-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
Loud and Clear
Lake Headly and William Hoffman©1990
Henry Holt and Company
115 W. 18th St.
New York, NY 10011
ISBN 0-8050-1138-2
272 pps — out-of-print/one edition
--[11]--
11
" A Matter of Jurisdiction''
All of my discovery papers went to the defense lawyers. If Dunlap and Robison
won release, it would come through the judicial system, with the attorneys
pulling the necessary strings. I viewed my function as similar to a hod
carrier's, bringing bricks to the mason who builds a case. Without the mason,
the hod carrier has only a pile of bricks.
"Mr. Savoy," I said, visiting his office on January 12, 1979, "have you had a
chance to look at the material I sent over?"
"Not all of it," Savoy said, "but enough to make me think you're on to
something. Unfortunately, until the Arizona Supreme Court rules on our
appeal, we can't move with this information. We're forbidden from introducing
newly discovered evidence prior to a ruling on our pending motions. As you
know, an appeal in the supreme court stays all other proceedings. I grant
you, often it seems unfair, and maybe it is, but that's how the system works."
"Do you have any idea when the supreme court will rule?"
"No way we can predict that, or hurry it along. Our chances for a reversal
are slim to none, I'm afraid. You should keep digging, learn everything you
can for the appeal, which we'll base on points not covered during the trial.
Your press conference helped a lot."
"Maybe. But none of the reporters seemed fired up by what they heard."
"Lake, rest assured, members of the supreme court read the story in the
Progress. And it could have an impact. Like everyone else, they're influenced
by the media."
I gave Savoy my impressions of the Funk-Emprise-Bolles battle that began in
1969, spilled into the 1972 Pepper Committee hearings, had hardly settled
when the Republic pulled Bolles off the story in 1973, and then could have
flared again shortly before the bombing with Bradley Funk finding out his
ex-wife had talked to the reporter about preparations for her incendiary
lawsuit.
A dozen times I'd read Funk's hearing testimony, full of bullet-dodging
ramblings and excessive preoccupation with Bolles and "the conspiracy." Then,
in 1976, shortly before the bombing, up popped Funk's recurring nightmare.
Perhaps this time Funk feared the reporter had honed his expository pen
scalpelsharp-not to peel away layers covering a questionable business
arrangement but to publicly eviscerate Funk's personal secrets. If Funk knew
that Bolles nosed around his ex-wife's lawsuit, what must have gone on in his
head?
Betty Funk Richardson told Detective Marcus Aurelius about Bolles showing up
at a child support hearing: "He just sat there and glared at Brad, and I love
him for it. I think Don's been kicked around and around and made to look
ridiculous for years. And finally when they couldn't shake him, they tried to
destroy him. I hope Don becomes a Jesus Christ ... and you all rally around
the poor guy and recognize what he's been fighting alone."
Attorney General Robert Corbin, who took over the Bolles case in 1978 when
Bruce Babbitt became governor, twice described Bradley Funk as a "contingency
suspect" in the murder. Whatever that means, the Phoenix police interviewed
Funk for less than one minute, suggesting they get together later with the
racetrack magnate "to talk." But that talk never took place.
Why not? I asked Savoy. What kind of police investigation was this?
I'd never accepted the alleged motive for the murder, that Kemper Marley
ordered the hit because a newspaper story cost him a post on the racing
commission. But since that first night reading the discovery, I'd learned
Marley had lost his bid for the position before the Bolles article. The weak
motive had turned into no motive.
I felt discouraged and shackled with the defense apparently unable to use the
new information. Dammit, I fumed to myself, Robison and Dunlap should be out
on bail, awaiting a new trial.
But sitting there in Savoy's office, I couldn't even be sure they would be
retried. Prosecutors had gone to great lengths to convict them on the
flimsiest evidence—simply Adamson's testimony—and it was nose-on-the-face
clear that the only "solution" to the case the powers that be wanted was the
one they had now. I wondered what else they feared would be found, and
assured Savoy as I left his office that I'd continue to look.
"Absolutely," he said. "As a private investigator you're not hampered by a
state bar or canon of ethics that restricts lawyers from dealing with the
press during a pending criminal action. Stay with it. You're filling our
quiver with arrows for a new trial after the appeal is denied."
On January 20 I sat opposite Max Dunlap in the drab little room at Arizona
State Prison and updated him on my activities, including news that the
Playboy Foundation had agreed to contribute financially to the investigation.
I had been visiting Max and Jim frequently, at least once a week, knowing how
anxious they were for progress reports (and Max for word from home), and to
provide what moral support I could.
Max had grown progressively upbeat with each new revelation, his biggest
surge of optimism coming on the heels of the press conference. Robison, the
more skeptical one, saw the state determined to continue its coverup and
ultimately bury the case with him and Max. "You haven't uncovered a smoking
gun," he said more than once. "No," I said, "but Neal Roberts's beforehand
knowledge of the killing comes fairly close."
