The Hot Seat
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This is exactly right. I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪

Hey, Paul. Hey, Kate. How are you today? 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, law enforcement, even like the forensic community. Do you think it has made you a 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? Oh, yeah. No, for sure. In fact, there's a couple of times in my career in which I've received death threats. What?

The very first time, which was when I first started, I was just a civilian toxicologist. And I testified against a guy, I think it was manufacturing a drugs charge. And he was a bad guy. You know, 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 chemists that had testified against him. Oh.

And I was like, what? What am I getting myself into here, right? And then I had an online sleuth type on Golden State Killer kind of want to do me harm. Over the Golden State Killer? Yeah, yeah. And there's several other individuals out there that probably have some mental health issues.

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 federal level that could be deployed if there was a need. Wow. That was very cryptic. And

I know it's meant as a scare tactic, but congratulations. I think you did it. You know, there is a, what do you want to call it? There is a possibility to do sort of a whack-a-mole aspect. 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, you're in this business to do the right thing.

to inform the public. It is dangerous. Oh, yeah. You know, we are in the public. And what 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. You know, anytime 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 99% of the people out there are good people. But the 1% out there is what you have to be concerned about. And the 0.1% are straight out dangerous. So 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. 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. 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 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.

Oh, interesting. I'm curious. Yeah. Okay. Let's go ahead and set the scene. 1976. I was born two years earlier. I was a spry two-year-old when this story took place. A spry. I'm not going to do the math. How old were you in 76? I was eight years old. I was living outside of Washington, D.C. I can remember the bicentennial. So I distinctly remember 1976. Okay.

Well, I'm thrilled to be doing a story in which I was born in this time period. That's amazing. It's amazing that we're going to the 70s.

Okay, so as I said, we are in Phoenix, Arizona. It's June 2nd, and the main person at the center of this story is a guy named Don Bowles, and he's 47. He's an investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, great newspaper. He is very hardworking. 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 information

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 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 strongly felt that.

that this was his calling and he wanted to help protect the people of Arizona and this was his way to do it. 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 that

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, 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. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, what's interesting about Don, 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, Arizona state politics.

And he actually had a desk in the press room at the Arizona State Legislature. I would think, good move for Don, because it keeps him out of the crosshairs of danger, you would think, getting away from the organized crime 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 sleazy things and his job is to dig up the dirt. Yeah. Well, obviously something bad happens to Don. Yeah, unfortunately. So, on June 2nd, he leaves his desk for a meeting with a source at the Hotel Clarendon in downtown Phoenix. Yeah.

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, 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 11.15 a.m. on this June 2nd, 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, 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. So now this timeline's important. He's in the hotel for a total of 15 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 talk about witnesses to what's about to happen.

There's a guy named Lon Reed. He's on a ladder, and he's working on a HVAC system in a neighborhood building. At 11.30, so 15 minutes later from when Don had entered the hotel, Lon hears 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 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. I, in my career, did not have a bombing. I reviewed a case that...

had happened in my jurisdiction like a couple of years before I started, which was a vehicle bombing that resulted in the death of an individual. And of course, I've, through my forensic pathology studies, have seen what happens to the human body as a result of

bombings, including during the early days post-9/11, 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 seeing the devastation that bombs can do to not only property, but to the people that are impacted. 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 photos of the interior and exterior of

of the car. Don is not in it. We don't see any of that. I can also tell you what state Don 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, yeah. No, I definitely want to see the photo. This is the crime scene. Tell me if you need me to zoom in on any of this.

Okay, so I'm taking a look at the photo of the driver's side of a light-colored four-door sedan, vintage 1970s. I mean, this is looking very much like a Datsun import vehicle. I can't say it for sure if it's a Datsun from this photo. And the driver's door is open. The hood of the vehicle is

is slightly bent up. But from this photo, I can't really discern much more. I think what I am surprised by is I was expecting the vehicle to be much more damaged externally than what I'm seeing. Let me show you a couple more angles, and then there's an internal one. So the top photo is showing basically almost the same view of the car as

From the driver's side with the driver's side door open, I can see three plain-clothed investigators, one which is crouched down at the front 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's side.

