Homicide detectives George Weisz (left) and Jon Sellers (original investigation leader) revisit the bombed car in a Phoenix impound lot in 2001.
Photo-Tom Tingle / The AZ Republic
August 31, 2009
Brief Biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bolles
Bolles grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and pursued a newspaper career, in the footsteps of his father (chief of the Associated Press bureau in New Jersey) and grandfather. He graduated from Beloit College with a degree in government, where he was editor of the campus newspaper, and received a President's Award for personal achievement. After a stint in the U.S. Army in the Korean War assigned to an anti-aircraft unit, he joined the Associated Press as a sports editor and rewriter in New York, New Jersey and Kentucky.
In 1962, he was hired by the Arizona Republic newspaper, published at the time by Nina Mason Pulliam, where he quickly found a spot on the investigative beat and gained a reputation for dogged reporting of influence peddling,bribery, and land swindles. Former colleagues, though, say he seemed to grow disillusioned in late 1975 and early 1976, and that he had requested to be taken off the investigative beat, moving to coverage of Phoenix City Hall and then the state Legislature.
Two marriages produced five children, four from the first and one from the second.
Bolles was the brother of Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the best-selling job-hunting book, What Color Is Your Parachute? He shares a grandfather, Stephen Bolles, with humanist theoretician Edmund Blair Bolles. His daughter, Frances Bolles Haynes, has co-authored four books on job hunting.
Newseum Exhibit
In 2004, the Bolles family donated the car for display in the Newseum, a journalism museum in Arlington, Virgina.
Phoenix Police impound lot
Don Bolles 1976 Datsun B-210 sedan sits at a police impound garage in Phoenix Tuesday, Jan. 2, 1996. (AP Photo/Eric Drotter)
Max Dunlap Dead at 80
Max Dunlap dies; convicted of killing 'AZ Republic' reporter.
by Glen Creno and Dennis Wagner - Jul. 22, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
A man convicted in the 1976 bombing death of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles died Tuesday in the medical unit of a Tucson prison. Max Dunlap, 80, was convicted in 1993 of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The reporter's car exploded in the parking lot of a central Phoenix hotel. He died 11 days later. The Arizona Department of Corrections said Dunlap was transferred in March from the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis near Buckeye to a Tucson facility, where he was admitted to the medical unit. That is where the DOC said he died of natural causes around 11 a.m. Dunlap was part of what authorities said was a tangled plan to kill Bolles. They said Dunlap paid another man, John Harvey Adamson, to plant the bomb. Adamson said James Albert Robison triggered the bomb. Adamson served 20 years and two months for the murder, ending in 1996. He died in 2002. Dunlap and Robison were convicted of Bolles' murder in 1977. The convictions were overturned but both men had new trials in 1993. Robison was acquitted but later pleaded guilty to a charge of trying to hire someone to kill Adamson. Retired Phoenix police Detective Jon Sellers, the lead investigator in the case, said he always believed that Dunlap knew more about who was involved in the case. "I've always said we didn't get them all," Sellers said. "I think Max is the last living person who could give us first-hand information about the conspirators." Sellers said he testified that he believed that liquor magnate Kemper Marley Sr. was behind the bombing. Sellers said he believed Bolles was attacked either on Marley's orders or as a favor to him. Bolles had been writing about Marley's efforts to get a seat on the Arizona Racing Commission. Marley died in 1990, at the age of 83. He was not charged in the case. Among Dunlap's most ardent defenders was writer Don Devereux, who joined about 30 other journalists in producing the "Arizona Project," focusing on crime and corruption in Arizona. Devereux said he believes Max Dunlap was framed, and that Bolles was murdered by Adamson and another man on behalf of mob figures.
August 27, 2009
Adamson, Dunlap & Robison
John Harvey Adamson, racing dog owner and former tow truck operator, attended ASU and was a member of Phi Delta Zeta. A small-time hood, he admitted to planting the remote control bomb and pleaded guilty to second degree murder in 1977. He agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a 20-year sentence. After Dunlap and Robison’s convictions were thrown out, he refused to testify a second time, trying to get a better deal. He was then charged with first-degree murder, found guilty and sentenced to death in 1980. Death sentence was overturned on appeal twice and went to the state Supreme Court, which overturned the sentence. After spending more than 20 years in prison, he was released in 1996. He entered the federal Witness Protection Program, but left it voluntarily a few years later. Died in 2002.
