Buddhist Temple Massacre

Case Closed?

What actually happened was this:

The Office of Special Investigations at the Air Force base looked through police records and spotted the incidents involving the boys.  On September 10, they passed this information to the task force, and those investigators got a search warrant and seized the rifle.  However, they did not get an immediate analysis.  Instead, they put it into the queue behind other evidence at the Arizona Department of Public Safety, including 80 other similar rifles that had been collected for testing.  For the time being, nothing further was done about the boys.

The rifle and shotgun, confiscated after search warrant

Then Sheriff Agnos sent men to Tucson.

The man who appeared to have called them was Michael McGraw, 24.  He denied it, but they interrogated him to see what he might know.  He then confessed to being involved in the temple massacre and he implicated four other young men: Mark Felix Nunez, Leo Valdez Bruce, Dante Parker, and Victor Zarate.  He said they had all gone together to do it.

All four of the men that McGraw implicated were brought in and questioned.  All four confessed.  That seemed to close the case.

• Print version
• Email this
• 

1. Leads vs. Needs
2. The Crime Scene
3. Profiling the Killers
4. The Investigation
5. Crucial Leads
6. Case Closed?
7. Confessions
8. Recantations
9. False Confessions
10. A Startling Development
11. Task Force Splits
12. False Arrest
13. Epilogue
14. Bibliography