February 12, 2025 • 60 mins
In this week's episode, Kate and Paul go to 1976 Phoenix, AZ where an investigative reporter is targeted while at a hotel. After the attack, what ensues could only be described as truly "far reaching.”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you today?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well. I wanted to ask you a question
because you know, you and I come from backgrounds where
sometimes people don't like us for what we do for
a living. Sometimes people don't like journalists, and sometimes people
don't like you know, a law enforcement even like the
forensic community. Do you think it has made you a
(01:26):
more cautious, paranoid anything like that, like too much over
the top. Do you feel like you look over your
shoulder every once in a while. Have you ever felt
like that in your career.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Oh yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
In fact, there's a couple of times in my career
in which I received death threats. What the very first time,
which is when I first started, I was just a
civilian toxicologist and I testified against a guy. I think
it was a manufacturing a drugs charge and he was
a bad guy.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
He ended up being sentenced and put in Pelican Bay
in California, which is, you know, for the hardest of
the hardened criminals out there. And then I get my
boss coming up to me handing me a form saying
you need to get DMV confidentiality because she had just
been notified that the guy had threatened to kill the
(02:15):
chemists that had testified against him. And I was like,
what what am I getting myself into here?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And then I had an online sleuth type on Golden
State Killer kind of want to do me harm?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So over the Golden State Killer.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And there's several other individuals out there that probably have
some mental health aspects going on that aren't fans of mine,
So you know, you do become a little bit more cautious,
a little bit more paranoid. Fortunately, especially towards the end
of my career, I had access to resources at the
(02:57):
federal level that could be deployed if there was a need.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Well that was very cryptic, and I know as men
as a scare tactic, but congratulations, I think you did it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You know, there is a what do you want to
call it? There is possibility do sort of a whack
of moole aspect.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, there you go. I tell my journalism students all
the time. You know, this is a fantastic profession to
be in, and you are doing so much good. If
you are a responsible journalist, a good person who wants
to do the right thing. They're in this business to
do the right thing. To inform the public. It is dangerous.
Oh you know, we are in the public and what
(03:38):
you've done is dangerous too. When you particularly when you're
dealing with other people's lives and their freedom and everything,
you are in the public eye and you run some
pretty big risks. And so I always say, you'll have
to really think about that. You know, this is something
that you want to do, because you're going to piss
people off generally in this business.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now, you know, at any time when you're affecting somebody's emotions,
their livelihood, and sometimes it's just the receiver's perception of
who you are and what you're doing, particularly when it's
you know, kind of from afar. It does elevate the
risk just because you know, ninety nine percent of the
(04:22):
people out there are good people, but the one percent
out there is what you have to be concerned about,
and the point one percent are straight out dangerous. So
you know, it's just something that in these types of
professions you kind of have to accept that these are
the risks. It's sort of that risk versus reward aspect.
(04:43):
You know, pursue your passion, do what you love, but
getting into these fields you most certainly just be aware of,
you know, some of the aspects.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, the main person we're going to be talking about
in our episode today is an investigative journalist. He was
a reporter for the Arizona Republic. He was investigating had
been investigating for years corruption and organized crime in Arizona,
which sounds like a terrifying beat to be on. He
was really really good that I will say, just as
(05:16):
a preview, put him in some pretty dangerous situations. So,
you know, the murder weapon that we are going to
talk about has never been a weapon we've talked about before.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Oh interesting, I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, okay, Well let's go ahead and set the scene.
Nineteen seventy six. I was born two years earlier. I
was the prospery two year old when this story took place.
I'm not going to do the math. How old were
you in seventy six?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I was eight years old. I was living outside of Washington,
d C. I can remember the bi centennial. Yeah, so
I distinctly remember nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Well, I'm thrilled to be doing a story in which
I was born in this time period. I think that's amazing.
It's amazing that we're going to the seventies. Okay, So,
as I said, we are in Phoenix, Arizona. It's June second,
and the main person at the center of the story
is a guy named Don Bowles, and he's forty seven.
He's an investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, great newspaper.
(06:20):
He is very hard working. He has lots of sources,
really deep sources for all kinds of corruption, mafia. I mean,
he's really digging around for a lot of different bits
of information and I think that he is concerned that
he could possibly be in danger at some point, but
he's a long term reporter and people like that, the
(06:43):
investigative journalists, I know, they put their job above their
own safety. I mean clearly, if you are a reporter
who is digging into mafia ties and government corruption, you
know you are dealing with dangerous people. And he very
strong felt that this was his calling and he wanted
(07:04):
to help protect the people of Arizona and this was
his way to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, and you know, I've got to think there's got
to be for someone like him. In addition to you know,
the fear of the people you might be pissing off,
is there's an adrenaline rush as well, you know, and
I think that that's just part of that personality. Not
only is you know, the fact finding and informing the public,
(07:28):
but I think people who get into that line of
work truly enjoy, you know, sort of the discovery of
the information that somebody else is trying to suppress or
cover up or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah. Well, what's interesting about Dawn And I don't know
if this was his age, if he got tired of
this beat or what, but he decided he wanted to
switch up concentrations. So very very recently he decided he
wanted to move to more day to day state politics.
There is in the state politics, and he actually had
a desk in the press room at the Arizona State Legislature.
(08:04):
I would think good move for Dawn because it keeps
him out of the crosshairs of danger. You would think
getting away from the organized crime and mafia aspect of
it kind of bad news for us because it's going
to open up his circle even wider, because he's now
covering all sorts of contentious subjects and people who you know,
are doing really lazy things, and his job is to
(08:25):
dig up the dirt.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, well, obviously something bad happens to don.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, unfortunately. So on June second, he leaves his desk
for a meeting with a source at the Hotel Clarendon
in downtown Phoenix. You know, he is a reliable guy.
He's married to a woman named Rosalie. It's the second
marriage for both of them. Between the two of them,
(08:52):
they have seven children, four from his previous marriage, two
from hers, and then they have one together. He's a
family man, seems to be a great guy. So eleven
fifteen am on this June second, he goes to the hotel.
He waits in the lobby for a little bit and
then a receptionist calls him to the front desk. He
talks on the phone to someone there for about two minutes.
She said I have no idea who he was talking to,
(09:15):
but that she could tell from his end of the
conversation that this meeting with the source was being postponed.
He told the other person on the line to just
come down to the State House. You know, he has
that desk at the State House, and that was it.
So it sounds like it was a meeting involving his
politics beat, not his former mafia you know, corruption beat.
(09:36):
So now this timeline is important. He's in the hotel
for a total of fifteen minutes, so he's parked his car,
He goes to the hotel, he comes back out, he
gets back to his car, which is parked in the
hotel's parking lot. Now we took about witnesses to what's
about to happen. There's a guy named Lan Reid. He's
on a ladder and he's working on an HVAC system
(09:58):
in a neighborhood building at eleven thirty, so fifteen minutes
later from when Dawn had entered the hotel lawn. Here's
a massive explosion, and it is powerful enough to shake
the entire building he's working on in this HVAC system.
He climbs down from you know, whatever floor he's on.
He walks outside and he sees the direction the noise
(10:20):
came from a massive plume of white smoke. It's coming
from the parking lot of the hotel. He hears a
man screaming, and he and other workers start running. Now
I can pause, or I can tell you what more
I know. I told you we've never talked about this weapon.
We haven't had a car explosion before. I don't think, no,
we haven't.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I in my career did not have a bombing.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I reviewed a case that had happened in my jurisdiction
like a couple of years before I started, which was
a bombing a car, a vehicle bombing that resulted in
the death of an individual. And of course I've through
my friend pathology studies have seen what happens to the
(11:05):
human body as a result of bombings, including during the
early days post ninet eleven, attending some of the law
enforcement based training provided by the FEDS in terms of
the various bombings that had occurred across the world and
(11:25):
seeing the devastation that bombs can do to not only property,
but to the people that are impacted.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, this is very graphic what happens with Don. He unfortunately,
I will say, does not die immediately, and there are
some heroes in this story. What it sounds like happened
is he was just starting to pull his car out
from the parking space when part of it, the right
part under his seat, seemed to have exploded. I have
(11:53):
photos of the interior and exterior of the car. Don
is not in it. We don't see any of that.
I can so tell you what state Dawn was found
in and what they were trying to do to save him.
So do you want to see the photo? What do
you want to see? Oh?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, no, I definitely want to see the photo. This
is the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Some may if you need me to zoom in on
any of this.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Okay, So I'm taking a look at the photo of
the driver's side of a light colored four door Sedan
vintage nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
I mean, this is.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Looking very much like a dots in import vehicle. I
can't say it for sure if it's a dots and
from this photo and the driver's door is open, the
hood of the vehicle is slightly bent up.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But from this photo I can't really discern much more.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
What I think what I am surprised by is I
was expecting the vehicle to be much more damaged externally
than what I'm seeing.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Let me show you a couple more angles, and then
there's an internal one.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So the top phot is showing basically that almost the
same view of the car from the driver's side, with
the driver's side door open, I can see three plane
closed investigators, one which is crouched down at the front
(13:19):
of the car by the front bumper with a device
that probably is a mirror on a handle, looking at
the undercarriage of the vehicle. There is some debris that's
on the ground on the driver side, and the hood
itself is showing I would almost call it like an
(13:40):
it's been uplifted from probably the blast internally, but it
still looks like it's engaged. It's not like it's flipped open.
Maybe the front driver's side tire might be flat, but
I can't tell from that photo. And then the bottom photo.
(14:01):
The car has obviously been transported. The previous two photos
were black and white. Now this photo is color, and
it appears that this car has been put I don't
know if that would be the investigating agency's impound yard
or if this is just a junk yard ank junk yard,
but it's showing the kind of the left front of
(14:24):
the car. So I can now see the front of
the car. I can almost make out that it's a
dots and but I'm not entirely sure about that.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, no, it's a dots and I say it. Here's
the big photo, I think now now right underneath him.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, now this is the critical photo. So now I'm
seeing a photo of the inside driver's front seat, shows
the steering wheel, the front dash. There is a massive
hole that is directly under where the front seat cushion
should have been, but that is completely gone in this photograph.
(15:01):
The floorboard itself has been blasted through with the edges,
showing that the force came from underneath the vehicle to
the inside of the vehicle. You know, there's been This
photo is showing that there has been processing of the vehicle.
So the kind of the dash components have been removed.
(15:24):
I can see where the various electrical sockets have been
individually unplugged, so this must have been that item must
have been collected during the processing of the vehicle. Obviously,
Don sitting in this seat with this explosion going off,
would have suffered immense lower body injuries, and that potentially
(15:48):
could account for why he survived for a period of time,
as the sea cushion itself would have received the initial
blunt of the blast, but that would not have prevented
Don from sustaining significant injuries from such a large blast.
