In the early hours of August 10, 1991, a

mass shooting There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 20 ...

occurred at Thai

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism repres ...

Wat Promkunaram ( th, วัดพรหมคุณาราม; ) in

Waddell, Arizona Waddell is an unincorporated community in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, northwest of the city of Phoenix. Waddell is named after Donald Ware Waddell, a native of Ohio, who was a partner in the New York City investment firm of Brando ...

, killing nine people. It was the deadliest mass shooting in Arizona history.

Overview

The shooting happened at the Wat Promkunaram

during the early hours of August 10. The victims were all linked to the temple and either Thais or of Thai descent: Pairuch Kanthong, the

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. Th ...

; five monks, Surichai Anuttaro, Boochuay Chaiyarach, Chalerm Chantapim, Siang Ginggaeo, and Somsak Sopha; a nun, Foy Sripanpasert; her nephew, Matthew Miller, who was a novice monk; and a temple employee, Chirasak Chirapong. Their bodies were found on August 10, 1991, by a cook who entered the temple. The victims were shot in the back of the head and placed face down in a circle.

Investigation

Initial arrests

After the shooting, four men from Tucson, identified as Leo Bruce, Mark Nunez, Dante Parker, and Victor Zerate, were arrested. Mike McGraw, a patient in a mental hospital in Tucson, had called sheriff's investigators in Maricopa County, saying he knew who did it and providing names. The four people were interrogated, one for nearly 13 hours, and three confessed in writing following the interrogation. One of the suspects, Zerate, maintained his innocence and was later released, after video evidence showed him working at a dog racing operation hundreds of miles away at the time of the murder. It was later discovered that the murder weapon did not belong to any of the four suspects. Charges against the four, later dubbed the "Tucson Four" by the media, were dropped, resulting in a major controversy over the investigation.

Later arrests

Police found the murder weapon, a .22-caliber

rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...

belonging to a 16-year-old, in the car of a friend of 17-year-old Johnathan Doody, an ethnic Thai born in Nakon Nayok in Thailand. That led the investigation to Doody and 16-year-old Allessandro Garcia (born June 12, 1975). According to Garcia, he and Doody went with the .22-caliber rifle and his

20-gauge shotgun The 20- gauge shotgun, also known as "20-bore", is a type of smooth-bore shotgun that fires a shell that is smaller in caliber () than a 12-gauge shotgun (). It is often used by beginning shooters for target practice and for hunting small game. ...

to the temple and robbed it of approximately $2,600 and some A/V equipment. Garcia claimed that Doody panicked, thinking that one of the monks had recognized him as a brother of a temple-goer, then shot all of the victims in the head with the rifle, while Garcia shot four of them again in the torso with the shotgun. According to Garcia, the crime had been planned and leaving no witnesses was part of it.

Legal proceedings

Both men were charged with the crime of

armed robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...

and

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially t ...

. Garcia pleaded guilty in 1993 to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to 271 years in prison. Doody was convicted in 1994 and sentenced to 281 years in prison. Doody's attorneys later appealed, claiming Doody's father had not been present during the interrogation and that Doody's confession was not voluntary because authorities improperly administered the Miranda warning. Doody's conviction was overturned in 2008 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and again in 2011. Doody's second trial resulted in a mistrial in 2013. The third trial concluded in January 2014 and found Doody guilty on all counts, including the nine murders. The jury based its findings on Garcia's testimony and

circumstantial evidence Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need ...

. Doody was sentenced to 281 years in prison. Johnathan Doody was imprisoned at the

Arizona State Prison Complex – Florence Arizona State Prison Complex – Florence also known as Florence State Prison (FSP) is one of 13 prison facilities operated by the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC). The main FSP prison is located in Florence, Arizona. The Florence complex ...

Controversy over investigation

The investigation process into the murders is now viewed as botched.

Tucson Four

The initial arrests of the Tucson Four have generated controversy over how the investigation was conducted. Initial suspect McGraw, while offering tantalizing details on the shooting for months, was later found to be unreliable, as he had a history of making outlandish claims while he was in prison in 1988. The investigators, despite little evidence that linked McGraw the others anywhere near the crime scene at the time of the crime, deemed McGraw a reliable witness because they believed he was hospitalized as a psychiatric patient out of suicidal guilt over the killings. It was also discovered that the investigation was beginning to focus on Doody and Garcia, following the discovery of the murder weapon. But that part of the investigation stopped after McGraw's phone call led to the Tucson Four's arrest – the actual murder weapon sat in a detective's office for weeks before being tested. Eventually, it was discovered that the men were coerced into confessing, with investigators extracting false confessions by exaggerating evidence, badgering them with leading questions, and threatening the death penalty. A homicide chief for Maricopa County Sheriff's Office at the time said the interrogators hammered on the suspects until their will was broken, and that "after a while, they were willing to say anything." The initial suspects, excluding McGraw, later filed lawsuits against Maricopa County, and in 1994, Bruce and Nunez received $1.1 million each, while Parker received $240,000.

Doody

Interrogation techniques similar to those used on the Tucson Four were also used against Doody and Garcia and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Doody's confession was illegally coerced. Gary L. Stuart, a lawyer with deep knowledge of the case, said Doody's confession never should have stood up in court.

Legacy

The investigation led to public outrage over then-Maricopa-County-Sheriff Tom Agnos. It eventually turned into a campaign issue when Joe Arpaio, who was a former DEA agent at the time, campaigned on a promise to restore credibility to the office. Agnos was eventually defeated by Arpaio in the November 1992 general election.

Notes

References

; Citations * {{Coord, 33.53064, -112.42979, display=title, format=dms Murder in Arizona 1991 in Arizona 1991 murders in the United States Attacks in the United States in 1991 Deaths by firearm in Arizona Mass murder in 1991 1991 mass shootings in the United States Mass shootings in the United States Buddhism in the United States Massacres in religious buildings and structures Thai American Mass shootings in Arizona Attacks on religious buildings and structures in the United States