And the hood itself is showing, I would almost call it like 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 shows

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, junk yard.

but it's showing the kind of the left front of the car. So I can now see the front of the car. I can almost make out that it's a Datsun, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Yeah, no, it's a Datsun. I see it.

Here's the big photo, I think. Now, right underneath him. Yeah. Now, this is the critical photo. So, now I'm seeing a photo of the inside driver's front seat. It shows the steering wheel, the front dash. There is a massive hole there.

that is directly under where the front seat cushion should have been, but that is completely gone in this photograph. 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. 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 greatly.

immense lower body injuries, and that potentially could account for why he survived for a period of time as the seat 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 damage the internal organs of

And, you know, I would not be surprised that not only were Don's legs...

and lower part of his body be completely mangled, if not somewhat severed from his body. But he may have also suffered from various blast injuries to his upper body and internal organs. Well, let me tell you about the injuries. Because these workers, including the man who initially heard the blast, Lon, 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. Vaughn ties his belt around one of Don's legs at the thigh, cinching 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. Juan becomes a witness because Don is trying to say some things before he dies.

So he says a name, John Adamson. The firefighters and 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 and over again this name, John Adamson. And then emergency personnel hear him say that he's an 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-I-S-E,

He's unconscious after that, and then that's it. The final words we're working with here are John Adamson, mafia, and imprise. Sounds cryptic. Some of it is. And this is a man who is very much trying to tell people who might be responsible for his murder. Yeah, it's a dying declaration.

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 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. Yeah.

But then this word, emprise, I don't know that word. 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. 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, 24-hour police protection. Yeah.

Which doesn't surprise you, I'm assuming, considering this is... Does this feel like a mob hit? I mean, is this like a signature mob hit mafia? Well, I think that, you know, this is where... Obviously, this is a 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, 1976, most 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. He was only in the hotel for 15 minutes.

They linked it to the electrical system for when Don started the vehicle. Now there's the electrical signal that is triggering the detonation of this bomb. What's the chemistry of the bomb? What are the components of the bomb? Is this looking like something that is showing a level of sophistication where now you're dealing with a highly sophisticated bomb

knowledgeable bomb-making individual? Does it look like it could be state-sponsored? Does it look like it's juvenile? 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? So that's all part of the assessment of who the offender might be, and that's through the crime scene evidence.

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, I mean, but that's good, right? Because there's nobody there to muck up the bomb scene. No, homicide investigators are staying 200 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, right?

is they will have a bombing and then all the first 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, the homicide aspect too much.

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 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 figured out that Don was six foot two.

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 this is why it hit his legs more than anything else. Had he been more forward, he would have been killed immediately.

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 70s. What do you think about that? Does that signal anything to you? That's showing a level of sophistication in...

my estimation. Now, the positioning of the bomb underneath Don, you know, the offender not taking into account his height or the exact position of his 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 a vehicle and

You're just kind of going, with six sticks of dynamite, I just need to get this under the driver's side, and this is going to kill Don. Now, you know, with the forces of the blast, there's so many just weird things that happen automatically.

under these extreme weird phenomena, you know? So the idea that if he had just been six inches forward, 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. 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 Don. 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 somebody who has a vantage point to be able to know when Don is in that vehicle in order to do the remote control detonation. You know, this is showing, this is not, most certainly you could have some very intelligent, criminally-minded teenagers that might be able to pull this type of thing off, but we don't generally see that happening.

They are the ones that use the little pipe bomb stuff. This is to me telling me, okay, there is a level of expertise and sophistication. I can't say to what point yet, but it's something that's like,

I am a little bit concerned about who might be behind this. 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 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 with this source at the hotel yesterday.

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 Chi, back about 1.30, 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 Don had said was that this source that he was meeting was a sleazy bastard, as he said, from San Diego, who 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 27th, right before Memorial Day weekend. And that person had also implicated Senator Barry Goldwater, who was the 64 Republican presidential nominee, and another politician named Harry Rosenweig. So now...

