New book tells full story of journalist Don Bolles' assassination
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Image courtesy of Bloomsbury
I've got an exciting announcement — my new book, "Murder in the Fourth Estate: The Assassination of Investigative Journalist Don Bolles," will be released by publisher Bloomsbury on April 2.
Why it matters: Despite its notoriety, there's never been a comprehensive history of the Don Bolles case — America's most infamous journalistic assassination.
Catch up quick: Bolles, a reporter for The Arizona Republic, suffered fatal injuries from a bomb planted on his car at Phoenix's Clarendon Hotel on June 2, 1976.
- John Harvey Adamson admitted to luring Bolles to the hotel and planting the dynamite bomb on his car.
- He testified that Phoenix contractor Max Dunlap hired him to kill Bolles over the reporter's coverage of liquor magnate Kemper Marley, and that plumber Jimmy Robison detonated the bomb.
- Dunlap and Robison's initial murder convictions were overturned by the Arizona Supreme Court in 1980. Dunlap was convicted again in 1993, while Robison was acquitted.
- The case dragged on for years and still inspires controversy among critics who believe Adamson lied and that investigators went after the wrong people.
As an Arizonan and a journalist, I've always been fascinated by the Bolles case, and I set out more than a decade ago to write the book I had long wanted to read.
- I pored over the attorney general's case file, which occupies approximately 150 boxes at the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records, and interviewed about three dozen people to make this dream a reality.