Back to SCANDAL HAUNTS TEMPLE MURDERS Main Indexby Russ Kimball and Laura Greenburg
Third of three parts
Sheriff's Sgt. Russ Kimball was coordinator of the multi-agency task force That conducted the massive search for the killers of nine people at the Buddhist temple in August 1991. Writing with the features editor Laura Greenberg, he re examines the investigation.
Thursday, October 24, 1991
It's lunchtime when Russ Kimball drops a thunderbolt on Sheriff's Sergeant Mark Mullavey: The Department of Public Safety just identified the rifle taken from Rolando Caratachea Jr. weeks ago as the gun that killed nine people at Wat Promkunaram. Mullavey blanches when he realizes Kimball isn't joking.
Mullavey reminds Kimball that the Office of Special Investigations at Luke Air Force Base spotted the first report the gun associated with Caratachea and a friend, Jonathan Doody, Kimball flashes back to just after midnight on September 11 when Detective Rick Sinsabaugh returned from picking up a rifle and tried to tell him he'd found the murder weapon. That must have been the gun he was yammering about.
But Kimball was awaiting a hot suspect from Tucson that night and wouldn't listen to Sinsabaugh. Much later he would realize in his confusion the rifle ended up stored behind an office door for nearly a month before it was sent to the DPS lab.
What's the link?-Kimball now wonders with Mullavey, unaware that those words would remain his obsession in the months to come. Damn, suspects are puddling up. The task force already had four young men from Tucson in jail, charged with the August murder of six Thai monks, a nun, a novice, and a temple helper. Caratchea must have been with them, Kimball reasons, full of nervous energy, squinting his eyes. But what the hell's the link?
Mullavey jokes that so many suspects have emerged, they would have needed valet parking at the temple. This is the last black humor that will be tossed for a long time.
Ironically, at that very moment Jonathan's brother ,David Doody and his father Brian are in an interview with sheriff's detectives Sinsabaugh and Pat Riley. Anxious investigators are stretching for any physical evidence tying the Tucson Four suspects to the murders-and David, who had been a novice monk, might know of belongings that could be missing from the temple..
David moved with his family to Colorado when the Air Force transferred his father from Luke. But, his seventeen-year old brother, Jonathan, stayed behind in the west Valley. Sinsabaugh, seeking inroads to the Thai community, had briefly interviewed Jonathan when he seized the .22 Marlin rifle from Caratchea back in September-that's how the task force learned about David. An uptight Kimball scrambles down the hall and interrupts the Doody Interview. Sinsabaugh slips out and Kimball whispers the news. Sinsabaugh's eyes grow to saucers then narrow with realization: I was right, it was the murder weapon.
Kimball instructs Sinsabaugh to inform the Doody's zero about the recent turn of events. But Brian and David Doody knows something's up. Later they will say that Sinsabaugh and Riley weren't as friendly after the break in the interview, the detectives pried more, were accusatory.
Captain Jerry White and Deputy Chief John Coppock, the new task force commander, learn what's happened and jump-start everyone involved.
Sheriff Tom Agnos appointed Coppock to lead the task force after accusations of forced confessions and bad press muddied the case against the Tucson Four and disrupted the temple murder investigation, Coppock, a second-generation sheriff's deputy who bares an uncanny resemblance to Phil Donahue, had come up through the ranks. Kimball, coordinator of the task force, respected his intellect, but thought his approach to leadership was manipulative.
By 12:30 p.m., a new homicide investigation is born. But this time, the brain trust is determined that the task force will not be made to look like fools. The uproar over the interrogations and confessions of the Tucson Four, the lack of evidence, stings. They messed up once, they weren't going to do it again.
Strict reporting and evidence collection procedures are in place. Top quality tape recorders and backup recorders have been installed in the interrogation rooms. The "prop" room with photographs and charts concerning the crime-which may have caused the Tucson suspects to spout it back to their questioners-has been dismantled. And detectives have been warned about giving too much information during interrogations.
The task force assembles, a briefing-apparently, no one's called them with the news. Kimball knows better than to ask his bosses.
In the shabby conference room Kimball stands by a new, high -tech white grease board that prints copies of what is written. He draws a link chart in black erasable marker, showing the associations of Caratchea. It will grow exponentially as detectives are dispatched into the community to dredge information about his associates.
A new batch of suspects emerge: Rolando Caratchea Jr., Jonathan Doody, Allesandro "Alex" Garcia and other west Valley teen-agers. Caratchea, Doody and Garcia are found to be members of a loosely knit group whose moniker is the AM posse, supposedly for their after midnight activities.