Now it starts to feel a little bit like a political cover-up if these are connected. Don had said, 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 the source anyway, even though he's like, I don't know if this is the right story for me.

On his own desk, he had written a note that said, John Adamson, lobby at 1115 Clarendon House, 4th and 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 into political corruption, a dirty land deal involving a congressman. And, you know, he ends up in this terrible, terrible accident slash murder scene. Okay. So it's interesting. A couple of thoughts. An investigation I was doing out in Stockton related to Golden State Killer, I had a dirty developer, this Eckhart Schmitz, who was a child molester, who had a connection to Barry Goldwater. Right.

And land-based aspects. Not saying that Mr. Goldwater had any criminal aspects going on, but when you said that Barry Goldwater had some sort of connection with the Steiger and a bad land deal or a dirty land deal, that just was like, you know, bells are going off in my head. Yeah.

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 like this John Adamson or the observation I have is it sounds like this John Adamson is this source. At least Don thinks John Adamson is a source. Mm-hmm.

So now, is Adamson legitimately a source and just coincidentally, you know, backed out of the meeting at the hotel? Or was John Adamson sort of the lure and had been hired to bring the...

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 well luckily police do he is in San Diego he's well known to the police he's considered a low-level street hoodlum and they

they find him eventually in Lake Havasu, which is about 200 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. 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 is

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 this story now, Paul, because this is a big conspiracy. Oh, sure. At this point. Yeah. 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, and he comes back to Phoenix and...

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 is a real estate developer named Max Dunlap. 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 disreputable people, is what it sounds like to me. So I can continue talking about this more, or you can comment, but clearly Dawn has been getting into all different kinds of

investigative roots here that are leading him. He reports on the dog racing industry also. 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 an attorney for the mob? You know, is there anything along those lines? Or is he just an attorney? I forget what you said. Was he an attorney for Steiger? He's an attorney who...

was I don't know if he's directly representing John Adamson, the hoodlum guy who was supposed to be the source. 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 M-Prize comes into play at 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. Well, if this John Adamson is just your typical street-level thug, you know, how and why is what sounds like a fairly highly-priced attorney, this Neil Roberts, representing him? Somebody is paying Neil Roberts to represent John Adamson.

Well, let me keep, we'll keep digging and see what we can come up with. So Don 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, boring state legislature stuff. He's still staying within corruption. He used that phrase, remember the weird one we talked about, MPRIZE, which is the name, 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 to be a link between, you know, this guy, Kemper, who I had mentioned, Kemper Marley, who is linked to the dog racing industry and this M-Prize. So he's mentioning M-Prize

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 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. 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, why he thinks he was targeted to be killed. And so I think there has to be a lot of weight put on M-Prize and then what Don was discovering about M-Prize. Now, was he focusing in on any particular individual or

Or was he focusing in on aspects of M-Prize that could have potentially shut down aspects of its operation that would have financially hurt people, and now they are protecting their livelihood? That could kind of open up the suspect pool a little bit. But right now, we have John Adamson, Mafia, and M-Prize. So at least investigators...

can kind of, you know, put their resources down that path to see where it leads. Well, what they're figuring out is they're trying to make that connection between M-Prize and the mafia. And they figure out that the company is trying to conceal an ownership of a hotel in

that would result in like a big restructuring within this company and would reveal that MPRIZE does have ties to the mafia. So all of this is wrapped up in and around this attorney, Neal 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 Don solving his own murder here.

So Neil says, the attorney, he says, listen, John Adams said, yes, he was in Phoenix. Yes, he was with me. Yes, we were five minutes from the hotel where Dawn was murdered. But we were together the whole time for that 15 minutes leading up to it. There's a discrepancy and police are able to prove that they can't

say we were definitely where we said 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 five 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, right now, I think 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 Don and,

to this hotel and there must have been confidence that his vehicle would be accessible in order to plant the bomb, if that 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, like this remote control device, depending on what it is, but sometimes you have the components that even through this explosion that survive,

And the investigators are able to recover, like, serial numbers and trace them back to where, you know, where this device was purchased from. Latent 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. Right.