You know, the percussive forces from an explosion can also
(16:10):
damage the internal organs. And you know, I would not
be surprised that not only were Don's legs and you know,
lower part of his body be you know, completely mangled,
if not somewhat severed from his body, but he may
(16:30):
have also suffered from various blast injuries to his upper
body and internal organs.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Well, let me tell you about the injuries. Because these workers,
including the man who you know initially heard the blast lawn,
are trying to save his life. They run over they
find him lying face down halfway out of the car
with extensive of course injuries. His legs are basically destroyed.
As you had predicted. Blond ties his bell around one
(17:00):
of Don's legs at the thigh sinching in as tight
as he can to make a tourniquet. He yells for
someone else to give him another belt. He does the
same thing with Don's other leg. I mean, Don is
gravely injured. There's blood spurting from his leg. Why this
is important that somebody responds this quickly to Don. Don dies,
We know that Lawn becomes a witness because Don is
(17:23):
trying to say some things before he dies. So he
says a name, John Adamson. The firefighters in the emergency
personnel arrive at the scene within four minutes of the explosion,
and he's rushed to a nearby hospital. He's still conscious.
He keeps saying, over ago, over again, this name John Adamson.
And then emergency personnel hear him say that he's an
(17:44):
investigative reporter working on a mafia story. He repeats to
them the word mafia, and then he says the word
m prize E M p R. He's unconscious after that,
and then that's it. The final words we're working with
here are John Adamson in Mafia. An imprise sounds cryptic.
Some of it is, And this is a man who
(18:07):
is very much trying to tell people who might be
responsible for his murder.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, it's a dying declaration.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, you know, so there's in some ways there's a
level of veracity given to this type of statement because
this person doesn't have jeopardy or consequences moving forward, so
there's no reason to lie. So now, I mean, this
is golden for the investigators. There's a name, the fact
(18:35):
that it's associated with the mafia, which is, you know,
something they probably would have figured out just looking at
the victimology of Don. But then this word emprise. I
don't know that word.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Some of this is confusing what he says, and you know,
and then part of it is Don doesn't know maybe
who did this. Yeah, a family friend picks up the
youngest kids and brings them to the hospital, but the
police say get them out of here, and they're under
police protection from then on twenty four hour police protection,
which doesn't surprise you, I'm assuming considering this is does
(19:10):
this feel like a mob hit? I mean, is this
like a signature mob hit mafia?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Well, I think that you know, this is where obviously
this is a.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Very unusual type of crime, but it does happen, and
it does happen without some sort of organized crime aspect
to it. This is where now it gets into, in part,
the physical evidence investigation. You know, what is the level
of sophistication of this bomb. Obviously nineteen seventy six, most
(19:42):
certainly using radio triggers, there could have been a remote
detonation of this bomb once the offender saw that Don
was in fact in the car, but most likely this
bomb was placed after Don went into the hotel. It
was only in the hotel for fifteen minutes. They linked
it to the electrical system for when Don started the vehicle.
(20:05):
Now there's the electrical signal that is triggering the detonation
of this this bomb. What's the chemistry of the bomb?
You know, what are the components of the bomb? Is
this looking like something that is showing a level sophistication
where now you're dealing with a highly sophisticated, knowledgeable bomb
(20:25):
making individual. Does it look like it could be state sponsored?
Does it look like it's juvenile? You know, is this
merely a pipe bomb that they were able to put
an electrical detonation device on and they bought all the
components from a hardware store, you know. So that's that's
all part of the assessment of who the offender might be,
(20:47):
and that's through the crime scene evidence.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Well, let me get to the bomb part. I'm going
to skip down because you just asked about the device
and I was wondering how professional this setup is because
I am clueless. So this is what they said. So
the first law enforcement officers on the scene are from
the bomb and arson unit, not the homicide investigators, so
they are assessing, which is well, I mean, but that's good, right,
(21:15):
because there's nobody there to muck up the bomb scene.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
No homicide investigators are staying two hundred yards away from
this until your bomb guys clear it. There's no way
in hell, as an investigator, you're going anywhere near this.
You know, some of the tactics of bombers, and we
see this, you know over in the terrorist organizations, is
they will have a bombing and then all the first
(21:40):
responders respond, and then they have a second bombing to
kill all the first responders. So the proper way to
handle this type of thing is to get your bomb
arson guys to clear this scene, and they're trained to
be able to do that without contaminating the homicide evidence
side aspect too much.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Well, the way that this all unfolds, you know, is
so mysterious. It's to me very cloak and dagger. But
let me tell you about this device. Okay, So the
bomb and arson guys get there, and this is what
they figure out. The bomb under the driver's side of
Don's door had been made with six sticks of dynamite,
and you're right, it had a remote control. It was
(22:23):
attached to the bottom of the car under the driver's
seat with a magnet. Now, they miscalculated Don was six
foot two, and so I don't think they realized that
he pushed his seat back, so they made an estimation
of where he would be sitting. That's why he put
his seat back or his seat was back, and they
didn't know this, I guess. And they figured out that
(22:44):
this is why it hit his legs more than anything else.
Had he been more forward, he would have been killed instantly,
is what they're saying. So I don't see an assessment
of whether or not this is considered professional. Six sticks
of dynamite with a remote control in the seven What
do you think about that? Does that signal anything to you?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
That's showing a level of sophistication in my estimation. Now,
the positioning of the bomb underneath on you know, the
offender not taking into account his height or the exact
position of a seat. I don't think that that's a
factor at all. They're attaching this bomb using a magnet.
You think about being underneath the vehicle, You're just kind
(23:24):
of going with six sticks of dynamite. I just need
to get this under the driver's side and this is
going to kill Dawn. Now, you know, with the forces
of the blast, there's so many just weird things that
happen under these extreme weird.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Phenomena, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So the idea that if he had just been six
inches fourd that this would have just absolutely devastated his
upper body, Well, no, you have this intervening object of
the seat cushion, you have the floorboard, you possibly have
cross members underneath the vehicle, and this is all deflecting
and having all sorts of weird aspects to these forces.
(24:02):
The offender is just going, I'm placing these six sticks
of dynamite underneath the driver's side door, and I am
confident this will kill down. And now the offender, whether
it's the bomb maker, slash bomb placer, or it's a triggerer,
you know, somebody who's you know, we don't know what
kind of conspiracy we're dealing with, but now you have
(24:25):
somebody who has a vantage point to be able to
know when Don is in that vehicle in order to
do the remote controlled detonation. You know, this is showing
this is not most certainly you could you could have
some very intelligent, criminally minded teenagers that might be able
to pull this type of thing off, but we don't
(24:48):
generally see that. You know, they they're the ones that
use the little pipe bomb stuff. This is to me
telling me, okay, you know there is a level of
expertise and sophistication. I can't say to what point yet,
you know, but it's something that's like I am a
little bit concerned about who might be behind this.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Well, I want to tell you about Don's most active investigations.
We know he's been digging into mafia, corruption, government stuff
for years, but remember he's on this political beat. So
this is what they figure out happened with Don. The
day that this happened Now I will say Don lived
for a while, several days, and he was trying his
best to give information. He does end up dying, but
(25:33):
he is able to confirm some things. I mean, he
really wanted to help figure this out, and I'm sure
he didn't have any illusions that he was going to
survive this. It must have been a tremendous amount of
pain that he was in. So this is what happens.
That morning. He had gone to the state Legislature to
cover a Senate session on that morning before his appointment
(25:54):
with this source at the hotel. Before he left, he
jotted down a note on a colleague's typewriter, and it
was a reporter named Bernie Wynn. So Bernie turns this
over to the police, and the note says, I've gone
to meet that guy with the information on Steiger at
the Clarendon House. Then to Sigma Delta Kai back about
(26:16):
one thirty bulls. So Steiger is referring to Congressman Sam Steiger.
So Sigma Delta Chi refers to a luncheon held by
the legal branch of the Society of Professional Journalists, which
is held at the Phoenix Press Club. What Dawn had
said was that this source that he was meeting was
a sleazy bastard, as he said, from San Diego, who
(26:40):
had told him about a tip about a dirty land
deal involving this Congressman Steiger, and the first contact had
happened about a week before, on May twenty seventh, right
before Memorial Day weekend, and that person had also implicated
Senator Barry Goldwater, who was the sixty four Republican presidential nominee,
and another politician named Harry Rosenwig. So now it starts
(27:04):
to feel a little bit like a political cover up
if these are connected. Dawn had said, I'm not I
don't know if I'm that interested in this. I was
going to turn it over to the paper City desk,
but he wasn't sure anything was going to come of it. Ultimately,
it sounds like he decided to go ahead and meet
this source anyway, even though he's like, I don't know
if this is the right story for me. On his
(27:24):
own desk, he had written a note that said John
Adamson Lobby at eleven fifteen Clarendon House fourth in Clarendon.
And we don't know if he left this for somebody
else or if this was a note and he didn't
take it with him. But John Adamson never shows up,
he never makes contact with him, and then he's in
this car explosion. So that is his day. He's looking
(27:48):
into political corruption, a dirty land deal involving a congressman,
and you know, he ends up in this terrible, terrible
accident slash murder scene.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Okay, so it's interesting thoughts an investigation I was doing
out in Stockton related to Golden State killer. I had
a dirty developer, this Eckhart Schmidts, who was a child
molester who had a connection to Barry Goldwater and the
land based aspects. Not saying that mister Goldwater had any
(28:19):
criminal aspects going on, but when you said that Barry
Goldwater had some sort of connection with this Steiger and
a bad land deal or a dirty land deal, that
just was like, you know, bells are going off in
my head, you know, and that seems like that would
be kind of an interesting topic to dig down into
in the future. Now, the question I have it sounds
(28:40):
like this John Adamson, or the observation I have is
it sounds like this John Adamson. Is this source at
least Dawn thinks John Adamson is a source. So now
is Adamson legitimately a source and just coincidentally, you know,
backed out of the meeting at the hotel. Or was
(29:02):
John Adamson sort of the loure and had been hired
to bring Don out to this hotel right now? Don't know,
it could be it could be either way. But obviously
you have to identify John Adamson and go talk to
this guy.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, luckily police do. He is in San Diego, he
is well known to the police. He's considered a low
level street hoodlum, and they find him eventually in Lake Havasu,
which is about two hundred miles away from Phoenix. So
it doesn't look like John Adamson was actually ever present
at the hotel lobby when he was supposed to meet Don.
(29:36):
But when they show a picture of John Adamson to Don,
you know, Don says, yeah, this is the person I've
been talking about. Now, I don't know how he knows
what this guy looks like. He is confirming that this
is who he thinks that he's supposed to be meeting.
So two days after the bombing, Don is still fighting
for his life and the police speak with a lawyer
named Neil Roberts. There are a lot of names in
(29:58):
this story, now, Paul, because this this is a big
conspiracy at this point, yea. You know, now we're talking
about deep government stuff and lawyers, sleazy lawyers, no less.
So Neil Roberts says that he was with John Adamson
at the time of the bombing, so alibying him. Police
are also tracking down John Adamson, like I said before,
(30:19):
and he comes back to Phoenix, and it sounds like
Neil Roberts actually bought the plane tickets for him to
come to Phoenix to talk to the police. So then
this helpful, we think. Attorney Neil Roberts not only says listen,
you know, John Adamson had nothing to do with this.