The pace of the investigation sizzles. It feels like a repeat of the zany Tucson storm as investigators learn the gun was shipped to a K-Mart in the west Valley. They blitz the store, seize receipts and transaction records that show Sheila Caratchea, Rolando's mother, bought the $78 Marlin model 60 rifle in December 1989.
Suddenly, just as the task force is ready to go full bore, Coppock slams on the brakes. He swears he's going to avoid a repeat of the Tucson marathon. He shuts down the task force for the night.
By 7 p.m., Kimball and Coppock are alone at task force headquarters. Kimball is fried, his mind is racing to plan ahead and backtracking at the same time, to make sure the same mistakes won't happen again. He asks Coppock about calling the county attorney's office Coppock says he'll call from home, later.
At 8 p.m. Kimball's alone with his thoughts, stringing white butcher paper until the conference room is literally wrapped with writing space. He is ready for the next morning. No one wants a repeat of the zoo that twisted information in the case of the Tucson four, so everything will be written down. Everything. No one wants to be hammered by the media again, or the community.
Friday, October 25, 1991
The big question at the morning briefing is how the Tucson defendants hooked up with west Valley kids. An undercurrent of doubt tugs in the minds of investigators, but the bravado of confidence prevails.
Still absent are the prosecutors. Apparently, no one has tipped them yet.
There's standing room only in an electrified conference room. A dozen conversations buzz. When Coppock walks in, talking stops. Eyes shift nervously to the head of the table where he takes a chair. Jerry White sits with the troops.
Officers wait silently while Coppock arranges notepads and pens on the table. Tension builds. Finally, he nods to Kimball who dials long distance, switches on a scratchy phone link to the Tucson branch of the task force.
Coppock asks for and gets a rehash of the preceding day's events. Kimball thinks this is ridiculous. They'd already gone over everything the day before. It was time for action, while everybody was peppy, raring to go. Now Kimball thinks they're living in damned conferences, as if the meetings gave substance to the cause. People were antsy, needed action.
Initially, Kimball and Mullavey supported the slower pace of the investigation under Coppock. Now they begin to curse him as it drags. If the Tucson Four was all giddy-yap, this one crawls. Most of the task force languishes at headquarters, impatiently waiting for assignments.
Meanwhile, survellance teams study places the newest suspects are likely to appear. Detective Riley writes search warrants, the SWAT team arrives and saddles up for forced entries, if necessary. Morning slips by.
By 1 p.m. someone has called the county attorneys. They rush to the conference room, confused and restraining anger at not being notified earlier. They review search warrants and wait. Everybody waits. Pizza and subs arrive.
In Tucson, detectives anticipate springing into action, once the link is established. Everybody down there believes in the link. Eventually, assignments go up on the butcher paper in Phoenix. The task force munches. A block away, the Tucson Four- Dante Parker, Leo Bruce, Mark Nunez and "Crazy" Mike McGraw- eat bland jail food.
Shortly before 3 p.m. a prosecutor wonders aloud why things have stalled. Coppock gives the green light to a surveillance team that has Rolando Caratchea in sight. They snatch the seventeen-year-old without incident, but know one else. Search teams move in Caratchea calls himself Shakespeare and is the self-appointed leader of the AM Posse. Later, during questioning in a court proceeding, he'll agree he can convince people it rains up. He is driven to task force headquarters and put in an interrogation room where he is grilled for hours.
But he doesn't confess, never will. Instead he pleads, he begs, shouts and screams and kicks the walls to punctuate his innocence. He claims he loaned his rifle to Jonathan Doody and Alex Garcia over the weekend of the murders. Detectives don't believe him. He's cocky and disrespectful of their authority. When his interview bogs down, Kimball thinks the first sortie of interrogators are tiring. He sends in a fresh team to replace them. The shadow of the Tucson Four interrogations slides across his mind.
Jerry White calls and invites Caratchea's Mother to headquarters- the lack of allowing family involvement was another criticism leveled against the handling of the Tucson suspects. She sits on Caratchea's lap, strokes his hair. Nothing detectives do budge the teenager. Shakespeare is clinging to innocence with gusto.
