In 1976,
Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, one of IRE's founding
members, was called to meeting in a downtown Phoenix hotel by a source
promising him information about land fraud involving organized crime. The
source didn't show up. Bolles left the hotel, got into his car parked
outside and turned the key. A powerful bomb ripped through the car, leaving
Bolles mortally injured.
Over the next 10 days, doctors amputated both Bolles' legs and an arm,
but could not save him.
His shocked IRE colleagues reacted in a way unprecedented and never
copied since. They descended on Arizona for a massive investigation. They
set out to find not Bolles' killer, but the sources of corruption so deep
that a reporter could be killed in broad daylight in the middle of town.
They were out to show organized crime leaders that killing a journalist
would not stop reportage about them; it would increase it 100-fold.
The project was exceedingly controversial and remains so.
The New York
Times and
The Washington Post, giants in the business, chose not to
participate. Some journalists, including IRE members, disliked the idea of
reporters on a crusade.
Bob Greene, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner at
Newsday, led a team of
volunteers from 10 newspapers and broadcast stations for five months of
cooperative digging. The resulting 23-part series was recognized with a
special award by Sigma Delta Chi and a host of other prizes.
A place in journalism history
July 23, 1976
Dear IRE Member:
As you are all aware, one of our members, Don
Bolles of the Arizona
Republic, was killed in a bombing in June...
Chilling words in 1976 and chilling today. That a reporter could be
blown up in downtown Phoenix was an outrage. The fact that Bolles was
an investigative reporter who had exposed land fraud and organized crime
made his murder a cowardly act. It had to be answered by a team of
reporters.
In his pitch to the IRE board, Newsday's Bob Greene said, at the
very least, the project would expose corruption "in a community in which an
investigative reporter has been murdered. The community and other like
communities would reflect on what has happened and hopefully would think
twice about killing reporters."
"For all of us - particularly newspapers with high investigative
profiles - this is eminently self-serving. As individuals we are buying
life insurance on our own reporters. If we accomplish only this, we have
succeeded."
They heeded the call. Thirty-eight journalists from 28 newspapers
and television stations across the country descended on Arizona. Some came
sponsored by their news organizations. Others used their vacation time.
Some stayed for a month or longer. Others for just a week. Working under
Greene, they set out not to find Bolles' killer
but to finish his work of exposing Arizona's tangled underworld. There were
many characters, to be sure, but none as colorful as the late Tom Renner,
Newsday's mob expert who spent most of his time undercover working "deep
and dirty."
The result of their efforts was unique in the history of American
Journalism and critical to the survival of IRE.
The team-produced series made its debut on March 13, 1977, amid
continuing controversy. Among those publishing the series: Newsday, The
Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Boston Globe, The Indianapolis
Star, and The Denver Post. The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson was the sole
newspaper in Arizona to publish the series. Many others carried reports
from the Associated Press that began on March 18, five days after the first
stories started.
It soon was clear to everyone that the team had done exactly what
Bolles' killers had tried to keep him from doing.
For IRE, the murder of Bolles - a 47-year-old husband and father
- and the resulting Arizona Project brought national attention and
stature. The organization was born in 1975 when a small group of reporters
meeting in Reston, Va., decided they needed a way to share ideas and
techniques. They made plans to host their first conference the following
year in Indianapolis.
What should have been a joyous gathering was marred by the shock
that one of their members had been killed. The board authorized Greene to
go to Arizona to see what could be done. The rest is now history.
A project that had a 50 percent chance of success was published. A
tiny organization with little money flourished to become what it is today.
Thanks to those who have gone before, IRE now has an organization that is
strong enough to take on today's threats to investigative reporting.
A chronology of the major events in the car-bomb murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles:
The Arizona Republic
June 3, 2001
June 2, 1976 - Bolles, 47, is gravely wounded when six sticks of dynamite are
detonated beneath his compact car in the parking lot of the Hotel Clarendon,
401 W. Clarendon Ave. Bolles, who had been lured to the hotel by the promise
of a news tip, whispers the name "Adamson" to his rescuers.
June 13, 1976 - Bolles dies. Phoenix Police arrest John Harvey Adamson,
racing-dog owner and a former tow-truck operator.