Max Dunlap, Phoenix contractor, charged with first-degree murder in the case for ordering the hit. He was found guilty in 1977 of killing Bolles and conspiring to kill then-Arizona Attorney General Bruce Babbitt and advertising man Al Lizanetz. He was sentenced to death in 1978 but the conviction was overturned in 1980 because defense lawyers weren’t allowed to question Adamson closely. The murder charge was dismissed when Adamson refused to testify against him a second time. He was recharged in 1990 when Adamson agreed to testify and found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiring to obstruct the investigation of the case. Sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years.
James Robison, Chandler plumber who helped Adamson by triggering the bomb. He was arrested in 1977 along with Dunlap and found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiring to kill Babbitt and Lizanetz. The conviction was overturned in 1980 and the charges were dismissed after Adamson refused to testify a second time. He was re-charged in 1989 after a renewed investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, led by investigator George Weisz. He was re-tried and acquitted in 1993, but went to federal prison for five years after pleading guilty to soliciting an act of criminal violence by trying to have Adamson killed. He was released from prison in 1998 at age 76 and is thought to be living in California.
Bolle’s 1976 Datsun B210
Don Bolles
This entry is from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bolles
Don Bolles (July 10, 1928 – June 13, 1976) was an American investigative reporter whose murder in a bombing is linked to the Mafia. On June 2, 1976, Bolles left behind a short note in his office typewriter explaining he would meet with an informant, and be back about 1:30 p.m. The source promised information on a land deal involving top state politicians and possibly the mob. A wait of several minutes in the lobby of the Hotel Clarendon was concluded with a call for Bolles himself to the front desk, where the conversation lasted no more than two minutes. Bolles then exited the hotel, and walked to his car in the adjacent parking lot just south of the hotel on Fourth Avenue. Apparently, Bolles started the car, even moving a few feet, before a remote detonated bomb consisting of six sticks of dynamite taped to the underside of the car beneath the driver's seat was detonated, the impact shattering his lower body, opening the driver's door, and leaving him mortally wounded while half outside the vehicle. Both legs and one arm were amputated over a ten day stay in St. Joseph's Hospital, the eleventh day was the reporter's last. However, his last words after being found in the parking lot the day of the bombing were: "They finally got me. The Mafia. Emprise. Find John (Harvey Adamson)." The exact motive for the crime remains a mystery, but many speculate the Mafia holds responsibility, as a large concentration of Bolles' work involved organized crime, even going as far as to run a story naming over 200 known mafia members operating in the state of Arizona. Some suspected that Kemper Marley, a man who made millions in the liquor distribution business in Arizona in a partnership with Cindy McCain's father and fraternal uncle, was behind the Bolles murder, but Phoenix police could find no evidence linking him with the crime, and he continued conducting business in Arizona until meeting his own death, cancer-related, on June 25, 1990 in La Jolla, California. The incident sparked an investigation in the months that followed, known as the Arizona Project, and drawing nearly 40 reporters and editors from 23 newspapers. John Harvey Adamson pleaded guilty in 1977 to second-degree murder for building and planting the bomb that killed Bolles. Adamson accused Phoenix contractor Max Dunlap, an associate of Kemper Marley, of ordering the hit, and Chandler plumber James Robison of triggering the bomb. Adamson testified against Dunlap and Robison, who were convicted of first-degree murder in the same year, but whose convictions were overturned in 1978. When Adamson refused to testify again, Adamson was charged and convicted of first-degree murder in 1980 and sentenced to death, which was overturned by the Arizona Supreme Court. In 1989, Robison was re-charged, and re-tried and acquitted in 1993, but pleaded guilty to a charge of soliciting an act of criminal violence against Adamson. In 1990, Dunlap was re-charged when Adamson agreed to testify again, and was found guilty of first-degree murder.
True Crime Time
Are there any True Crime buffs out there?
I've been researching true crime for 20+ years.
Especially those, which have occurred in and around Phoenix & Tucson.
Don't get the wrong idea that this is some fringe oddball field of interest.
Any self-respecting library or bookstore has entire sections devoted to this.
Vincent Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter" has sold millions of copies since 1971.
Last months issue of Newsweek had a cover story,
"True Crime-America's Obsession"
Some particular cases of interest:
Don Bolles
Winnie Ruth Judd
Bob Crane (Col.Hogan)
The Tison Gang
Jeanne Tovrea
Wat Promkunaram Buddhist Temple Murders
Robert Smith (Rose Mar Beauty College Massacre)
Charles Schmid (The Pied Piper of Tucson)
Ray Krone (Kim Ancona)
The Keidel Family
Anyway for those of you who "get it" – lets begin with the killing of Don Bolles.
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