He was with me. Here he is, I'm bringing him
to you. He's leading police to two more guys. One
(30:42):
is a real estate developer named Max Dunlop and the
other one is a man named Kemper Marley. So they
are linked to the dog racing industry. To me, what
Neil Roberts sounds like is an attorney for corrupt people,
for reputable people, is what it sounds like to me.
So I can continue talking about this more or you
(31:06):
can comment, But clearly Don has been getting into all
different kinds of investigative roots here that are leading him.
He reports on the dog racing industry also.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Well you know, the dog racing is gambling, and this
of course, you know, has probably mafia associations all over it, right,
especially during this era. This Neil Roberts, you know, is
he is he an attorney for the mob?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Is there anything along those lines or is he is
he just an attorney? I forget what you said. Was
he an attorney for Steiger?
Speaker 1 (31:43):
He's an attorney who was I don't know if he's
directly representing John Adamson, the hoodlum guy who's supposed to
be the source, right, but he's definitely facilitating him talking
to the police. And then he's pointing out these two
other men. And then I can kind of get to
where we're going with because imprize comes into play at
(32:03):
this point. This is a deep story. I mean, this
is not your typical murder story here. This is a
journalist who was digging into some places where people thought
he needed to stay out of it.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well, if this John Adamson is a just your typical
street level thug.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
You know how and why is.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
What sounds like a fairly highly priced attorney, this Neil
Roberts representing him. Somebody is paying Neil Roberts to represent
John Adamson.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, let me keep We'll keep digging and see what
we can come up with. So Dawn Bowles has some
notes that are discovered, and reporters look at these notes
and figure out that people in the racing industry would
have been really pissed off about this, the dog racing
industry that he was really digging in on another story.
So it doesn't sound like he's going completely you know,
(32:51):
boring state legislature stuff. He's still staying within corruption. He
used that phrase. Remember the weird one we talked about Imprise,
which is the it turns out of a gambling operation,
dog racing gambling operation based in New York, but it's
nationally known. It's still in business, actually under a different name.
One thing that is confounding is that there doesn't seem
(33:13):
to be a link between you know, this guy Kemper
who I had mentioned, Keimper Marley, who is linked to
the dog racing industry and this Imprise. So he's mentioning Imprise.
It looks like this sleazy attorney is pointing to, well,
you should really look at these guys who are involved
in the dog racing industry. But it doesn't look like
(33:34):
Don is reporting on these particular people. So it's almost
like this jigsaw puzzle that's been thrown up in the
air and there's answers here somewhere, but nobody's been able
to put it together just yet.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Well, Don, over the course of his career, probably has
made many enemies. However, his dying declaration seems to be
focusing in on this aspect of why he thinks he
was targeted to be killed, and so I think there
has to be a lot of weight put on Imprise.
And then what Don was discovering about Imprise? Now, was
(34:07):
he focusing in on any particular individual or was he
focusing in on aspects of Emprize that could have potentially
shut down aspects of its operation that would have financially
hurt people and now they are protecting their livelihood. You know,
that could kind of open up the suspect pool a
little bit. But right now we have John Adamson, Mafia
(34:32):
and Imprise, So at least investigators can kind of, you know,
put their resources down that path to see where it leads.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Well, what they're figuring out is they're trying to make
that connection between Imprise and the mafia, and they figure
out that the company is trying to conceal an ownership
of a hotel that would result in like a big
restructuring within this company and would reveal that Imprized have
ties to the mafia. So all of this is wrapped
(35:03):
up in and around this attorney, Neil Roberts, who now
seems to be representing John Adamson. So you know, Neil
Roberts is not doing this out of the goodness of
his heart. You know, John Adamson is tracked down and
might not have ever been tracked down had number one
Don not left that note. And number two of course
he said that name. So you know this was all
(35:25):
Don solving his own murder here. So Neil says the attorney,
He says, listen, John Adamson, Yes he was in Phoenix.
Yes he was with me. Yes we were five minutes
from the hotel where Don was murdered. But we were
together the whole time for that fifteen minutes leading up
to it. There's a discrepancy and police are able to
(35:46):
prove that. They can't say we were definitely where we
said what we were. There's evidence that if these two
people were involved with the bombing, that they were able
to But then, you know, what I had thought was, well,
why don't they could have planted it the day before
or days before? It's a remote control right, I mean,
this is not something that had to happen that day,
is it but held by a magnet? I don't know, well.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Right now, I think it's it's hard to assess why
that day that time, And I think I go back
to was John Adamson just a lure, you know, in
order to be able to get down to this hotel
and there must have been confidence that his vehicle would
be accessible in order to plant the bomb. If that
(36:29):
was the case, you know part of this and I
don't know if you have any information on this, but
you know, going back to the physical evidence in the case.
Oftentimes with bombings the like this remote control device, depending
on what it is, but sometimes you have the components
even through this explosion, that survive and the investigators are
(36:53):
able to recover like serial numbers and trace them back
to where you know, where this device will is purchase
from Layton. Prints can survive explosions, and so sometimes you
can get the bomber's fingerprints, you know, off of you know,
the various components or fragments, you know. So that's part
of what I'm wondering is is do they have any
(37:14):
further forensic evidence, you know, that can also point to,
you know, who the bomb maker possibly was.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Well, they do not seem to have forensic evidence that
that can you help us with the bomb maker.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
What they do though, is they are lucky that it
looks like the main player here is not particularly smart.
So this is what ends up happening so far, so
there's no reliable alibi. This leezy lawyer cannot be trusted,
and John Adamson is on the hot seat because they
go ahead and search his apartment, the apartments in San Diego.
(37:50):
They find, i mean, magnets, firecrackers, electric wire tape, and
a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook, which I mean, I mean,
you know, which includes instructions on how to make bombs.
Have you ever looked at that? I've never looked at
it before. I've read about it in many stories, but
I've never looked at it. Actually, I've read it, Okay,
(38:13):
you find it valuable?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, no, absolutely, you know I had a hard copy,
or I should say my Sheriff's office lab library had
a hard copy of that. And you believe it or not,
the same publisher has a book that's titled, in essence,
how to Become.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
A Professional Hitman.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
So you know, these are people that are putting out,
you know, how to commit crimes. And the Anarchist Cookbook
has legitimate aspects to it. Now, some of it probably
isn't as accurate as others, but I would not be surprised.
Like if this John Adamson wanted to learn how to
do a bomb, yeah, he could have turned to such
(38:57):
a publication.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
This will come down to once we start really thinking
about John Adamson. This is really going to come down
to what we think of Don's last words, what you
called the dying declaration that he made. Okay, so let
me tell you more. We have this evidence against John Adamson,
and as soon as Don dies, which unfortunately happens. Let's see,
(39:21):
the explosion happened on the second and he died on
the thirteenth, So the amount of pain he must have
gone through. So that's eleven days. He dies in the
hospital and they arrest him. They arrest Adamson for murder
a few hours later, so there is a preliminary hearing
to determine whether he can be tried. That prosecutors call witness.
(39:44):
This is an associate of Adamson's named Robert Lettier, and
they're connected through this greyhound racing industry. So Robert flips
and says that five days before the bombing, he and
Adamson were driving around and they went to the Arizona
Republic offices to look for Don's car. They didn't find it.
(40:05):
Adamson said something, well, I couldn't do anything here anyway,
That's what he says. And then they went to a
dots and I mean, god, this guy. They go to
a dots and dealership and Adamson looks underneath a Dotson
that's similar to the one that Don drove and ultimately
the one that he was fatally injured in. So this
is pretty good testimony, I'm assuming. I mean, he is saying,
(40:29):
let me give you one more line, Paul. On the drive,
Adamson alluded to an upcoming job and asked for help
following the target around. He said he'd be getting twenty
five thousand dollars, and he promised Robert to cut up
ten thousand dollars, but Robert said, no, he does not
say I'm going to kill this guy. He's just saying
I'm supposed to just kind of follow him around. There's
a job coming up. But he's doing all of this stuff.
(40:52):
This does not sound like a smart mafia guy to me.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
He's a street level thug that's been hired. Yeah, the
question is is who hired him? Now?
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Is it somebody connected to the mob, is it, you know,
somebody else. If Adamson is offering or saying he's getting
twenty five thousand dollars, I mean, this is a pretty
decent paycheck for somebody like him, you know. So you
have somebody that's hiring him, that has money and has
an interest in shutting Don down, you know. So that's
(41:24):
that's the thrust of the investigation. Needs to figure out
who that is. I mean, Adamson may be the yeah,
the actual bomb maker and placing the bomb, but you
still need to go after the people who employed Adamson
to do this homicide.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Well, just so you know, twenty five and seventy four
is about one hundred and forty thousand. Now, so that
is not insignificant. I mean real coniflation, I mean real
So well, yeah, that's not insignificant. And he was offering
this guy, Robert almost half of that and Robert it down.
(42:01):
So we've got a couple of other witnesses before we
get to who might have been responsible. Here there's a
woman named Gail Owens. She dated John Adamson. She says, idiot,
he took her to go buy remote control the kind
that fly model I mean, why is he taking people?
He's getting a remote control that flies model airplanes and
he's just like taking friends along with him.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, you know, it just speaks to his lack of sophistication,
you know, on that front. But he is doing it
in a way, you know, as I talked about earlier
about assessing the bomb itself. You know, he is getting
the instructions from somebody within that anarchist cookbook that is
(42:44):
very sophisticated, you know, so you at least have him
being able to follow instructions. But how many times has
he done a bombing in the past, how many times
has he committed a homicide in the past.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Probably he had.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
You know, he's probably not a professional hit man, but
he's somebody that for money, is willing to commit this
type of crime. But he's not covering his tracks very
well at all.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
No, he's not. And you know, this case goes on
and drags on and on and on until nineteen seventy seven.
He ends up ultimately pleading guilty and in the process
prosecutors say, who are you working for? He says, this
guy Max Dunlap, who is a real estate developer, who
is close to this guy Kimper Marley, who's in the
(43:34):
racing industry. Down had reported on Kimber Marley in the
racing industry. Right, so this seems to tie up some
things for investigators. This seems right. Dunlap is charged with
Don's murder. He's found guilty. The issue is is that
and that I think is an interesting point is Dunlap's
(43:54):
family says, listen, you know, yes he's this leazy real
estate developer, and yes he's connected to a guy who
Don reported on because of the dog racing industry, but
he's not connected to Imprise. And Don was pretty specific
about what he was saying. So they think his family
of course, this is his family. But Max Dunlap's family
(44:16):
says we think he's actually been set up by other
figures in the Arizona underworld. Adamson says that I can
tell you who the person who hit the remote control was.
It's this guy named James Robinson. I mean, I told
you there's a million people. James Robison. He said. Robison
was the one who watched Don as he exited the
hotel and triggered the bomb when he got into the car.