Across town on West Tuckey Lane, Jonathan Doody shares a cramped bedroom with sixteen year old Allessandro "Alex" Garcia, in the modest Garcia home. Doody is a junior at Agua Fria High School, an "ROTC rat" who moves in a fairly tight orbit of students. His classmates describe a quiet ,intense boy, dedicated to the exacting drills and elaborate costuming of Junior ROTC and Civil Air Patrol. A military brat, he is consumed with military hardware and jargon. Doody was born in Thailand, his accent is thick and his syntax imperfect.
In a couple of hours, Doody's color guard will present the flag at the Agua Fria Union High School football game. He will wear a shiny chrome helmet. His uniform will be perfect; wearing it gives him identity. He is a slight presence who seems to fade into the background in social situations. Later, a psychologist will say he is chameleon-like, classmates outside ROTC have no sharp memories of Doody at all.
Alex Garcia gets better grades than Doody; he's athletic and popular. Nevertheless, he comes across oddly shy to his classmates. While Doody prepares to lead the honor guard in the flag ceremony at the football game, Alex may be thinking about going out later to meet his girlfriend, Michelle Hoover. Doody heads to the game while Alex lingers at home.
Back at task force headquarters things are where they started. Four hours have gone by and the Caratchea interview has stalled. Kimball seethes, anticipating another all-nighter, silently blaming Coppock for dragging his feet. Finally, he and Mullavey do an end run and convince the county attorneys to pressure Coppock. Coppock gives the order to move on the other subjects. Jonathan Doody is confronted by Riley and an FBI agent in the parking lot of Agua Fria Union High School, after the flag ceremony. He comes voluntarily to task force headquarters at 9:15 p.m., still decked out in his ROTC uniform-a picture that will be paraded an television and the front pages. On the drive downtown he is not handcuffed. He's polite and quietly conversational, but he twists his beret nervously.
Simultaneous with Doody's arrival at task force headquarters, detectives hit several locations with search warrants. Undercover cops rake the football game looking for Alex Garcia and they scour the west Valley for other potential suspects. The high school buzzes with rumor and disbelief.
Meanwhile, Caratachea's interview resumes and Doody's begins.
Doody is read his rights, refuses a Coke and decides to talk without a lawyer or his parents present. Sheriff's detectives Riley and Dave Munley go to work on him. For three hours he hedges and denies knowing anything about the murders. But Riley is insistent and clues Doody to the fact Caratchea snitched about who he loaned his rifle to around the time of the killings. Doody admits that he and Garcia borrowed the rifle, but only to test home-made silencers they made by using potatoes and pop bottle caps. The interview drags and Captain White steps in for a brief show of authority. It doesn't work. Doody won't cave in. Three more hours slip away.
Meanwhile in a monitor room next door, prosecutors hang on every word Doody whispers, taking notes, trying to figure out if this bland lanky teenager could be a mass murderer. Across the building, Caratchea is talking with his mother, smoking cigarettes, drinking soda and pacing the halls. By now his fiery denials an d violent outbursts have stymied two waves of interogators who can't seem to outmaneuver Shakes peare. They never will because he's telling the truth-Kimball will become convinced he wasn't involved in the murders.
Saturday, Oct. 26, 1991 By 2:30 a.m. the task force has Alex Garcia in hand. A search team led by Sgt. Mullavey roars through his home. Alex's father is friendly with the detectives, he doesn't object to them taking his son to headquarters for questioning. Later he'll say he thought Alex was to be questioned in the carport, but detectives were quite specific with him about where Alex was going and why.
On the west side more search warrants are served with space-launch precision: cars , homes, apartments are tossed. During the next few days, suspects, investigative leads and potential witnesses will pour into task force headquarters, where detectives are ready for them this time-after the Tucson blitz in September, they had to scramble to reconstruct facts. Arrivals departures, bathroom breaks, food and beverage consumption and interview room numbers will be logged on sheets that follow suspects and witnesses wherever they go. Each monitor room is equipped with two tape recorders, a tape monitor and a note -taker. Prosecutors will assign themselves as monitors to each interrogation. No doors have been kicked in, nobody has been flashbanged or handcuffed...but it's still the middle of the damned night now and a feeding frenzy has started once again.
At 3:17 a.m. Detective Brian Sands and Dps agent Larry Troutt question Garcia, after reading him his miranda rights. He's self assured, cocky and willing to snap at cops when they become accusatory. He admits, however, to borrowing Caratchea's rifle but only to toy with some silencers he made. The interview ends in less than two and a half hours when they tell him that the rifle was scientifically proved to be the gun that killed the residents of the temple. Garcia asks for an attorney..."Right now!" The time is 5;33 a.m. Garcia is left alone in the room, while Sands and Trout spread the words no homicide cop wants to hear. "Alex has invoked his rights."
