1: dismissed without prejudice because Adamson wouldn't testify again. So ultimately
Speaker 1: what ends up happening is they're trying to try him
Speaker 1: again and they can't get a conviction. He was acquitted.
Speaker 1: Immediately after Robson was acquitted, federal authorities charged him with
Speaker 1: soliciting a prison inmate to kill Adamson while he was
Speaker 1: awaiting his second trial, and he did that. Robison did
Speaker 1: try to set up Adams to be murdered for testifying
Speaker 1: against him. So all of this is to say that
Speaker 1: there is all kinds of people floating around. James Albert
Speaker 1: Robison is listed under the National Registry of Exonerations. But
Speaker 1: at the same time he said, yes, I tried to
Speaker 1: have this guy executed. I tried to happ into this
Speaker 1: guy murdered because he was setting me up. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's awful. I mean, what a story. I mean, getting
Speaker 1: into the mafia and stuff. It's scary to even think
Speaker 1: of that. Journalists dig in that deeply, but they do
Speaker 1: and I respect that. That is something I can't do,
Speaker 1: but I respect those who do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and it is.
Speaker 2: It's not just like with what Don was looking into
Speaker 2: with this Empress. You know, I had a case which
Speaker 2: put me down a rabbit hole, something called In's law promise.
Speaker 2: And you have journalists and others that were killed as
Speaker 2: a result of this other super weird conspiracy theorist type
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I just have firsthand experience kind of with something along
Speaker 2: those lines, and that there are powerful people that are
Speaker 2: behind a lot of it. And it's like, well, how
Speaker 2: you know, if you're just a local PD investigator, you know,
Speaker 2: how do you get to where you're actually going up
Speaker 2: into the ranks of these organized crime entities. My sense
Speaker 2: is with with Don's homicide is there's probably an FBI
Speaker 2: agent who basically say, oh, yeah, we know who probably
Speaker 2: called the shot. You know, we can't make a case
Speaker 2: on it, but we know who the you know, the
Speaker 2: og is or the godfather or whatever you know, you want,
Speaker 2: whatever title that person has.
Speaker 3: So fascinating for sure.
Speaker 1: Well to end on I think an uplifting note here.
Speaker 1: When he died in seventy six, so many people in
Speaker 1: journalism were inspired by what he was doing and why
Speaker 1: he died. Clearly it was based on his reporting. We
Speaker 1: don't know one hundred percent sure which, but because he
Speaker 1: was doing so much, I mean, was this like the
Speaker 1: you know congressman, was this the mafia? What was this
Speaker 1: dog racing all of it? Real estate? But thirty over
Speaker 1: that year from seventy six to seventy seven, thirty investigati
Speaker 1: journalists from all across the country came to Arizona and
Speaker 1: dedicated themselves almost in shifts to report on corruption in mafia.
Speaker 1: And they called it the Arizona Project. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: his honor, you know, I mean, it wasn't connected to
Speaker 1: let's figure out who did it, who killed Don. It
Speaker 1: was more like this guy's work has to carry on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that it's a very cool story. And you
Speaker 2: know what those journalists did and his honor was. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that's that seems genuine and heartfelt, you know.
Speaker 3: So that's that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Well, we're not going to do another story about a
Speaker 1: journalist who dies, not for a while, because that just
Speaker 1: gets to me. But thank you for listening to my story. Well,
Speaker 1: we won't do another car bombing for a while. But
Speaker 1: I'm always interested in learning more about different kinds of
Speaker 1: weapons and the way, you know, I mean, just the
Speaker 1: different types of forensics I think is fascinating. So thank
Speaker 1: you for coming along this journey with me to nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies Arizona.
Speaker 3: No, this was again fascinating.
Speaker 2: I appreciate this case is unusual and it's somewhat intellectually challenging.
Speaker 3: Let's say that.
Speaker 1: Well, that to me means you need some time off.
Speaker 1: So we're on a little bit of a hias, just
Speaker 1: a little tiny Hiatu's nothing too long. But we'll be
Speaker 1: back and I'll have another story that will be a
Speaker 1: mind bender.
Speaker 3: I'm sure all right, sounds good, Kate.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Paul. This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot
Speaker 2: com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3: Our theme song is by Tom Bryvogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is That Wicked, a
Speaker 2: Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
Speaker 2: the criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 1: Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked My Life Solving America's Cold
Speaker 1: Cases is also available now.