(44:37):
There's not enough evidence against Robeson and he's acquitted, but
you know, there's just a lot that Dunlap's family and
other people were saying. Those last words of him. Mafia
doesn't make sense with Max Dunlap, and neither does Imprise
because neither of those guys have dealings with Imprise. So
(44:58):
how much do we rely on on what Don is saying?
Does he even know what's happening? You know, when his
legs are blown off essentially and he's bleeding out.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Well, what we can say is Don knew what he
was looking into, and he knew that it probably was
a risky venture as an investigative journalist to start digging in.
He probably is making a guess as to why he
(45:30):
was targeted, and it's his most recent venture, you know,
and he's giving a specific name, John Adamson, who obviously
is the bomb maker the idea of mafia and imprized.
Don must have had some knowledge that was going to
really disrupt this imprize aspect, you know, whatever that would
(45:54):
have been. So in some ways, you know, I can
see where the Dunlap family is going on. Hold on,
you know, at least with what what Don is saying.
The victim is saying. That doesn't add up with with
Max Dunlap, you know. And and when you get into
these types of corrupt and organized crime aspects, you know,
(46:15):
this is where things The higher up you go, the
more murky it gets, right, And this is where the FBI.
I mean that they are good at pursuing these types
of investigations, but they've also got decades of understanding the
structures and who are the shot callers and you know,
(46:35):
who has interest in let's say this mprice. You know,
my perspective would be, you know, there's just no way
with you and I talking to sort out this type
of you know, who really was the one that called
the shot here there's just no way, right. But that's
where you know, the FEDS, that's their area of expertise,
(46:56):
you know, and so that's where like, if if I
were involved in a case like this at the local level,
it's you know, automatically, you need to get the FEDS involved. Yeah,
even if it's just an isolated local jurisdiction crime, you
need the people who know how to handle the investigation.
It's just like if if there's a homicide on federal land,
(47:17):
you need to get a local homicide investigator involved, because
they actually investigate homicides. The FEDS don't for the most part,
you know. So there is recognizing where the expertise and
experience lies, and that's in this type of scenario, that's
what the FEDS.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Well, to wrap this up, we are going to go
back to the sleazy attorney, Neil Roberts. Neil Roberts is
connected to everyone in this story, every suspect imprize. He's
represented people within that company. He is the one I
think you remember who pointed to Dunlap to begin with.
In the racing industry. He apparently paid for Adamson's defense.
(48:00):
It seems like I think it sounds like that Neil
Roberts was the middleman here between his client, whoever his
clients are, and Adamson, who is the muscle in all
of this, and that bastard Neil Roberts was given immunity
from being charged as an accessory after the fact, even
(48:20):
though it turns out there were a couple of convictions
out of this and that was basically it, and we
don't even know if these were the right convictions aside
from Adamson.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
So my thought is, with this level of organized crime
that appears to be involved, Mprize has a nationwide footprint
and appears to have a connection back to New York,
I can't imagine that an arm of this organized crime entity,
(48:49):
maybe it's mafia, would commit a homicide like this without
somebody from way up authorizing it because they want fly
under the radar, because you know, a bombing of an
investigative journalist is going to bring a lot of attention
from law enforcement as well as media, and people in
(49:11):
the mafia don't want that. So whatever Don was digging
into must have been serious enough to wear a very
high up shot caller, likely out of New York said
take him out.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
But why hire an idiot? Like John Adamson, some street
hood from San Diego. Why not get somebody more experienced,
you know, well, this is where they are they're employing.
In some ways, this is like your plausible deniability. There
are so many layers from the people that are saying
(49:44):
take down out to whoever's hiring Adamson, that there's never
going to be You're never ever going to be able
to connect all those dots. And so now Adamson, who
doesn't appear to be mafia associated, he's not a made guy,
you know. So he's the one that is tasked with it,
and they're paying him good money, right one hundred and
(50:05):
forty thousand dollars in today's money, in order to do this.
There is a risk, I mean where he can flip
and say well I was hired by so and so
of course, but they've shielded themselves because there's probably several
steps of intermediaries in which there isn't going to be
that obvious connection that can that law enforcement can trace
(50:26):
back all the way to the top. And then I
was thinking, well, why would John Adamson turn on Dune
Lap unless it was done lap? But obviously Adamson, if
he's going to flip. It's not going to be on
the real estate developer that probably doesn't have any serious ties.
He's not going to flip on Mprize, which clearly has
lots of ties and would have him murdered in prison.
(50:46):
So now, at as we conclude this, does it sound
more and more like you that maybe Max Dunlap is
not responsible for this and it's just much deeper than that.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yeah, that's my guess, and that's all I can all
I can give. Adamson pled guilty.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Yeah, he pled guilty, and that's when he flipped and
said it was done lab Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
So again I'm just speculating here, But if you have
an entity like New York based mafia that's calling the shots,
and this Neil Robertson is an attorney, you could see
where now there's communication to Adamson going keep your mouth shut,
point fingers at Max Dunlap. You'll serve X amount of
(51:29):
time and there could be threats both either to him
or to his family.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
However, it's like when.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
You get out, you will be rewarded with X amount
of money, something like that. You got twenty five grand
up front. When you get out, we'll give you two
hundred grand just stay quiet and do what we say.
So I would not be surprised that there's some sort
of arrangement like that with Adamson.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Well, you have an investigative journal I mean, just to
wrap this up, you have an investigative journalist who is
doing so much overtime work to try to make people's
lives safer and better. He has put himself in danger
and it has happened, you know, statistically, something unfortunately would
have happened to him at some point. Boy, I mean,
(52:12):
when you're poking enough people out there, we need journalists
like that who will help protect us. That's part of
our job as journalists. You know, you're going and you're
putting yourself out there, just like people in law enforcement.
You're putting yourself out there knowing that you can get hurt.
And don did. And now we have like a big
conspiracy and we don't know who is in prison for
(52:34):
what reason and why and who's responsible for it. But
we've never really done him offia conspiracy type story on
this show before, so I thought it was interesting or
a car bombing.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
No, you know, these types of cases are They're fascinating.
There's no question about it. It's just a it's a
different world than like what I lived in when I
was working within law enforcement. You know, My experience, I
would say, is more or you know, reading some of
these books, you know, agents that have gotten under cover
within organized crime entities, you know, and kind of getting
(53:08):
the inside information on how these entities think and why
they you know, carry out the types of crimes that
they do.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
But well, certainly something like this case Don's homicide, even
though it sounds like they got convictions, they didn't solve it.
They got the low level players, but there's very powerful
people in my estimation that are behind this, that are
(53:38):
you know, living scott free and probably have committed similar
crimes across the nation.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
You know what this is interesting there I mentioned this
guy really briefly, Rubison, James Albert Robison. So he was
the guy that John Adamson had said was the trigger guy,
the guy who pushed the button. So this was a
plumber he was charged initially with. John Robison said I
had nothing to do with this. I didn't trigger a bomb.
(54:04):
I didn't do anything. Adamson pleaded guilty as I said,
and served twenty years and two months in prison, so Dunlap,
Max Dunlap, and Robison, whom Adamson had had implicated, they
were tried together and Ross and Custon's case was based
on Adamson's testimony who said that Dunlap and Max Dunlap
(54:24):
approached him about killing Dawn and they reached out to
a friend, this guy, Robison, and that Adamson was paid
about six thousand dollars for his role in the crime.
Both of these guys were convicted, both were sentenced to death.
So they were convinced the courts and the law enforcement
was convinced Max Dunlap and John Albert Robison were responsible
(54:44):
for this, these kind of low level guys, and actually
Robison didn't have a record at all. So in February
of nineteen eighty, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the convictions,
saying that the court improperly denied a defense motion to
strike Adamson's testimony and so so later this year. Later
that year, their murder charges against Dunlop and Robison were
(55:05):
dismissed without prejudice because Adamson wouldn't testify again. So ultimately
what ends up happening is they're trying to try him
again and they can't get a conviction. He was acquitted.
Immediately after Robson was acquitted, federal authorities charged him with
soliciting a prison inmate to kill Adamson while he was
awaiting his second trial, and he did that. Robison did
(55:28):
try to set up Adams to be murdered for testifying
against him. So all of this is to say that
there is all kinds of people floating around. James Albert
Robison is listed under the National Registry of Exonerations. But
at the same time he said, yes, I tried to
have this guy executed. I tried to happ into this
(55:48):
guy murdered because he was setting me up. I mean,
it's awful. I mean, what a story. I mean, getting
into the mafia and stuff. It's scary to even think
of that. Journalists dig in that deeply, but they do
and I respect that. That is something I can't do,
but I respect those who do.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
Yeah, you know, and it is.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
It's not just like with what Don was looking into
with this Empress. You know, I had a case which
put me down a rabbit hole, something called In's law promise.
And you have journalists and others that were killed as
a result of this other super weird conspiracy theorist type
(56:29):
of thing.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I just have firsthand experience kind of with something along
those lines, and that there are powerful people that are
behind a lot of it. And it's like, well, how
you know, if you're just a local PD investigator, you know,
how do you get to where you're actually going up
into the ranks of these organized crime entities. My sense
(56:56):
is with with Don's homicide is there's probably an FBI
agent who basically say, oh, yeah, we know who probably
called the shot. You know, we can't make a case
on it, but we know who the you know, the
og is or the godfather or whatever you know, you want,
whatever title that person has.
Speaker 3 (57:18):
So fascinating for sure.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Well to end on I think an uplifting note here.
When he died in seventy six, so many people in
journalism were inspired by what he was doing and why
he died. Clearly it was based on his reporting. We
don't know one hundred percent sure which, but because he
was doing so much, I mean, was this like the
(57:44):
you know congressman, was this the mafia? What was this
dog racing all of it? Real estate? But thirty over
that year from seventy six to seventy seven, thirty investigati
journalists from all across the country came to Arizona and
dedicated themselves almost in shifts to report on corruption in mafia.
And they called it the Arizona Project. And it wasn't
(58:06):
his honor, you know, I mean, it wasn't connected to
let's figure out who did it, who killed Don. It
was more like this guy's work has to carry on.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Yeah, No, that it's a very cool story. And you
know what those journalists did and his honor was. I mean,
I think that's that seems genuine and heartfelt, you know.
Speaker 3 (58:30):
So that's that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Well, we're not going to do another story about a
journalist who dies, not for a while, because that just
gets to me. But thank you for listening to my story. Well,
we won't do another car bombing for a while. But
I'm always interested in learning more about different kinds of
weapons and the way, you know, I mean, just the
different types of forensics I think is fascinating. So thank
you for coming along this journey with me to nineteen
(58:55):
seventies Arizona.
Speaker 3 (58:56):
No, this was again fascinating.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
I appreciate this case is unusual and it's somewhat intellectually challenging.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Let's say that.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
Well, that to me means you need some time off.
So we're on a little bit of a hias, just
a little tiny Hiatu's nothing too long. But we'll be
back and I'll have another story that will be a
mind bender.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I'm sure all right, sounds good, Kate.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
Thank you, Paul. This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
For our sources and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot
com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryvogel.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is That Wicked, a
Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
the criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked My Life Solving America's Cold
Cases is also available now.