Meanwhile two doors away, Detective Sinsabaugh played the dumb cowboy whose hat was on too tight. Actually his mind is razor sharp. Kimball says Sinsabaugh has the gift of gab, can talk a cane from a blind man crossing a Manhattan intersection. He's perfect to work on a kid's emotions. And he does, for hours. He begs Doody to be a man, to take responsibility for his actions, like a good soldier. He swears he'll help Doody get through the hard parts, if only Doody will trust him. Sinsabaugh pushes every emotional button he can find, but Doody stops talking, except to occasionally answer yes or no in hushed tones. Sinsabaugh doesn't stop talking or pleading. His resonant voice is a broken record: Trust me, my man; Trust me, my man; trust me, my man.
Finally Doody crumbles. He sobs and whispers the first refrains of a confession at 3:35 a.m. Soon he will say he was at the temple with his Ford Mustang, but he didn't kill anybody. Other kids were there, too ,and he names Garcia, Caratchea and two others. He doesn't know who pulled the triggers.
Kimball feels Doody is too easily misjudged. While he comes off as polite controlled, placid, Kimball believes his mannerisms cloak a cunning that churns just below the facade of rigid control-a way of coping with poor social skills and difficulty adapting to his new Western culture. Kimball thinks Doody is bullwhip-smart, Conniving a street-savvy cop, it seems Doody lives in a fantasy world of militaristic control where things are mechanical and precise; symbols like cameras and weapons give him power and status-things he can't achieve just by being Jonathan Doody.
Doody sidesteps interrogators by weaving an escape for himself into the fabric of his confession, using themes detectives developed to lull him into talking. Themes like Jonathan your not a killer, my man. I can't believe you're a killer, Jonathan. You were there. Tell us who the killer is Jonathan. Tell us who was with you. Rolando planned the thing, didn't he? They threatened you didn't they? They threatened your girlfriend(Vicki) didn't they ,John?
But the walls at task force office are thin, and alone in his interview room next door, Alex hears Doody confessing. Lying, Alex will say later. It was a flash of fortune for a luckless task force that hadn't orchestrated the eavesdropping. It was merely a flaw of the building"s construction. Garcia hears Doody say five, maybe six people were involved in the murders.
The link commanders have high stakes in the confessions, which must implicate the Tucson defendants awaiting trial. White joins Doody's interview. He reads him statements from a Tucson suspect, gets him to admit a black guy was with him that night, talks about meeting at Camelback and the Agua Fria riverbed...Kimball, later reading these transcripts, will see shadows of the Tucson debacle again.
Doody is smart. Kimball figures the youth realizes he needs to distance himself from the Marlin's trigger to avoid a death sentence. What the hell, Doody must think, okay ten people were there. And the task force gives him a brush with which he paints reasonable doubt.
By 6:25a.m. that same Saturday, search teams have left the Garcia home on Tuckey Lane where detectives hit the jackpot; a20 -gauge Stevens pump shotgun, cameras, stereos and other items that may have come from the temple. DPS begins checking the shotgun immediately. Garcia's father, looking for his son, calls the task force and Mullavey sends a car for him, since Alex asked to talk with his parents.
Meanwhile, Kimball gives the order to have Alex Garcia fingerprinted and photographed. Information is coming from ongoing interviews is sketchy and fragmented, so no one knows what role Garcia played, if any, in the murders. A "pass by" is set up where Garcia gets to see Rolando Caratchea on the way to the print room. Task force bets are still on Caratchea as one of the killers, so the "pass-by" is an attempt to shock Shakespeare into lament. It fails.
Garcia is inadvertently left alone in a room with a technician. Kimball waltzes in, asks him how he's doing and if he needs anything. Garcia asks, "What's going to happen to me?" Kimball says he doesn't know, decisions will be made after the interviews. Garcia persists, asks what will happen if he tells the truth?
Kimball now knows he's on thin ice with Garcia who invoked his rights to remain silent and have an attorney. But he's flashing signals that he wants to talk, maybe confess. Kimball explains that detectives can't talk to him unless he initiates contact. Garcia is insistent, wants to know what happens to him if he tells the truth-without lies. Kimball can't promise anything...and in a move that soaks Kimball in sweat and could silence Garcia forever, he escorts Garcia to Sgt. Mullavey so the kid can consult his dad before he decides to say any thing. Kimball is sure Garcia won't confess after talking to his father. But the law's the law. Rules and procedures must be followed.