" Close won't count," he said, and again talked about how he'd rather die
than endure what he called "torture."
I always talked to Max first, and this day puzzlement was written on his
open-book face. "I still can't understand," he said, (I why with all these
shocking things you've uncovered, we can't get a new trial."
"I think we will," I said. Actually, I hoped we would. But, death row reeked
of enough doom and despair without my adding any. "I met with Savoy recently,
and we went over this. We can't use the new information until after the
supreme court rules."
Max looked puzzled. "Can't be used?"
"Not now. Not in front of the court."
"Then we're sitting here because of a technicality?"
"Sort of."
"I don't understand that law."
How could I explain it to Max Dunlap, who believed every wrong would be
righted because this was America? I didn't have the heart to chip away at his
naive hopes.
Still, I agreed with him. Why such a law? I supposed for the sanity and
convenience of judges. A rising crime rate meant a heavier appeals load, and
chaos would result if defense lawyers constantly added material to their
appeals.
But what about unjustly convicted prisoners? Not only were they victims of
justice miscarried in the courtroom, they were also then forced to suffer in
the name of judicial order and decorum.
I tried to reassure Max. "The evidence isn't totally worthless even now, I
said. "I'm feeding it to Don Devereux at the Daily Progress, which is firmly
in our corner. Judges read newspapers. They know something is up. Maybe more
important, Bill Helmer from Playboy is coming to Arizona soon. I hope he can
interview you and Jim. Refocusing a national spotlight on your case can't do
anything but help. We've dug up good information. I expect to find more."
Max asked, as always, about his family, whom I tried to visit at least once a
week. Each word of their loving, encouraging messages made his eyes twinkle.
But then they began to fill with tears as he said, "My daughters, bless their
hearts, have had to hang their heads in school ever since this whole mess
started. Lately, thanks to you, Lake, they've been able to look up a little.
I tell you, those kids have paid the heaviest price. They went from being the
'Dunlap children' to 'kids of a killer.' "
It was true. One of Max's daughters told me that as she stood in a
supermarket checkout line a shopper pointed at her and said, "That's one of
the Dunlap girls. Her father murdered Don Bolles."
After lunch in my cemetery, I visited Robison.
"Jim, what do you think about talking with a senior editor from Playboy?"
"They want me for a centerfold?"
"You're feisty today."
"Helps me forget the pain."
"The editor's name is Bill Helmer. He's familiar with everything we have, and
he thinks the magazine may be ready to run with it. Helmer's a friend of
mine. Will you talk to him?"
"Yeah."
Silence. The only sound was the clang of a distant cell door.
Finally, "You're doing a fine job, Lake. That press conference was superb."
More silence. "But I can't see it doing any good. The supreme court's not
going to overturn this conviction, and your new evidence won't make a rat's
ass difference either. Max, the eternal optimist, thinks all this will work
out okay, but I don't. The name of this game is Cover Your Ass, and it starts
right at the top. Schafer doesn't give a shit. The same with Sellers. They
won't even go over your stuff."
"Well, I can't look at it that way. I've got—"
"I know your position. Good for you. But I'm telling it straight. It's the
same way with the Arizona Republic: Cover Your Ass. You showed they didn't
tell the truth about Bolles and the Gallup Independent, but did you read any
correction in Phoenix? Sellers and Schafer got this whole case wrong, but
they don't dare admit it. What would it do to their careers if they fessed up
to blowing the biggest case of their lives and admitted putting the wrong
guys on death row?"
Robison was describing the attitude of many prosecutors. I never heard one
admit he was wrong, even when the true killer stepped forward and proved an
innocent man sat on death row. The same held true with some police officers.
Jon Sellers, presumably an intelligent man, must have known he erred when he
granted immunity like a street corner hawker handing out free cigarette
samples.
I could sense Sellers's way of thinking—take the easy way, appease public
opinion, buy convictions with immunity—behind Schafer's telling the jury:
"Give us these convictions and more arrests will follow."
Schafer had meant Kemper Marley. But now it was 1979. In the year and a
quarter since Dunlap and Robison had been convicted, whenever questions were
raised or protests jarred the comfortable case-almost-closed complacency of
prosecutors and police, the same tired line was heard: more arrests will
follow.
Yet no one busied himself beating the bushes for suspects or leads. Nor could
police and prosecutors play what they still smugly considered their ace in
the hole: Robison and Dunlap snitching on Marley to save their own lives.
Schafer and Sellers must have been confident that the condemned men, faced
with the reality of execution, would roll over on the rich man. Only it
hadn't yet happened that way, and the continuing lack of outrage from the
Arizona media over those immunity arrangements was enabling the prosecution
to succeed, as Robison put it, in the Cover Your Ass game.