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you today?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well. I wanted to ask you a question
because you know, you and I come from backgrounds where
sometimes people don't like us for what we do for
a living. Sometimes people don't like journalists, and sometimes people
don't like you know, a law enforcement even like the
forensic community. Do you think it has made you a
(01:26):
more cautious, paranoid anything like that, like too much over
the top. Do you feel like you look over your
shoulder every once in a while. Have you ever felt
like that in your career.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Oh yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
In fact, there's a couple of times in my career
in which I received death threats. What the very first time,
which is when I first started, I was just a
civilian toxicologist and I testified against a guy. I think
it was a manufacturing a drugs charge and he was
a bad guy.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
He ended up being sentenced and put in Pelican Bay
in California, which is, you know, for the hardest of
the hardened criminals out there. And then I get my
boss coming up to me handing me a form saying
you need to get DMV confidentiality because she had just
been notified that the guy had threatened to kill the
(02:15):
chemists that had testified against him. And I was like,
what what am I getting myself into here?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And then I had an online sleuth type on Golden
State Killer kind of want to do me harm?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So over the Golden State Killer.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And there's several other individuals out there that probably have
some mental health aspects going on that aren't fans of mine,
So you know, you do become a little bit more cautious,
a little bit more paranoid. Fortunately, especially towards the end
of my career, I had access to resources at the
(02:57):
federal level that could be deployed if there was a need.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Well that was very cryptic, and I know as men
as a scare tactic, but congratulations, I think you did it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You know, there is a what do you want to
call it? There is possibility do sort of a whack
of moole aspect.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Okay, there you go. I tell my journalism students all
the time. You know, this is a fantastic profession to
be in, and you are doing so much good. If
you are a responsible journalist, a good person who wants
to do the right thing. They're in this business to
do the right thing. To inform the public. It is dangerous.
Oh you know, we are in the public and what
(03:38):
you've done is dangerous too. When you particularly when you're
dealing with other people's lives and their freedom and everything,
you are in the public eye and you run some
pretty big risks. And so I always say, you'll have
to really think about that. You know, this is something
that you want to do, because you're going to piss
people off generally in this business.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now, you know, at any time when you're affecting somebody's emotions,
their livelihood, and sometimes it's just the receiver's perception of
who you are and what you're doing, particularly when it's
you know, kind of from afar. It does elevate the
risk just because you know, ninety nine percent of the
(04:22):
people out there are good people, but the one percent
out there is what you have to be concerned about,
and the point one percent are straight out dangerous. So
you know, it's just something that in these types of
professions you kind of have to accept that these are
the risks. It's sort of that risk versus reward aspect.
(04:43):
You know, pursue your passion, do what you love, but
getting into these fields you most certainly just be aware of,
you know, some of the aspects.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, the main person we're going to be talking about
in our episode today is an investigative journalist. He was
a reporter for the Arizona Republic. He was investigating had
been investigating for years corruption and organized crime in Arizona,
which sounds like a terrifying beat to be on. He
was really really good that I will say, just as
(05:16):
a preview, put him in some pretty dangerous situations. So,
you know, the murder weapon that we are going to
talk about has never been a weapon we've talked about before.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Oh interesting, I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, okay, Well let's go ahead and set the scene.
Nineteen seventy six. I was born two years earlier. I
was the prospery two year old when this story took place.
I'm not going to do the math. How old were
you in seventy six?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I was eight years old. I was living outside of Washington,
d C. I can remember the bi centennial. Yeah, so
I distinctly remember nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Well, I'm thrilled to be doing a story in which
I was born in this time period. I think that's amazing.
It's amazing that we're going to the seventies. Okay, So,
as I said, we are in Phoenix, Arizona. It's June second,
and the main person at the center of the story
is a guy named Don Bowles, and he's forty seven.
He's an investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, great newspaper.
(06:20):
He is very hard working. He has lots of sources,
really deep sources for all kinds of corruption, mafia. I mean,
he's really digging around for a lot of different bits
of information and I think that he is concerned that
he could possibly be in danger at some point, but
he's a long term reporter and people like that, the
(06:43):
investigative journalists, I know, they put their job above their
own safety. I mean clearly, if you are a reporter
who is digging into mafia ties and government corruption, you
know you are dealing with dangerous people. And he very
strong felt that this was his calling and he wanted
(07:04):
to help protect the people of Arizona and this was
his way to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, and you know, I've got to think there's got
to be for someone like him. In addition to you know,
the fear of the people you might be pissing off,
is there's an adrenaline rush as well, you know, and
I think that that's just part of that personality. Not
only is you know, the fact finding and informing the public,
(07:28):
but I think people who get into that line of
work truly enjoy, you know, sort of the discovery of
the information that somebody else is trying to suppress or
cover up or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah. Well, what's interesting about Dawn And I don't know
if this was his age, if he got tired of
this beat or what, but he decided he wanted to
switch up concentrations. So very very recently he decided he
wanted to move to more day to day state politics.
There is in the state politics, and he actually had
a desk in the press room at the Arizona State Legislature.
(08:04):
I would think good move for Dawn because it keeps
him out of the crosshairs of danger. You would think
getting away from the organized crime and mafia aspect of
it kind of bad news for us because it's going
to open up his circle even wider, because he's now
covering all sorts of contentious subjects and people who you know,
are doing really lazy things, and his job is to
(08:25):
dig up the dirt.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, well, obviously something bad happens to don.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, unfortunately. So on June second, he leaves his desk
for a meeting with a source at the Hotel Clarendon
in downtown Phoenix. You know, he is a reliable guy.
He's married to a woman named Rosalie. It's the second
marriage for both of them. Between the two of them,
(08:52):
they have seven children, four from his previous marriage, two
from hers, and then they have one together. He's a
family man, seems to be a great guy. So eleven
fifteen am on this June second, he goes to the hotel.
He waits in the lobby for a little bit and
then a receptionist calls him to the front desk. He
talks on the phone to someone there for about two minutes.
She said I have no idea who he was talking to,
(09:15):
but that she could tell from his end of the
conversation that this meeting with the source was being postponed.
He told the other person on the line to just
come down to the State House. You know, he has
that desk at the State House, and that was it.
So it sounds like it was a meeting involving his
politics beat, not his former mafia you know, corruption beat.
(09:36):
So now this timeline is important. He's in the hotel
for a total of fifteen minutes, so he's parked his car,
He goes to the hotel, he comes back out, he
gets back to his car, which is parked in the
hotel's parking lot. Now we took about witnesses to what's
about to happen. There's a guy named Lan Reid. He's
on a ladder and he's working on an HVAC system
(09:58):
in a neighborhood building at eleven thirty, so fifteen minutes
later from when Dawn had entered the hotel lawn. Here's
a massive explosion, and it is powerful enough to shake
the entire building he's working on in this HVAC system.
He climbs down from you know, whatever floor he's on.
He walks outside and he sees the direction the noise
(10:20):
came from a massive plume of white smoke. It's coming
from the parking lot of the hotel. He hears a
man screaming, and he and other workers start running. Now
I can pause, or I can tell you what more
I know. I told you we've never talked about this weapon.
We haven't had a car explosion before. I don't think, no,
we haven't.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I in my career did not have a bombing.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I reviewed a case that had happened in my jurisdiction
like a couple of years before I started, which was
a bombing a car, a vehicle bombing that resulted in
the death of an individual. And of course I've through
my friend pathology studies have seen what happens to the
(11:05):
human body as a result of bombings, including during the
early days post ninet eleven, attending some of the law
enforcement based training provided by the FEDS in terms of
the various bombings that had occurred across the world and
(11:25):
seeing the devastation that bombs can do to not only property,
but to the people that are impacted.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, this is very graphic what happens with Don. He unfortunately,
I will say, does not die immediately, and there are
some heroes in this story. What it sounds like happened
is he was just starting to pull his car out
from the parking space when part of it, the right
part under his seat, seemed to have exploded. I have
(11:53):
photos of the interior and exterior of the car. Don
is not in it. We don't see any of that.
I can so tell you what state Dawn was found
in and what they were trying to do to save him.
So do you want to see the photo? What do
you want to see? Oh?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, no, I definitely want to see the photo. This
is the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Some may if you need me to zoom in on
any of this.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Okay, So I'm taking a look at the photo of
the driver's side of a light colored four door Sedan
vintage nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
I mean, this is.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Looking very much like a dots in import vehicle. I
can't say it for sure if it's a dots and
from this photo and the driver's door is open, the
hood of the vehicle is slightly bent up.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But from this photo I can't really discern much more.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
What I think what I am surprised by is I
was expecting the vehicle to be much more damaged externally
than what I'm seeing.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Let me show you a couple more angles, and then
there's an internal one.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So the top phot is showing basically that almost the
same view of the car from the driver's side, with
the driver's side door open, I can see three plane
closed investigators, one which is crouched down at the front
(13:19):
of the car by the front bumper with a device
that probably is a mirror on a handle, looking at
the undercarriage of the vehicle. There is some debris that's
on the ground on the driver side, and the hood
itself is showing I would almost call it like an
(13:40):
it's been uplifted from probably the blast internally, but it
still looks like it's engaged. It's not like it's flipped open.
Maybe the front driver's side tire might be flat, but
I can't tell from that photo. And then the bottom photo.
(14:01):
The car has obviously been transported. The previous two photos
were black and white. Now this photo is color, and
it appears that this car has been put I don't
know if that would be the investigating agency's impound yard
or if this is just a junk yard ank junk yard,
but it's showing the kind of the left front of
(14:24):
the car. So I can now see the front of
the car. I can almost make out that it's a
dots and but I'm not entirely sure about that.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, no, it's a dots and I say it. Here's
the big photo, I think now now right underneath him.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, now this is the critical photo. So now I'm
seeing a photo of the inside driver's front seat, shows
the steering wheel, the front dash. There is a massive
hole that is directly under where the front seat cushion
should have been, but that is completely gone in this photograph.
(15:01):
The floorboard itself has been blasted through with the edges,
showing that the force came from underneath the vehicle to
the inside of the vehicle. You know, there's been This
photo is showing that there has been processing of the vehicle.
So the kind of the dash components have been removed.
(15:24):
I can see where the various electrical sockets have been
individually unplugged, so this must have been that item must
have been collected during the processing of the vehicle. Obviously,
Don sitting in this seat with this explosion going off,
would have suffered immense lower body injuries, and that potentially
(15:48):
could account for why he survived for a period of time,
as the sea cushion itself would have received the initial
blunt of the blast, but that would not have prevented
Don from sustaining significant injuries from such a large blast.
You know, the percussive forces from an explosion can also
(16:10):
damage the internal organs. And you know, I would not
be surprised that not only were Don's legs and you know,
lower part of his body be you know, completely mangled,
if not somewhat severed from his body, but he may
(16:30):
have also suffered from various blast injuries to his upper
body and internal organs.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Well, let me tell you about the injuries. Because these workers,
including the man who you know initially heard the blast lawn,
are trying to save his life. They run over they
find him lying face down halfway out of the car
with extensive of course injuries. His legs are basically destroyed.