You know, so that's part of what I'm wondering is, is do they have any further forensic evidence, you know, that can also point to, you know, who the bomb maker possibly was? Well, they do not seem to have forensic evidence that can, you know, help us with the bomb maker. Okay. 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 sleazy 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. They find, I mean, magnets, firecrackers, electric wire, tape, and a copy of the anarchist's cookbook.

which, 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. You find it valuable? Yeah, 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 believe it or not, the same publisher has a book called

that's titled, in essence, How to Become a Professional Hitman. 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 a publication. Yeah.

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, the explosion happened on the 2nd, and he died on the 13th.

So the amount of pain he must have gone through. So that's 11 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. The prosecutors call a witness.

This is an associate of Adamson's named Robert Letier. 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. Adamson said something, well, I couldn't do anything here anyway. That's what he says.

And then they went to a Datsun, I mean, God, this guy, they go to a Datsun dealership and Adamson looks underneath a Datsun 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, well, 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 $25,000, and he promised Robert a cut of $10,000, 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. This does not sound like a smart mafia guy to me. He's a street-level thug that's been hired. Yeah. The question is, is who hired him? Now, is it somebody connected to the mob? No.

Is it, you know, somebody else? If Adamson is offering or saying he's getting $25,000, 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.

So that's the thrust of the investigation, needs to figure out who that is. I mean, Adamson may be the actual bomb maker and placing the bomb, but you still need to go after the people who employed Adamson to do this homicide. Well, just so you know, 25,074 is about 140,000 now. So that is not insignificant. I mean, real, God, inflation. I mean, unreal inflation.

So, well, yeah, that's not insignificant. And he was offering this guy, Robert, almost half of that, and Robert turned it down. 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. 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, right?

He is getting the instructions from somebody within that anarchist cookbook that is very sophisticated. 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? Probably he hasn't.

You know, he's probably not a professional hitman, 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. No, he's not. And, you know, this case goes on and drags on and on and on until 1977.

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, Kemper Marley, who's in the racing industry.

Don had reported on Kemper 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 that, and that I think is an interesting point, is Dunlap's family says, listen, you know, yes, he's a sleazy 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 M-Prize. 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 says that

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 was this guy named James Robinson. I mean, I told you there's a million people. James Robeson. He said Robeson was the one who watched Don as he exited the hotel and triggered the bomb when he got into the car. 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 are saying those last words of him. Mafia doesn't make sense with Bax Dunlap, and neither does M-Prize, because neither of those guys have dealings with M-Prize. So how much do we rely 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?

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 was targeted there.

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 imprise, Don must have had some knowledge about.

that was going to really disrupt this M prize aspect, you know, whatever that, that would have been. So in some ways, you know, I'm, I can see where the Dunlap family is, is going, well, 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. Yeah.

And when you get into these types of corrupt and organized crime aspects, this is where things – the higher up you go, the more murky it gets. And this is where the FBI – I mean they are good at pursuing these types of investigations. Right.

But they've also got decades of understanding the structures and who are the shot callers and, you know, who has interest in, let's say, this M-Prize.

My perspective would be there's just no way with you and I talking to sort out this type of who really was the one that called the shot here. There's just no way. But that's where the feds, that's their area of expertise. And so that's where 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 there's a homicide on federal land, 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

The expertise and experience lies. And that's in this type of scenario, that's what the feds.

Well, to wrap this up, we are going to go back to the sleazy attorney, Neal Roberts. Neal Roberts is connected to everyone in this story. Every suspect in prize, 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. Yeah.

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...

that bastard Neil Roberts was given immunity from being charged as an accessory after the fact. Even 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. So my thought is with this level of organized crime that appears to be involved, M-Prize has a nationwide footprint and appears to have a connection back to New York. Mm-hmm.

I can't imagine that an arm of this organized crime entity, maybe it's mafia,

would commit a homicide like this without somebody from way up authorizing it. Because they want to fly under the radar. Because a bombing of an investigative journalist is going to bring a lot of attention from law enforcement as well as media. And people in the mafia don't want that. So whatever Don was digging into must have been serious enough to where...