Surprisingly Garcia decides to speak again, he just doesn't want to talk to Troutt and Sands. He's heard Doody lying and wants to set the record stair. Kimball and Mullavey are tagged to do a second interrogation. Seconds before it starts DPS calls to say the shotgun found in the Garcia home spilled the shells found in the temple.
Kimball later will recall Garcia's interview as not an interrogation at all, but as a spine-chilling chronicle of American Robbery and murder by teenagers living in an emotional wasteland. Unlike the Tucson defendants, Garcia does provide uncommon knowledge-a lot of it. Like where the nun's dentures were in the temple. And he tells them he knows about the arrest of the guys in Tucson but that they were never there. It was just him and Jonathan Doody in the temple that night.
Just the two of them.
Kimball remembers glancing sideways at Mullavey when Garcia said that Mullavey looked sweaty, ill. He knew Garcia was telling the truth. Kimball was nauseated ,too, felt like throwing up and almost did. Now he knew in his gut they had arrested the wrong people.
Next door, the monitor room is stuffed with task force brass and prosecutors-including Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley-listening to Garcia's confession. When Garcia makes the statement that only he and Doody were involved, mayhem erupts on the task force floor. Deep, worried voices, doors slamming, hurried footfalls in the corridors.
Kimball and Mullavey take a break, but sheriff's commanders send them back to the interview, telling them that Garcia is lying, ordering them to get tough with him about the link between the Luke boys and the Tucson Four. But their hearts aren't in it they can't work the kid over especially when they know he's telling the truth.
They had the wrong people in jail.
Kimball remembers seeing Rick Romley during the break. He was standing in an office near the Garcia interview room, staring out the windows across the smog-locked valley. He seemed utterly alone and crest-fallen. Kimball knew the feeling. The cleft between Romley's office and the task force had become a crater.
Then Jerry White took over the Garcia interview, showed him the Tucson Fours Confessions, even had Alex's father there reassuring his son. White wears down Alex with bravado and conviction-many believed that the boy's refusal to confirm a link was a result of a threat from others involved.
An exhausted Alex Garcia is shocked that investigators don't believe him. Once, he even said whatever he tells investigators from that point on would be lies because he'd already told the truth.
And he does lie to en the inquisition. And the murky story he tells White about shadow figures and mirage automobiles at the temple with him and Doody smacks of information regurgitated by the Tucson Four.
Late October 1991-Summer 1992
Working from Alex Garcia's statement and the statements of close friends, detectives find cameras stolen from Wat Promkunaram. They locate Garcia's military boots that left a shoe print in the temple. And they find gloves and camouflage clothing and battle gear Garcia said he and Doody wore when they invaded Wat Promkunaram. But there is still no physical evidence to link the Tucson defendants to the killings or to Doody and Garcia.
That doesn't deter sheriff's commanders who in the following weeks unleash their detectives on west valley teenagers. Hundreds of kids are interviewed, some as many as eight times. Shockingly, several knew that Doody and Garcia committed the murders but didn't say anything before their arrests. This culture is an emotional dead zone, Kimball thinks.
Meanwhile, the task force boils with dissention. Clots of detectives doubt Tucson's involvement in the murders. But they don't say anything, they can't, because they are adamant that a link will be found. Pressure mounts. The energy field once again becomes frentic and hard-boiled, and scattered. Prosecutors ask sharp-edged questions that no one can answer-what's the link, boys; what's the connection; where's the evidence?
It is Sgt. Mullavey-risking the label of betrayal-who first braves the wrath of his bosses to speak his mind, ease his conscience. He has read all the transcripts and knows there's no possible way the two groups are connected-Tucson wasn't there. One night in early November, when he's alone with Coppock at task force headquarters, Mullavey confides that he doesn't think the Tucson Four are involved in the slayings, that the task force should work to free them. Coppock doesn't buy the suggestion, argues they were in fact there, despite the present lack of proof. But Mullavey knows the truth, it keeps him awake nights.
Coppock wants to know who else he's talked to about his feelings. Mullavey names Kimball, Riley, Tom Shorts, maybe one or two others. Coppocks face distorts with concern.
Mullavey asks Coppock for the opportunity to tell Jerry White himself that night, but Coppock won't allow it. Next morning, White and Coppock escort Mullavey from the case because his belief in the innocence of the Tucson men could poison the investigation.