As you had predicted. Blond ties his bell around one
(17:00):
of Don's legs at the thigh sinching in as tight
as he can to make a tourniquet. He yells for
someone else to give him another belt. He does the
same thing with Don's other leg. I mean, Don is
gravely injured. There's blood spurting from his leg. Why this
is important that somebody responds this quickly to Don. Don dies,
We know that Lawn becomes a witness because Don is
(17:23):
trying to say some things before he dies. So he
says a name, John Adamson. The firefighters in the emergency
personnel arrive at the scene within four minutes of the explosion,
and he's rushed to a nearby hospital. He's still conscious.
He keeps saying, over ago, over again, this name John Adamson.
And then emergency personnel hear him say that he's an
(17:44):
investigative reporter working on a mafia story. He repeats to
them the word mafia, and then he says the word
m prize E M p R. He's unconscious after that,
and then that's it. The final words we're working with
here are John Adamson in Mafia. An imprise sounds cryptic.
Some of it is, And this is a man who
(18:07):
is very much trying to tell people who might be
responsible for his murder.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, it's a dying declaration.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, you know, so there's in some ways there's a
level of veracity given to this type of statement because
this person doesn't have jeopardy or consequences moving forward, so
there's no reason to lie. So now, I mean, this
is golden for the investigators. There's a name, the fact
(18:35):
that it's associated with the mafia, which is, you know,
something they probably would have figured out just looking at
the victimology of Don. But then this word emprise. I
don't know that word.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Some of this is confusing what he says, and you know,
and then part of it is Don doesn't know maybe
who did this. Yeah, a family friend picks up the
youngest kids and brings them to the hospital, but the
police say get them out of here, and they're under
police protection from then on twenty four hour police protection,
which doesn't surprise you, I'm assuming considering this is does
(19:10):
this feel like a mob hit? I mean, is this
like a signature mob hit mafia?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Well, I think that you know, this is where obviously
this is a.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Very unusual type of crime, but it does happen, and
it does happen without some sort of organized crime aspect
to it. This is where now it gets into, in part,
the physical evidence investigation. You know, what is the level
of sophistication of this bomb. Obviously nineteen seventy six, most
(19:42):
certainly using radio triggers, there could have been a remote
detonation of this bomb once the offender saw that Don
was in fact in the car, but most likely this
bomb was placed after Don went into the hotel. It
was only in the hotel for fifteen minutes. They linked
it to the electrical system for when Don started the vehicle.
(20:05):
Now there's the electrical signal that is triggering the detonation
of this this bomb. What's the chemistry of the bomb?
You know, what are the components of the bomb? Is
this looking like something that is showing a level sophistication
where now you're dealing with a highly sophisticated, knowledgeable bomb
(20:25):
making individual. Does it look like it could be state sponsored?
Does it look like it's juvenile? You know, is this
merely a pipe bomb that they were able to put
an electrical detonation device on and they bought all the
components from a hardware store, you know. So that's that's
all part of the assessment of who the offender might be,
(20:47):
and that's through the crime scene evidence.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Well, let me get to the bomb part. I'm going
to skip down because you just asked about the device
and I was wondering how professional this setup is because
I am clueless. So this is what they said. So
the first law enforcement officers on the scene are from
the bomb and arson unit, not the homicide investigators, so
they are assessing, which is well, I mean, but that's good, right,
(21:15):
because there's nobody there to muck up the bomb scene.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
No homicide investigators are staying two hundred yards away from
this until your bomb guys clear it. There's no way
in hell, as an investigator, you're going anywhere near this.
You know, some of the tactics of bombers, and we
see this, you know over in the terrorist organizations, is
they will have a bombing and then all the first
(21:40):
responders respond, and then they have a second bombing to
kill all the first responders. So the proper way to
handle this type of thing is to get your bomb
arson guys to clear this scene, and they're trained to
be able to do that without contaminating the homicide evidence
side aspect too much.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Well, the way that this all unfolds, you know, is
so mysterious. It's to me very cloak and dagger. But
let me tell you about this device. Okay, So the
bomb and arson guys get there, and this is what
they figure out. The bomb under the driver's side of
Don's door had been made with six sticks of dynamite,
and you're right, it had a remote control. It was
(22:23):
attached to the bottom of the car under the driver's
seat with a magnet. Now, they miscalculated Don was six
foot two, and so I don't think they realized that
he pushed his seat back, so they made an estimation
of where he would be sitting. That's why he put
his seat back or his seat was back, and they
didn't know this, I guess. And they figured out that
(22:44):
this is why it hit his legs more than anything else.
Had he been more forward, he would have been killed instantly,
is what they're saying. So I don't see an assessment
of whether or not this is considered professional. Six sticks
of dynamite with a remote control in the seven What
do you think about that? Does that signal anything to you?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
That's showing a level of sophistication in my estimation. Now,
the positioning of the bomb underneath on you know, the
offender not taking into account his height or the exact
position of a seat. I don't think that that's a
factor at all. They're attaching this bomb using a magnet.
You think about being underneath the vehicle, You're just kind
(23:24):
of going with six sticks of dynamite. I just need
to get this under the driver's side and this is
going to kill Dawn. Now, you know, with the forces
of the blast, there's so many just weird things that
happen under these extreme weird.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Phenomena, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So the idea that if he had just been six
inches fourd that this would have just absolutely devastated his
upper body, Well, no, you have this intervening object of
the seat cushion, you have the floorboard, you possibly have
cross members underneath the vehicle, and this is all deflecting
and having all sorts of weird aspects to these forces.
(24:02):
The offender is just going, I'm placing these six sticks
of dynamite underneath the driver's side door, and I am
confident this will kill down. And now the offender, whether
it's the bomb maker, slash bomb placer, or it's a triggerer,
you know, somebody who's you know, we don't know what
kind of conspiracy we're dealing with, but now you have
(24:25):
somebody who has a vantage point to be able to
know when Don is in that vehicle in order to
do the remote controlled detonation. You know, this is showing
this is not most certainly you could you could have
some very intelligent, criminally minded teenagers that might be able
to pull this type of thing off, but we don't
(24:48):
generally see that. You know, they they're the ones that
use the little pipe bomb stuff. This is to me
telling me, okay, you know there is a level of
expertise and sophistication. I can't say to what point yet,
you know, but it's something that's like I am a
little bit concerned about who might be behind this.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Well, I want to tell you about Don's most active investigations.
We know he's been digging into mafia, corruption, government stuff
for years, but remember he's on this political beat. So
this is what they figure out happened with Don. The
day that this happened Now I will say Don lived
for a while, several days, and he was trying his
best to give information. He does end up dying, but
(25:33):
he is able to confirm some things. I mean, he
really wanted to help figure this out, and I'm sure
he didn't have any illusions that he was going to
survive this. It must have been a tremendous amount of
pain that he was in. So this is what happens.
That morning. He had gone to the state Legislature to
cover a Senate session on that morning before his appointment
(25:54):
with this source at the hotel. Before he left, he
jotted down a note on a colleague's typewriter, and it
was a reporter named Bernie Wynn. So Bernie turns this
over to the police, and the note says, I've gone
to meet that guy with the information on Steiger at
the Clarendon House. Then to Sigma Delta Kai back about
(26:16):
one thirty bulls. So Steiger is referring to Congressman Sam Steiger.
So Sigma Delta Chi refers to a luncheon held by
the legal branch of the Society of Professional Journalists, which
is held at the Phoenix Press Club. What Dawn had
said was that this source that he was meeting was
a sleazy bastard, as he said, from San Diego, who
(26:40):
had told him about a tip about a dirty land
deal involving this Congressman Steiger, and the first contact had
happened about a week before, on May twenty seventh, right
before Memorial Day weekend, and that person had also implicated
Senator Barry Goldwater, who was the sixty four Republican presidential nominee,
and another politician named Harry Rosenwig. So now it starts
(27:04):
to feel a little bit like a political cover up
if these are connected. Dawn had said, I'm not I
don't know if I'm that interested in this. I was
going to turn it over to the paper City desk,
but he wasn't sure anything was going to come of it. Ultimately,
it sounds like he decided to go ahead and meet
this source anyway, even though he's like, I don't know
if this is the right story for me. On his
(27:24):
own desk, he had written a note that said John
Adamson Lobby at eleven fifteen Clarendon House fourth in Clarendon.
And we don't know if he left this for somebody
else or if this was a note and he didn't
take it with him. But John Adamson never shows up,
he never makes contact with him, and then he's in
this car explosion. So that is his day. He's looking
(27:48):
into political corruption, a dirty land deal involving a congressman,
and you know, he ends up in this terrible, terrible
accident slash murder scene.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Okay, so it's interesting thoughts an investigation I was doing
out in Stockton related to Golden State killer. I had
a dirty developer, this Eckhart Schmidts, who was a child
molester who had a connection to Barry Goldwater and the
land based aspects. Not saying that mister Goldwater had any
(28:19):
criminal aspects going on, but when you said that Barry
Goldwater had some sort of connection with this Steiger and
a bad land deal or a dirty land deal, that
just was like, you know, bells are going off in
my head, you know, and that seems like that would
be kind of an interesting topic to dig down into
in the future. Now, the question I have it sounds
(28:40):
like this John Adamson, or the observation I have is
it sounds like this John Adamson. Is this source at
least Dawn thinks John Adamson is a source. So now
is Adamson legitimately a source and just coincidentally, you know,
backed out of the meeting at the hotel. Or was
(29:02):
John Adamson sort of the loure and had been hired
to bring Don out to this hotel right now? Don't know,
it could be it could be either way. But obviously
you have to identify John Adamson and go talk to
this guy.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, luckily police do. He is in San Diego, he
is well known to the police. He's considered a low
level street hoodlum, and they find him eventually in Lake Havasu,
which is about two hundred miles away from Phoenix. So
it doesn't look like John Adamson was actually ever present
at the hotel lobby when he was supposed to meet Don.
(29:36):
But when they show a picture of John Adamson to Don,
you know, Don says, yeah, this is the person I've
been talking about. Now, I don't know how he knows
what this guy looks like. He is confirming that this
is who he thinks that he's supposed to be meeting.
So two days after the bombing, Don is still fighting
for his life and the police speak with a lawyer
named Neil Roberts. There are a lot of names in
(29:58):
this story, now, Paul, because this this is a big
conspiracy at this point, yea. You know, now we're talking
about deep government stuff and lawyers, sleazy lawyers, no less.
So Neil Roberts says that he was with John Adamson
at the time of the bombing, so alibying him. Police
are also tracking down John Adamson, like I said before,
(30:19):
and he comes back to Phoenix, and it sounds like
Neil Roberts actually bought the plane tickets for him to
come to Phoenix to talk to the police. So then
this helpful, we think. Attorney Neil Roberts not only says listen,
you know, John Adamson had nothing to do with this.