A very high up shot caller, likely out of New York, said, take him out. 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 employing, in some ways, this is like your plausible deniability. There are so many layers from the people that are saying, take Don 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? $140,000 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 law enforcement can trace back all the way to the top.

And then I was thinking, well, why would John Adamson turn on Dunlap unless it was Dunlap? 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 Enprise, which clearly has lots of ties and would have him murdered in prison.

So now 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? Yeah, that's my guess. And that's all I can give. Adamson pled guilty? Yeah, he pled guilty and that's when he flipped and said it was Dunlap. Okay, so again, I'm just speculating here.

But if you have, you know, 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,

going, keep your mouth shut, point fingers at Max Dunlap. You'll serve X amount of time. And there could be threats, both either to him or to his family. However, it's like when you get out, you will be rewarded with X amount of money, something like that. You got 25 grand up front. When you get out, we'll give you 200 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.

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...

And it has happened. You know, statistically, something unfortunately would have happened to him at some point. Boy, I mean, 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 what reason and why and who's responsible for it. But we've never really done a mafia conspiracy type story on this show before. So I thought it was interesting. Or a car bombing. 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, you know, reading some of these books, you know, agents that have gone undercover within organized crime entities, you know, and kind of getting the inside information on how these entities think and why they, you know, carry out the types of crimes that they do, you know. But

Well, certainly something like this case, Don's homicide case,

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 living scot-free and probably have committed similar crimes across the nation. You know what? This is interesting. I mentioned this guy really briefly, Robeson, James Albert Robeson. 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 murder. John Robeson said, I had nothing to do with this. I didn't trigger a bomb. I didn't do anything. Adamson pleaded guilty, as I said, and served 20 years and two months in prison. So Dunlap, Max Dunlap, and Robeson, who...

Adamson had implicated, they were tried together, and the prosecution's case was based on Adamson's testimony.

who said that Dunlap, Max Dunlap, approached him about killing Don, and they reached out to a friend, this guy Robeson, and that Adamson was paid about $6,000 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 Robeson were responsible for this. These kind of low-level guys, and actually Robeson didn't have a record at all.

So in February of 1980, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the conviction, saying that the court improperly denied a defense motion to strike Adamson's testimony. And so later this year, later that year, the murder charges against Dunlap and Robeson were dismissed without prejudice because Adamson wouldn't testify again. So ultimately, what ends up happening is they're trying to try him again, and Adamson

They can't get a conviction. He was acquitted. Immediately after Robeson 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. Robeson did 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 Robeson 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 have this 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 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. Yeah, you know, and it is, it's not just...

like with what Don was looking into with this Empress thing,

You know, I had a case which put me down a rabbit hole, something called Innslaw Promise. And you have journalists and others that were killed as a result of this other super weird conspiracy theorist type of thing. You know, 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 is with, with Don's homicide case,

is there's probably an FBI agent who will 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, whatever title that person has. So, fascinating, for sure. Well, to end on, I think, an uplifting note here, when he died in 76,

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 100% sure which, because he was doing so much. I mean, was this like the, you know, congressman? Was this the mafia? What was this? Dog racing? All of it. Real estate. But 30, over that year, from 76 to 77, 30 investigative journalists from all across the country came to Arizona. Wow.

and dedicated themselves almost in shifts to report on corruption and mafia. And they called it the Arizona Project.

And it was in 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. Yeah, no, that, it's a very cool story. And, you know, what those journalists did in his honor was, I mean, I think that's, that seems genuine, honestly.

and heartfelt, you know, so that's really cool. 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. 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 1970s Arizona.

No, this was, again, fascinating. I appreciate this case. It is unusual and it's, you know, somewhat intellectually challenging. Let's say that. Well, that to me means you need some time off. So we're on a little bit of a hiatus, just a little tiny hiatus, nothing too long. But we'll be back and I'll have another story that will be a mind bender, I'm sure. All right. Sounds good, Kate. Thank you, Paul. Thank you.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashan.

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at BuriedBonesPod.

Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now. ♪