Unlike Robison, I didn't feel this case was hopeless. I couldn't. If I
believed myself foredoomed to failure, I would have been guilty of taking
money under false pretenses. Several times in past cases, after studying the
evidence, I had refused to work an investigation because I believed it would
do no good.
"Nothing," I said to Robison, "can make up for the time you've lost. But
there's a qualitative difference between getting you out sometime and your
being executed."
Robison gave me a dead-level serious look and said, "I've got something in my
head that will make a difference. I'm working on it now, and when I get it
perfected, I'll need your help. I don't mean to be mysterious, but I just
can't discuss it today."
What did he mean? My mind wrestled with a dozen possibilities. I considered
them all the way back to Phoenix.
The Arizona Supreme Court roadblocked the introduction of new evidence on the
Bolles case, but I had another route to follow. With Robison and Dunlap held
in suspended animation by the state judicial system, I was going to stir up
action with the feds. If I convinced the U.S. attorney to impanel a grand
jury with subpoena power, a key player like Neal Roberts would be forced into
either the truth or perjury. His "loud and clear" remark and reporting three
cars stolen on the day of the murder were only two of many areas a grand jury
could fruitfully explore.
I called Assistant U.S. Attorney Morton Sitver. After my press conference, he
had told newspapers he would listen to me.
It was not what he told me now. "I'm not the one to listen, Mr. Headley,"
Sitver said. "I'm the assistant U.S. attorney. You need to talk to my boss
Michael Hawkins."
:'Can you transfer me?"
'You're better off hanging up and dialing back."
Better off? Meaning he didn't want to be involved? "Mr. Hawkins," I said,
"I'd like to meet with you and discuss the Bolles bombing. I have information
and documents that your office should find quite interesting."
"I believe the state is handling the matter," Hawkins said in a voice that
didn't convey a flicker of interest.
"The FBI has been involved," I argued. "And other U.S. agents. I just want
you to talk with me and look at what I have."
"I don't think a meeting would be appropriate."
I hate the word appropriate. It can cover a thousand unvoiced motives.
"Mr. Hawkins, two men have been condemned to the gas chamber. Strong evidence
suggests they're innocent. Even if you weren't a U.S. attorney but only a
citizen, I'd think it 'appropriate' for you to check out this possible
tragedy in the making."
"It's a matter of jurisdiction, Mr. Headley."
"You work for the Justice Department. The FBI, also an arm of the justice
Department, has already been involved. To me that indicates you have
jurisdiction."
"I don't want to debate with you, Mr. Headley. I tell you what: Send your
material over to me, and I'll look at it."
I provided Hawkins a detailed report of my key findings, plus corroborating
official documents, and requested that he impanel a federal grand jury to
investigate the Bolles killing. I distributed copies of my cover letter to
the press and electronic media in a deliberate effort to keep everything
aboveboard—no secret deals, no backroom bargaining out of public earshot—and
hoped disclosure would pressure Hawkins to launch an independent
investigation. Also, if (as it turned out) he did nothing, I didn't want this
federal prosecutor excusing his inaction by claiming a lack of knowledge.
After talking with Hawkins, I hit the streets to work more prosaic tasks:
actual investigation rather than dealing with lawyers (Savoy), prisoners
(Robison and Dunlap), and prosecutors (Sitver, Hawkins). None of them could
or would help.
I started by looking at the assertions of Barry Goldwater and Neal Roberts.
The two men denied knowing each other, yet from the start of my investigation
I'd been hearing their names lumped together. Feeling that anything which
shook Neal Roberts's story was good for Robison and Dunlap, I undertook a
search for Antje Roberts, Neal's ex-wife.
The local credit bureau listed her employer as Goldwater's Department Store
in Scottsdale—a touch of irony, I thoughtand the assistant manager there told
me she worked in cosmetics.
Using a description provided by Claude Keller ("a dead ringer for Lauren
Bacall"), I spotted her in the notions section. "Are you Antje Roberts?" I
knew she was and handed her my card.
"I recognize you," she said. "I read the papers."
"I'd like to ask you some questions."
She reached under the counter, took a card from her purse, and coolly said,
"This is my lawyer. Get in touch with him. If he says it's all right, I'll
talk to you."
Fat chance, I thought. He'll just dish out another crock of legalese.
Putting on my best little-boy face with a
but-why-can't-you-come-out-and-play? expression, I said, "For right now,
could I ask you one question?"
She couldn't repress a smile. "Okay. One question."
"You were married to Neal Roberts for a long time. Does he know Barry
Goldwater?"
"Yes. Very well."
"Did you ever see them together?" I asked, pushing my luck.
"You said one question. I answered it. Now call my lawyer."