Kimball shrinks when confronted, wimps out and claims "he's on the fence." Mullavey says he can lead his men impartially, so he remains as follow-up supervisor, but the damage has been done. He's an outcast with the commanders. Over the next year Mullavey will keep occasional notes on instances when he felt commanders overstepped the bounds of propriety. Twenty-three months later those notes would be turned over to sheriff's internal affairs investigators reviewing the temple case fiasco.
After meeting with Mullavey and Kimball, Coppock shouts to investigators that those who believe in the innocence of the Tucson suspects are "imbeciles" Sinsabaugh, also doubting their involvement, will later say that Coppock accused him of not having the killer instinct. Detectives doggedly continue to hunt for leads.
Then, during the second week of November, the brass suddenly schedules a transcript review meeting at the Phoenix Regional Police Academy. All task force personnel are ordered to attend, weekends off are cancelled. Romley and his prosecutors are invited. It's to be a dog and pony show to crush doubt about the involvement of the Tucson Four. The transcripts will be spooned by the audience, word by word, line by line-eight volumes.
Also, commanders are sure that investigators will spot clues that will unlock the case, once everybody has read the transcripts. But Mullavey is sure that after the meeting everybody will feel like he does- that investigators force-fed information to the Tucson Four: that their statements, when compared to Doody's and Garcia's will prove them innocent.
The meeting crashes within hours when Romley walks out with his people. He had already read the transcripts and had grave doubts about the confessions of the Tucson Four; he resents this session. He gives the sheriff a deadline-find new evidence implicating the Tucson suspects within two weeks or he'll order them released.
Battle lines are drawn, a war between prosecutors and cops threatens the investigation. Agnos and Romley lock horns in mortal conflict that could destroy their political careers , more fuel for the media. The whole community's poking fun , taking shots at the task force, at Agnos, At Romley.
Prosecutors stop spending as much time with the task force. White hurries to Alex Garcias house were he tries to convince Alex's father that his son will go to the gas chamber alone if he doesn't tell the truth about the men from Tucson. This time Alex's dad can't help...
Task force rulers have key people, including Kimball, leak incriminating information about the Tucson suspects to the media, hoping to bolster public support. Nothing works, but a we'll show them attitude looms over the investigation.
Crazy things happen. a fickle Kimball bounces from side to side, can't decide if standing up to his commanders is worth the risk of being shipped off to the graveyard shift to guard cactuses from a patrol car. So he rationalizes that maybe there is a link. With the blessing of a top sheriff's official, he hands over a set of Tucson's transcripts to a reporter. He's trying to stop task-force bahing by media still crying foul and coercion, more than ever now that new suspects are in jail. Before it's over, the sheriff's office will wholesale transcripts to the media.
Agnos lets his detectives participate in a press conference where Kimball makes a statement he will later regret. He calls Rick Romley a liar when a reporter says Romely claims he made his decision to release the Tucson defendants after reading the transcripts and police reports.
Skepticism spreads like thunderheads over the task force. An internal inquiry will later quote Sinsabaugh as saying Chief Deputy George Leese told him not to worry about a little doubt, being 75 percent sure was all Sinsabaugh needed. Morale sinks to the basement as detectives follow orders of commanders who have launched a wild and ardent but far-flung investigation.
It's more intense than the one that began the night Tucson Suspect Mike McGraw first called from Tucson. When Leese senses detectives and attorneys are coming back into the fold, believing once again in the Tucson mens guilt, he orders yellow ribbons tied to chairs in task force conference room. Some task force members smirk behind his back.
Meanwhile, detectives interview former inmates of the county jail and juvenile detention facility-hundreds of people-who have been released but were housed close to the defendants. The lists are endless. They're looking for someone in whom the suspects confided guilt. Then they question hordes of people who could be related to or know the defendants-names from phone books and police files, co-workers, entire neighborhoods in Phoenix and Tucson.
Detective Gary Eggert interviewed a juvenile offender housed with Alex Garcia. At first the kid said Garcia told him a bunch of people were involved in the killings. Jerry White has Eggert go back again and again for more information. When the youth admits that Garcia told him only he and Doody hit the temple, White orders Mullavey to gag Eggert, who isn't allowed to report the newest information to the task force-the statement would be bad for morale, White tells Mullavey.