He was with me. Here he is, I'm bringing him
to you. He's leading police to two more guys. One
(30:42):
is a real estate developer named Max Dunlop and the
other one is a man named Kemper Marley. So they
are linked to the dog racing industry. To me, what
Neil Roberts sounds like is an attorney for corrupt people,
for reputable people, is what it sounds like to me.
So I can continue talking about this more or you
(31:06):
can comment, But clearly Don has been getting into all
different kinds of investigative roots here that are leading him.
He reports on the dog racing industry also.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Well you know, the dog racing is gambling, and this
of course, you know, has probably mafia associations all over it, right,
especially during this era. This Neil Roberts, you know, is
he is he an attorney for the mob?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Is there anything along those lines or is he is
he just an attorney? I forget what you said. Was
he an attorney for Steiger?
Speaker 1 (31:43):
He's an attorney who was I don't know if he's
directly representing John Adamson, the hoodlum guy who's supposed to
be the source, right, but he's definitely facilitating him talking
to the police. And then he's pointing out these two
other men. And then I can kind of get to
where we're going with because imprize comes into play at
(32:03):
this point. This is a deep story. I mean, this
is not your typical murder story here. This is a
journalist who was digging into some places where people thought
he needed to stay out of it.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well, if this John Adamson is a just your typical
street level thug.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
You know how and why is.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
What sounds like a fairly highly priced attorney, this Neil
Roberts representing him. Somebody is paying Neil Roberts to represent
John Adamson.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, let me keep We'll keep digging and see what
we can come up with. So Dawn Bowles has some
notes that are discovered, and reporters look at these notes
and figure out that people in the racing industry would
have been really pissed off about this, the dog racing
industry that he was really digging in on another story.
So it doesn't sound like he's going completely you know,
(32:51):
boring state legislature stuff. He's still staying within corruption. He
used that phrase. Remember the weird one we talked about Imprise,
which is the it turns out of a gambling operation,
dog racing gambling operation based in New York, but it's
nationally known. It's still in business, actually under a different name.
One thing that is confounding is that there doesn't seem
(33:13):
to be a link between you know, this guy Kemper
who I had mentioned, Keimper Marley, who is linked to
the dog racing industry and this Imprise. So he's mentioning Imprise.
It looks like this sleazy attorney is pointing to, well,
you should really look at these guys who are involved
in the dog racing industry. But it doesn't look like
(33:34):
Don is reporting on these particular people. So it's almost
like this jigsaw puzzle that's been thrown up in the
air and there's answers here somewhere, but nobody's been able
to put it together just yet.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Well, Don, over the course of his career, probably has
made many enemies. However, his dying declaration seems to be
focusing in on this aspect of why he thinks he
was targeted to be killed, and so I think there
has to be a lot of weight put on Imprise.
And then what Don was discovering about Imprise? Now, was
(34:07):
he focusing in on any particular individual or was he
focusing in on aspects of Emprize that could have potentially
shut down aspects of its operation that would have financially
hurt people and now they are protecting their livelihood. You know,
that could kind of open up the suspect pool a
little bit. But right now we have John Adamson, Mafia
(34:32):
and Imprise, So at least investigators can kind of, you know,
put their resources down that path to see where it leads.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Well, what they're figuring out is they're trying to make
that connection between Imprise and the mafia, and they figure
out that the company is trying to conceal an ownership
of a hotel that would result in like a big
restructuring within this company and would reveal that Imprized have
ties to the mafia. So all of this is wrapped
(35:03):
up in and around this attorney, Neil Roberts, who now
seems to be representing John Adamson. So you know, Neil
Roberts is not doing this out of the goodness of
his heart. You know, John Adamson is tracked down and
might not have ever been tracked down had number one
Don not left that note. And number two of course
he said that name. So you know this was all
(35:25):
Don solving his own murder here. So Neil says the attorney,
He says, listen, John Adamson, Yes he was in Phoenix.
Yes he was with me. Yes we were five minutes
from the hotel where Don was murdered. But we were
together the whole time for that fifteen minutes leading up
to it. There's a discrepancy and police are able to
(35:46):
prove that. They can't say we were definitely where we
said what we were. There's evidence that if these two
people were involved with the bombing, that they were able
to But then, you know, what I had thought was, well,
why don't they could have planted it the day before
or days before? It's a remote control right, I mean,
this is not something that had to happen that day,
is it but held by a magnet? I don't know, well.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Right now, I think it's it's hard to assess why
that day that time, And I think I go back
to was John Adamson just a lure, you know, in
order to be able to get down to this hotel
and there must have been confidence that his vehicle would
be accessible in order to plant the bomb. If that
(36:29):
was the case, you know part of this and I
don't know if you have any information on this, but
you know, going back to the physical evidence in the case.
Oftentimes with bombings the like this remote control device, depending
on what it is, but sometimes you have the components
even through this explosion, that survive and the investigators are
(36:53):
able to recover like serial numbers and trace them back
to where you know, where this device will is purchase
from Layton. Prints can survive explosions, and so sometimes you
can get the bomber's fingerprints, you know, off of you know,
the various components or fragments, you know. So that's part
of what I'm wondering is is do they have any
(37:14):
further forensic evidence, you know, that can also point to,
you know, who the bomb maker possibly was.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Well, they do not seem to have forensic evidence that
that can you help us with the bomb maker.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
What they do though, is they are lucky that it
looks like the main player here is not particularly smart.
So this is what ends up happening so far, so
there's no reliable alibi. This leezy lawyer cannot be trusted,
and John Adamson is on the hot seat because they
go ahead and search his apartment, the apartments in San Diego.
(37:50):
They find, i mean, magnets, firecrackers, electric wire tape, and
a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook, which I mean, I mean,
you know, which includes instructions on how to make bombs.
Have you ever looked at that? I've never looked at
it before. I've read about it in many stories, but
I've never looked at it. Actually, I've read it, Okay,
(38:13):
you find it valuable?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, no, absolutely, you know I had a hard copy,
or I should say my Sheriff's office lab library had
a hard copy of that. And you believe it or not,
the same publisher has a book that's titled, in essence,
how to Become.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
A Professional Hitman.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
So you know, these are people that are putting out,
you know, how to commit crimes. And the Anarchist Cookbook
has legitimate aspects to it. Now, some of it probably
isn't as accurate as others, but I would not be surprised.
Like if this John Adamson wanted to learn how to
do a bomb, yeah, he could have turned to such
(38:57):
a publication.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
This will come down to once we start really thinking
about John Adamson. This is really going to come down
to what we think of Don's last words, what you
called the dying declaration that he made. Okay, so let
me tell you more. We have this evidence against John Adamson,
and as soon as Don dies, which unfortunately happens. Let's see,
(39:21):
the explosion happened on the second and he died on
the thirteenth, So the amount of pain he must have
gone through. So that's eleven days. He dies in the
hospital and they arrest him. They arrest Adamson for murder
a few hours later, so there is a preliminary hearing
to determine whether he can be tried. That prosecutors call witness.
(39:44):
This is an associate of Adamson's named Robert Lettier, and
they're connected through this greyhound racing industry. So Robert flips
and says that five days before the bombing, he and
Adamson were driving around and they went to the Arizona
Republic offices to look for Don's car. They didn't find it.
(40:05):
Adamson said something, well, I couldn't do anything here anyway,
That's what he says. And then they went to a
dots and I mean, god, this guy. They go to
a dots and dealership and Adamson looks underneath a Dotson
that's similar to the one that Don drove and ultimately
the one that he was fatally injured in. So this
is pretty good testimony, I'm assuming. I mean, he is saying,
(40:29):
let me give you one more line, Paul. On the drive,
Adamson alluded to an upcoming job and asked for help
following the target around. He said he'd be getting twenty
five thousand dollars, and he promised Robert to cut up
ten thousand dollars, but Robert said, no, he does not
say I'm going to kill this guy. He's just saying
I'm supposed to just kind of follow him around. There's
a job coming up. But he's doing all of this stuff.
(40:52):
This does not sound like a smart mafia guy to me.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
He's a street level thug that's been hired. Yeah, the
question is is who hired him? Now?
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Is it somebody connected to the mob, is it, you know,
somebody else. If Adamson is offering or saying he's getting
twenty five thousand dollars, I mean, this is a pretty
decent paycheck for somebody like him, you know. So you
have somebody that's hiring him, that has money and has
an interest in shutting Don down, you know. So that's
(41:24):
that's the thrust of the investigation. Needs to figure out
who that is. I mean, Adamson may be the yeah,
the actual bomb maker and placing the bomb, but you
still need to go after the people who employed Adamson
to do this homicide.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Well, just so you know, twenty five and seventy four
is about one hundred and forty thousand. Now, so that
is not insignificant. I mean real coniflation, I mean real
So well, yeah, that's not insignificant. And he was offering
this guy, Robert almost half of that and Robert it down.
(42:01):
So we've got a couple of other witnesses before we
get to who might have been responsible. Here there's a
woman named Gail Owens. She dated John Adamson. She says, idiot,
he took her to go buy remote control the kind
that fly model I mean, why is he taking people?
He's getting a remote control that flies model airplanes and
he's just like taking friends along with him.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, you know, it just speaks to his lack of sophistication,
you know, on that front. But he is doing it
in a way, you know, as I talked about earlier
about assessing the bomb itself. You know, he is getting
the instructions from somebody within that anarchist cookbook that is
(42:44):
very sophisticated, you know, so you at least have him
being able to follow instructions. But how many times has
he done a bombing in the past, how many times
has he committed a homicide in the past.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Probably he had.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
You know, he's probably not a professional hit man, but
he's somebody that for money, is willing to commit this
type of crime. But he's not covering his tracks very
well at all.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
No, he's not. And you know, this case goes on
and drags on and on and on until nineteen seventy seven.
He ends up ultimately pleading guilty and in the process
prosecutors say, who are you working for? He says, this
guy Max Dunlap, who is a real estate developer, who
is close to this guy Kimper Marley, who's in the
(43:34):
racing industry. Down had reported on Kimber Marley in the
racing industry. Right, so this seems to tie up some
things for investigators. This seems right. Dunlap is charged with
Don's murder. He's found guilty. The issue is is that
and that I think is an interesting point is Dunlap's
(43:54):
family says, listen, you know, yes he's this leazy real
estate developer, and yes he's connected to a guy who
Don reported on because of the dog racing industry, but
he's not connected to Imprise. And Don was pretty specific
about what he was saying. So they think his family
of course, this is his family. But Max Dunlap's family
(44:16):
says we think he's actually been set up by other
figures in the Arizona underworld. Adamson says that I can
tell you who the person who hit the remote control was.
It's this guy named James Robinson. I mean, I told
you there's a million people. James Robison. He said. Robison
was the one who watched Don as he exited the
hotel and triggered the bomb when he got into the car.
(44:37):
There's not enough evidence against Robeson and he's acquitted, but
you know, there's just a lot that Dunlap's family and
other people were saying. Those last words of him. Mafia
doesn't make sense with Max Dunlap, and neither does Imprise
because neither of those guys have dealings with Imprise. So
(44:58):
how much do we rely on on what Don is saying?