I searched for Gail Owens, Adamson's girlfriend, who had admitted under a
grant of immunity from Jon Sellers that she'd scouted out Bolles's haunts and
where he parked his car, so Adamson could choose a site for the killing.
She'd also admitted to Sellers that she accompanied Adamson when he purchased
the dynamite.
Sellers had given her immunity for conspiracy. I figured that, from her own
admission—driving around looking for Bolles's car—she could have been charged
with aiding and abetting murder.
No one had been closer to Adamson than Gail Owens, who truly might have
merited some kind of plea deal after she revealed everything she knew about
the killing. In addition, no one was more capable than Gail of unraveling the
lies Adamson told.
I urged the Phoenix police, and U.S. Attorney Hawkins, to subject Gail Owens
to very close questioning, but my recommendations were ignored. I also struck
out when I attempted to find her.
I did locate her father, however, a well-to-do businessman who told me Gail
was out of the country on an extended vacation. "I don't think she'd talk to
you anyway," he said. "My daughter wants to put all of that behind her."
I was sure she did.
I learned that for many years Neal Roberts had dated a woman named Kay Kroot.
Using an old reliable source, the telephone book, I found her number and
called.
"I'd like to talk to you about Neal Roberts," I said.
"I don't think that would be in my best interest," she said.
Otherwise Kay Kroot was friendly, and we chatted about Phoenix, her favorite
restaurants, the book she was currently reading. Whenever I maneuvered the
subject back to Neal Roberts, she laughed and steered the conversation away
from him.
The next day I sent her flowers, which I followed up with a phone call and
dinner invitation.
"You just want to talk about Neal," she said.
"Not 'just' him. I think we'd have a good time."
Her turndown didn't help my ego.
I sent more flowers. Repeated the invitation to dinner. Was turned down again.
Terri Lee ribbed me about not being much of a Don Juan. My counter was that
maybe, because of her, my heart wasn't in it.
"Well, get your priorities straight," Terri Lee said. "You need to talk to
that woman. Be more persistent."
I'd been persistent, I thought, but to keep from looking like a dud in Terri
Lee's eyes, I turned up the charm level on Kay Kroot.
More flowers. More phone calls. And finally she agreed—not to dinner, but to
talk with me at her place.
Kay—in her mid-forties, petite, attractive—had been the other woman in Neal
Roberts's life for a long time. "People who knew about our relationship
called us Mutt and Jeff," she said. "He's tall and I'm so short. But, I don't
suppose that's the kind of information you're looking for."
"I'm trying to get a better picture of Neal."
"I'll tell you the same things I told that detective. Sellers, I think his
name was."
Not having seen any report in the discovery concerning an interview with Kay
Kroot, I made a mental note to go through it again. And to complain loudly
if, as I suspected, it wasn't there.
"Neal's ordeal with his parents," Kay said, "had a profound impact on his
life. His father killed his mother, you know, and then committed suicide.
Neal came home from school and found them dead."
"Tell me about you and Neal."
"I was more of a mother figure to him than a girlfriend. I wasn't comfortable
with being his buddy, his confidante. He drank a lot, and told me many
things, mainly about his parents, that he probably didn't even talk to his
wife about."
"Did he ever mention Barry Goldwater?"
"Often. And intimately. As if Goldwater were one of his best friends."
"Did you ever see them together?"
"Once. Neal and Senator Goldwater appeared on a television talk show together
here in Phoenix, and Neal took me along to watch. He introduced Goldwater to
me as an old friend, and from the way they acted, that certainly appeared to
be true."
This proved, if nothing else, that Roberts and Goldwater had lied when they
denied knowing each other.
The day after my visit with Kay Kroot, I viewed the tape of the TV talk show
she'd told me about. Sure enough, Roberts and Goldwater bantered back and
forth on camera like old buddies.
Another comb through the mass of discovery failed to produce the Sellers
interview with Kay Kroot. What I did find, however, having somehow overlooked
earlier, was a police interview with Antje Roberts. Antje described meeting
Neal at a restaurant where he produced an envelope that, according to him,
contained twenty-five thousand dollars in cash "from the junior senator from
Arizona." The money, Antje said Neal told her, was for John Harvey Adamson's
defense.
The junior senator from Arizona was, of course, Barry Goldwater. But why in
the world-assuming Antje had her facts straight-would Goldwater contribute to
the defense fund of sleazy John Adamson?
I remembered Vlassis talking about the Navajo reservation, Goldwater's keen
interest in the vast natural resources upon which the Indians sat, Roberts's
reputed plan to replace George Vlassis as the tribe's general counsel, and
Adamson's own charges that Roberts had retained him to "create havoc" and
discredit Peter MacDonald.
Most significant, Bolles, in the last months of his life, had spent a great
deal of his time investigating the reservation's tangled affairs.
pps. 112-123
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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