June 16, 1976 - Max Dunlap, a Phoenix contractor, is questioned by Phoenix
Police homicide detective Jon Sellers, the lead investigator. Police say
Dunlap had been observed delivering cash to Adamson.
Jan. 15, 1977 - In an agreement with prosecutors, Adamson admits planting the
remote-control bomb and pleads guilty to second-degree murder. He agrees to
cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a 20-year, two-month prison
sentence. Dunlap and James Robison, a Chandler plumber who allegedly helped
Adamson by triggering the bomb, are arrested.
July 6, 1977 - Trial begins for Dunlap and Robison, who are charged with
first-degree murder. During the trial, Dunlap's attorney tries to cast
suspicion on Phoenix attorney Neal Roberts, who had dealings with both
Adamson and Dunlap, as the real mastermind in the murder plot.
Nov. 6, 1977 - A jury finds Dunlap and Robison guilty primarily on the
strength of Adamson's testimony. They also are found guilty of conspiring to
kill then-Arizona Attorney General Bruce Babbitt and advertising man Al
Lizanetz. Adamson testifies that Dunlap wanted the three killed because each
had angered Dunlap's friend, millionaire rancher and liquor wholesaler Kemper
Marley Sr., who never is charged in the case.
Jan. 10, 1978 - Dunlap and Robison are sentenced to death.
Feb. 25, 1980 - The Arizona Supreme Court, saying defense lawyers should have
been allowed to question Adamson more closely, overturns the convictions of
Dunlap and Robison and orders a new trial.
June 2, 1980 - The murder charge against Dunlap is dismissed after Adamson
balks at testifying against him again. Adamson had asked prosecutors to grant
him certain concessions, but was denied.
June 6, 1980 - The Arizona Attorney General's Office withdraws Adamson's 1977
plea bargain and reinstates the original charge of first-degree murder.
June 13, 1980 - The murder charge against Robison is dismissed after Adamson
refuses to testify.
Oct. 17, 1980 - In a trial held in Tucson, a jury finds Adamson guilty of
first-degree murder.
Nov. 14, 1980 - Adamson is sentenced to death.
May 9, 1986 - The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco
overturns Adamson's death sentence, saying
that he improperly was condemned to die after a trial judge had ruled that a
prison term was appropriate.
Dec. 22, 1988 - Adamson's death sentence having been reinstated, it is again
overturned by the circuit court.
Nov. 27, 1989 - After a renewed investigation by the Attorney General's
Office, led by investigator George Weisz, Robison is recharged with the
murder of Bolles.
June 25, 1990 - Marley, 83, dies of cancer in La Jolla, Calif.
June 28, 1990 - The U.S. Supreme Court leaves intact the 1988 appeals court
ruling overturning Adamson's death sentence.
Dec. 19, 1990 - Dunlap is recharged with Bolles' murder. Dunlap and Robison
also are charged with conspiring to obstruct a criminal investigation into
the slaying. Adamson agrees to testify against the pair in return for the
reinstatement of his 1977 plea bargain and 20-year, two-month prison sentence.
Jan. 11, 1993 - Dunlap and Robison are granted separate trials.
March 22, 1993 -An attorney for Dunlap, John Savoy, is sentenced to two
years' probation on perjury conviction for telling a grand jury he didn't
have any records dating from 1977 related to Dunlap. Prosecutors believed
some of the records detailed secret cash payments from Dunlap to Robison's
girlfriend.
April 20, 1993 - Dunlap is found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiring
to obstruct the investigation of the case, and is later sentenced to life in
prison without possibility of parole for 25 years.
Dec. 17, 1993 - Robison is acquitted, despite admitting under
cross-examination that he asked a fellow jail inmate to arrange for the
murder of Adamson, the chief witness against him.
July 26, 1995: Robison, having pleaded guilty to soliciting an act of
criminal violence for trying to have Adamson killed, is sentenced to five
years in federal prison.
Aug. 12, 1996: Adamson is released from prison and goes into the federal
Witness Protection Program, which he will voluntarily leave a few years later.
1998: Robison, 76, is released from prison.
Jan. 28, 1999: Phoenix attorney Neal Roberts dies in poverty at the age of 66
of coronary artery disease, cirrhosis and emphysema. His former secretary
says Roberts told her he was involved in the Bolles murder at various levels,
but investigators say his statements may have been influenced by his heavy
drinking and taste for melodrama.