Does he even know what's happening? You know, when his
legs are blown off essentially and he's bleeding out.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Well, what we can say is Don knew what he
was looking into, and he knew that it probably was
a risky venture as an investigative journalist to start digging in.
He probably is making a guess as to why he
(45:30):
was targeted, and it's his most recent venture, you know,
and he's giving a specific name, John Adamson, who obviously
is the bomb maker the idea of mafia and imprized.
Don must have had some knowledge that was going to
really disrupt this imprize aspect, you know, whatever that would
(45:54):
have been. So in some ways, you know, I can
see where the Dunlap family is going on. Hold on,
you know, at least with what what Don is saying.
The victim is saying. That doesn't add up with with
Max Dunlap, you know. And and when you get into
these types of corrupt and organized crime aspects, you know,
(46:15):
this is where things The higher up you go, the
more murky it gets, right, And this is where the FBI.
I mean that they are good at pursuing these types
of investigations, but they've also got decades of understanding the
structures and who are the shot callers and you know,
(46:35):
who has interest in let's say this mprice. You know,
my perspective would be, you know, there's just no way
with you and I talking to sort out this type
of you know, who really was the one that called
the shot here there's just no way, right. But that's
where you know, the FEDS, that's their area of expertise,
(46:56):
you know, and so that's where like, if if I
were involved in a case like this at the local level,
it's you know, automatically, you need to get the FEDS involved. Yeah,
even if it's just an isolated local jurisdiction crime, you
need the people who know how to handle the investigation.
It's just like if if there's a homicide on federal land,
(47:17):
you need to get a local homicide investigator involved, because
they actually investigate homicides. The FEDS don't for the most part,
you know. So there is recognizing where the expertise and
experience lies, and that's in this type of scenario, that's
what the FEDS.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Well, to wrap this up, we are going to go
back to the sleazy attorney, Neil Roberts. Neil Roberts is
connected to everyone in this story, every suspect imprize. He's
represented people within that company. He is the one I
think you remember who pointed to Dunlap to begin with.
In the racing industry. He apparently paid for Adamson's defense.
(48:00):
It seems like I think it sounds like that Neil
Roberts was the middleman here between his client, whoever his
clients are, and Adamson, who is the muscle in all
of this, and that bastard Neil Roberts was given immunity
from being charged as an accessory after the fact, even
(48:20):
though it turns out there were a couple of convictions
out of this and that was basically it, and we
don't even know if these were the right convictions aside
from Adamson.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
So my thought is, with this level of organized crime
that appears to be involved, Mprize has a nationwide footprint
and appears to have a connection back to New York,
I can't imagine that an arm of this organized crime entity,
(48:49):
maybe it's mafia, would commit a homicide like this without
somebody from way up authorizing it because they want fly
under the radar, because you know, a bombing of an
investigative journalist is going to bring a lot of attention
from law enforcement as well as media, and people in
(49:11):
the mafia don't want that. So whatever Don was digging
into must have been serious enough to wear a very
high up shot caller, likely out of New York said
take him out.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
But why hire an idiot? Like John Adamson, some street
hood from San Diego. Why not get somebody more experienced,
you know, well, this is where they are they're employing.
In some ways, this is like your plausible deniability. There
are so many layers from the people that are saying
(49:44):
take down out to whoever's hiring Adamson, that there's never
going to be You're never ever going to be able
to connect all those dots. And so now Adamson, who
doesn't appear to be mafia associated, he's not a made guy,
you know. So he's the one that is tasked with it,
and they're paying him good money, right one hundred and
(50:05):
forty thousand dollars in today's money, in order to do this.
There is a risk, I mean where he can flip
and say well I was hired by so and so
of course, but they've shielded themselves because there's probably several
steps of intermediaries in which there isn't going to be
that obvious connection that can that law enforcement can trace
(50:26):
back all the way to the top. And then I
was thinking, well, why would John Adamson turn on Dune
Lap unless it was done lap? But obviously Adamson, if
he's going to flip. It's not going to be on
the real estate developer that probably doesn't have any serious ties.
He's not going to flip on Mprize, which clearly has
lots of ties and would have him murdered in prison.
(50:46):
So now, at as we conclude this, does it sound
more and more like you that maybe Max Dunlap is
not responsible for this and it's just much deeper than that.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yeah, that's my guess, and that's all I can all
I can give. Adamson pled guilty.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Yeah, he pled guilty, and that's when he flipped and
said it was done lab Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
So again I'm just speculating here, But if you have
an entity like New York based mafia that's calling the shots,
and this Neil Robertson is an attorney, you could see
where now there's communication to Adamson going keep your mouth shut,
point fingers at Max Dunlap. You'll serve X amount of
(51:29):
time and there could be threats both either to him
or to his family.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
However, it's like when.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
You get out, you will be rewarded with X amount
of money, something like that. You got twenty five grand
up front. When you get out, we'll give you two
hundred grand just stay quiet and do what we say.
So I would not be surprised that there's some sort
of arrangement like that with Adamson.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Well, you have an investigative journal I mean, just to
wrap this up, you have an investigative journalist who is
doing so much overtime work to try to make people's
lives safer and better. He has put himself in danger
and it has happened, you know, statistically, something unfortunately would
have happened to him at some point. Boy, I mean,
(52:12):
when you're poking enough people out there, we need journalists
like that who will help protect us. That's part of
our job as journalists. You know, you're going and you're
putting yourself out there, just like people in law enforcement.
You're putting yourself out there knowing that you can get hurt.
And don did. And now we have like a big
conspiracy and we don't know who is in prison for
(52:34):
what reason and why and who's responsible for it. But
we've never really done him offia conspiracy type story on
this show before, so I thought it was interesting or
a car bombing.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
No, you know, these types of cases are They're fascinating.
There's no question about it. It's just a it's a
different world than like what I lived in when I
was working within law enforcement. You know, My experience, I
would say, is more or you know, reading some of
these books, you know, agents that have gotten under cover
within organized crime entities, you know, and kind of getting
(53:08):
the inside information on how these entities think and why
they you know, carry out the types of crimes that
they do.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
But well, certainly something like this case Don's homicide, even
though it sounds like they got convictions, they didn't solve it.
They got the low level players, but there's very powerful
people in my estimation that are behind this, that are
(53:38):
you know, living scott free and probably have committed similar
crimes across the nation.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
You know what this is interesting there I mentioned this
guy really briefly, Rubison, James Albert Robison. So he was
the guy that John Adamson had said was the trigger guy,
the guy who pushed the button. So this was a
plumber he was charged initially with. John Robison said I
had nothing to do with this. I didn't trigger a bomb.
(54:04):
I didn't do anything. Adamson pleaded guilty as I said,
and served twenty years and two months in prison, so Dunlap,
Max Dunlap, and Robison, whom Adamson had had implicated, they
were tried together and Ross and Custon's case was based
on Adamson's testimony who said that Dunlap and Max Dunlap
(54:24):
approached him about killing Dawn and they reached out to
a friend, this guy, Robison, and that Adamson was paid
about six thousand dollars for his role in the crime.
Both of these guys were convicted, both were sentenced to death.
So they were convinced the courts and the law enforcement
was convinced Max Dunlap and John Albert Robison were responsible
(54:44):
for this, these kind of low level guys, and actually
Robison didn't have a record at all. So in February
of nineteen eighty, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the convictions,
saying that the court improperly denied a defense motion to
strike Adamson's testimony and so so later this year. Later
that year, their murder charges against Dunlop and Robison were
(55:05):
dismissed without prejudice because Adamson wouldn't testify again. So ultimately
what ends up happening is they're trying to try him
again and they can't get a conviction. He was acquitted.
Immediately after Robson was acquitted, federal authorities charged him with
soliciting a prison inmate to kill Adamson while he was
awaiting his second trial, and he did that. Robison did
(55:28):
try to set up Adams to be murdered for testifying
against him. So all of this is to say that
there is all kinds of people floating around. James Albert
Robison is listed under the National Registry of Exonerations. But
at the same time he said, yes, I tried to
have this guy executed. I tried to happ into this
(55:48):
guy murdered because he was setting me up. I mean,
it's awful. I mean, what a story. I mean, getting
into the mafia and stuff. It's scary to even think
of that. Journalists dig in that deeply, but they do
and I respect that. That is something I can't do,
but I respect those who do.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
Yeah, you know, and it is.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
It's not just like with what Don was looking into
with this Empress. You know, I had a case which
put me down a rabbit hole, something called In's law promise.
And you have journalists and others that were killed as
a result of this other super weird conspiracy theorist type
(56:29):
of thing.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I just have firsthand experience kind of with something along
those lines, and that there are powerful people that are
behind a lot of it. And it's like, well, how
you know, if you're just a local PD investigator, you know,
how do you get to where you're actually going up
into the ranks of these organized crime entities. My sense
(56:56):
is with with Don's homicide is there's probably an FBI
agent who basically say, oh, yeah, we know who probably
called the shot. You know, we can't make a case
on it, but we know who the you know, the
og is or the godfather or whatever you know, you want,
whatever title that person has.
Speaker 3 (57:18):
So fascinating for sure.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Well to end on I think an uplifting note here.
When he died in seventy six, so many people in
journalism were inspired by what he was doing and why
he died. Clearly it was based on his reporting. We
don't know one hundred percent sure which, but because he
was doing so much, I mean, was this like the
(57:44):
you know congressman, was this the mafia? What was this
dog racing all of it? Real estate? But thirty over
that year from seventy six to seventy seven, thirty investigati
journalists from all across the country came to Arizona and
dedicated themselves almost in shifts to report on corruption in mafia.
And they called it the Arizona Project. And it wasn't
(58:06):
his honor, you know, I mean, it wasn't connected to
let's figure out who did it, who killed Don. It
was more like this guy's work has to carry on.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Yeah, No, that it's a very cool story. And you
know what those journalists did and his honor was. I mean,
I think that's that seems genuine and heartfelt, you know.
Speaker 3 (58:30):
So that's that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Well, we're not going to do another story about a
journalist who dies, not for a while, because that just
gets to me. But thank you for listening to my story. Well,
we won't do another car bombing for a while. But
I'm always interested in learning more about different kinds of
weapons and the way, you know, I mean, just the
different types of forensics I think is fascinating. So thank
you for coming along this journey with me to nineteen
(58:55):
seventies Arizona.
Speaker 3 (58:56):
No, this was again fascinating.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
I appreciate this case is unusual and it's somewhat intellectually challenging.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Let's say that.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
Well, that to me means you need some time off.
So we're on a little bit of a hias, just
a little tiny Hiatu's nothing too long. But we'll be
back and I'll have another story that will be a
mind bender.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I'm sure all right, sounds good, Kate.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
Thank you, Paul. This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
For our sources and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot
com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryvogel.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is That Wicked, a
Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
the criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked My Life Solving America's Cold
Cases is also available now.
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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