Paranoia sets in. some detectives fear they will be asked to alter official police reports, a high felony. Things are going too far; people may be ready to break the law. A sgt. working with Pat Riley on a comparative statement analysis tells him to keep copies of his original work so they'll have proof vindicating themselves if the records are tampered with. The passion is ferocious, the fear that great, the division of opinion that strong. Later, detectives would say that nothing illegal happened. But in a document that would become public record, Pat Riley claimed that white told him the reports he was writing were too conservative.
When no link or new evidence is found, Romley is true to his word: He releases Parker, Bruce, Nunez and Mike McGraw in time for Thanksgiving 1991.
Nunez, Bruce and Parker are met by weeping relatives and friends, who shove past a crush of media on the steps of the county jail in downtown Phoenix. McGraw is hustled out through a tunnel and emerges across the street practically unnoticed. He vanishes into a New Times reporters car. But he'll return again and again like a crazy nightmare.
Kimball feels that Agnos, Leese and White couldn't accept the possibility that the Tucson suspects might not have been involved in the killings. More than a year later Sinsabaugh tells internal inquiry that Jerry White still can't face the facts. Kimball knows commanders couldn't believe that Doody and Garcia alone could have controlled nine victims at the temple. More importantly, they didn't want to believe the task force could have jailed the wrong suspects.
Meantime, a tearful Leo Bruce announces a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Maricopa County. Mark Nunez and Victor Zarate soon announce plans to sue as well. Mike McGraw checks himself back into a mental hospital after visiting the county attorneys office, still trying to offer information and looking for protective custody. Dante Parker goes to California where he is arrested and sent to prison for violating parole. Later, he adds his name to the lawsuits, which will seek more than $40 million.
Undaunted, task force commanders drive detectives toward finding the non-existent evidence that will force the re-arrest of the Tucson four. Agnos facing an election in fall 1992, impanels a blue ribbon committee from the private sector to review the case. But they can do little more than sympathize with his political plight, which is looking grim. Then he sends a contingent of true-believers to Governor Fife Symington, trying to persuade him to take the case from Romley. In a politically correct move, Symington's office declines to get involved. The U.S. Attorney does, too. The Tucson branch of the task force shuts down.
Daily operations become labor intensive, an albatross around the necks of detectives who band together against the administration in a we-versus -them charade. Detective Riley would later say, "None of the command staff wanted to hear that there was a difference of opinion about the involvement/non-involvement of the Tucson suspects."
So detectives joke about whose team people are on, who believes in the link, who doesn't. But a few detectives now cling to the belief that the Tucson Four were involved. The non-believers meet behind closed doors planning a mutiny if commanders order their re-arrest. Kimball feels that for Jerry White, finding evidence to re-arrest Nunez, Bruce McGraw and Parker becomes an obsession. Much of the task force's time is consumed by frustrating, tedious detail work, such as sorting through records of two entire telephone prefixes from the west Valley, interviewing anyone who made a call to Tucson near the crime date.
With new suspects in jail, the task force is evicted from the fourth floor of the east courts building. But the administration doesn't give up. Jerry White orders investigators to renew efforts to again charge Dante Parker. Pat Riley and Tom Shorts pore over case reports and transcripts, culling information to go into a document the sheriff hopes will convince Romley to re-authorize charges against Parker. But after weeks of rewrites demanded by Jerry White and George Leese, the document is still threadbare-the inconsistencies far outweigh any compelling evidence of Parkers involvement. White sends Kimball to Fulsom Prison to offer Parker a deal to confess, but Parker won't talk, doesn't want a deal, insists he's innocent.
White also seeks and gains approval from Agnos to track down and re-interview McGraw-the man from the Tucson mental hospital whose story led to the original sweep of the freed Tucson suspects. McGraws in Colorado trying to rebuild his life. To the internal inquiry, Sinsabaugh recollects: in June and July we are looking for McGraw again. We are burned out. The whole team is f----- up. The investigation has turned into a fiasco." McGraw implies he has information each time detectives trek north to speak with him during mid-summer 1992.
The task force helps get McGraw arrested in Colorado Springs on unrelated burglary warrants issued in Pima County.
In a last ditch effort in July 1992, Sheriff Agnos travels to Colorado to meet with McGraw, at McGraw's request. McGraw implicates himself again. When the sheriff returns, he sends investigators on a wild goose chase searching a rest area on Interstate 10, looking for .22 caliber shell casings McGraw said they would find there, and digging into "A" mountain in Tucson where McGraw said incriminating evidence was buried. Nothing is found. McGraw will later say he lied to the sheriff.
After his sortie to Colorado, Agnos decides that McGraw wasn't at the temple the night of the murders, a revelation that stuns Jerry White and George Leese. Still, Agnos is unwilling to disband the task force all together. He trims it to two detectives, two sergeants(Mullavey and Kimball),a lieutenant and Jerry White. White sensing the investigation is in its death throes, has his reduced task force sit for hours while he reads them transcripts of all the confessions.
He reads every line the suspects uttered, repeating the statements he thinks implicate the Tucson Four. He opines that investigators' beliefs are affecting their work. Kimball feels White is trying to brainwash his people.
Aftermath
Not only was there nothing normal about this case, it was the twilight zone. To this day there is no way to determine how much the investigation cost taxpayers-commanders avoided cost breakdowns and lawsuits are still pending. Kimball tried to write a book but his manuscript was dragged to court by the county's attorney's office and assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Jarosz, fearful of the investigative secrets it could compromise. A censored version was admitted into evidence in the Doody and Garcia proceedings.
Agnos lost his re-election bid, largely because of the botched temple probe. Romley won a second term easily.
The lame duck sheriff called Mullavey and Kimball into his office one day and asked them if he should try filing charges again on Dante Parker. He waived the Parker document prepared by Riley and Shorts. For the first time the sergeants had the opportunity to tell them how they felt without fear of retribution. When they finished, Agnos dejectedly tossed the document on his desk and asked "Where did we go wrong?"
Still, during Jonathan Doody's trial one year later, Agnos will tell a Phoenix magazine reporter that the case against the Tucson defendants should have moved through the criminal justice system, through trial. When new sheriff Joe Arpaio took the reins in January 1993, the task force was retired-Kimball chose the epitaph "bunglers." Jobs changed... George Leese was let go, tom Agnos retired to Sun City where he's building a house. Jerry White was transferred to transportation. A disillusioned Rick Sinsabaugh quit police work. Sergeant Mark Mullavy was transferred to patrol in Mesa; Kimball and Riley were assigned to Romley's staff to nurse the Temple case through trial. Mike McGraw went to jail for stealing cellular telephones. Alex Garcia pleaded guilty to the temple crimes under the agreement with the state not to impose the death penalty against him.
But who would have predicted that during plea negotiations with the state in January 1993, Garcia would confess to and implicate his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Michelle Hoover, in an unrelated murder of Alice Marie Cameron at a Verde River campground in Oct.1991? This was a month after the rifle that broke the temple case was seized, though not immediately identified. And yet another murder for which the sheriff's office had the wrong man in jail-George Petersen Jr. ,a transient who had been picked up after the killing. Michelle, who would argue that she was prey to the hypnotic good looks of Garcia , would be sentenced to fifteen years.
In July 1993, almost two years after the murders at Wat Promkunaram, Jonathan Doody was convicted of the killings after an eight-week trial during which head prosecutor K.C. Scull lost 12 pounds. But it was anti-climatic, a hollow victory for the state. He was convicted of felony murder, meaning he was merely a party to the crime. Only one juror felt that Doody pulled the trigger, as prosecutors vehemently alleged.
According to Rick Sinsabaugh, Jerry White was still reading the confessions of the Tucson Four during Doody's trial. Once, he phoned Sinsabaugh and asked, "What about this Rick?" then read him a passage from Dante Parkers confession.
After the trial, Kimball and Riley were re-assigned to patrol-Riley's work shift in Cave Creek, Kimball's on graveyard near the temple. Sheriff Arpaio assembled a team of crack investigators to review the temple case, hoping to elicit information that will prevent the same things from happening again. There's new blood in homicide now.
Meanwhile, Rick Romley had to wrestle with a raging public debate over whether Doody should receive the death penalty. The Thai community sent emissaries to plead for Doody's life-they don't believe in an eye for an eye, there religion has a different respect for life. Out at Wat Promkunaram things have "normalized." After enduring twenty-three months of uncertainty and a persistent terror that killers may be lurking still to strike again, the Buddhist community beefed up security at the temple and monks now live there. still, some temple members believe that Doody and Garcia did not act alone.
Most mornings on his graveyard shifts, in uniform for the first time in nearly ten years, Kimball parks by the temple, watching the sun rise, the lavender blush of dawn, wondering how thing went so wrong, out of control, how his once-bright career turned so dark. He thinks about whether he should stay a cop.
The case is still a monkey on his back. There will always be doubt.
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