Author Archive
December 28th, 2008, 7:57 pm by Nick R. Martin
Authorities on Sunday asked for the public’s help in finding the man who stabbed a teenager to death over the weekend in north Tempe.
Police said David Lopez, 19, died after he was stabbed in a fight about 6:30 p.m. Saturday at an apartment complex in the 800 block of East McKellips Drive.
The suspect, a man in his 20s, ran away before police arrived, according to department spokesman Sgt. Steve Carbajal. Investigators had little other information to go on.
Police asked anyone with information to call the department at (480) 350-8311.
Posted in: Tempe | 22 Comments »
November 25th, 2008, 7:22 pm by Nick R. Martin
 A man found dead this week along a roadside north of Mesa was identified Tuesday by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as Jose Luis Dominguez-Arboles, 26.
Deputies are investigating his death as a homicide and asked for the public to help find his friends or family members.
Dominguez (pictured) was found dead Monday morning with what the sheriff’s office would only say was “head trauma.” He was discovered near the Rio Salado Sportsman’s Club, 3960 N. Usery Pass Road.
The sheriff’s office asked anyone with information to call the detective working the case at (602) 876-4804 or agency’s main number at (602) 876-1011.
Posted in: Maricopa County | 20 Comments »
November 25th, 2008, 7:18 pm by Nick R. Martin
 A man considered one of “Chandler’s Most Wanted” for his suspected connection to a 2005 homicide was arrested Tuesday by local and federal authorities after more than three years on the run.
Moses Mejia (pictured) was captured in Queen Creek by U.S. Marshals and Mesa police on suspicion of the October 2005 killing of Sergio Vasquez-Abuerto, according to the Chandler Police Department.
Vasquez was shot to death by a group of four men who robbed him and his friends at gunpoint in an apartment complex parking lot.
Mejia was the third person of the group to be arrested, police said. Investigators are still looking for another man, 22-year-old Jose Herrera. They asked anyone with information to call Chandler police at (480) 782-4130.
Posted in: Chandler • Mesa • Queen Creek | 16 Comments »
October 23rd, 2008, 1:40 pm by Nick R. Martin
The FBI has released a photograph of one of the letters that helped ignite a bioterrorism scare at financial institutions and banks yesterday nationwide, including at two banks in the East Valley. “Steal tens of thousands of people’s money and not expect repercussions,” said the letters. “It’s payback time. What you just breathed in will kill you within 10 days. Thank (unreleased) and the FDIC for your demise.”
All the letters were mailed from Amarillo, Texas, according to the FBI. In total, some 50 letters were sent to banks, the FDIC and the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision. The language in each is identical, the FBI said. The photographed letter was sent to a Chase Bank in Colorado.
The FBI is asking anybody with information about the language or letters to call (800) 225-5324 or (800) CALLFBI.
UPDATE (2 p.m.): In a news release sent out this afternoon, the local office of the FBI says the powder sent to the Chase Banks in Arizona has been tested and was found to be non-hazardous.
Photos courtesy FBI.
Posted in: Gilbert • Mesa | 2 Comments »
October 18th, 2008, 11:50 am by Nick R. Martin
 A lot of people are asking who signed off on the possibly unprecedented nighttime search warrant that allowed sheriff’s deputies to bust into Mesa City Hall and other buildings on Thursday. The answer is Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe (pictured). He has been on the superior court bench since 2000 and is widely seen as the next in line to succeed the chief criminal judge in the county, Anna Baca.
I called Donahoe’s office yesterday to ask for comment on the warrant, but his assistant said he declined to talk.
On another note, we were able to pull an excerpt from my interview yesterday with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pretty mad at the criticism he’d been getting because of the raid. (See the link at the bottom of the post.) He continued to defend the raid and the deputies who conducted it, even in the face of Mesa’s accusations that one of the deputies had lied to a Mesa police officer about the operation.
The interview came at the end of a day when Arpaio had already answered dozens of questions at a news conference and also appeared nationally on Fox News. What you won’t hear in this excerpt is Arpaio’s apology near the end of the interview for going a bit nuclear earlier. “It’s been a long day,” he told me.
Arpaio blows up in this 2-minute excerpt from an interview about the raids at Mesa City Hall (1.86mb MP3).
Posted in: Maricopa County • Mesa | 20 Comments »
October 14th, 2008, 10:29 am by Nick R. Martin
Photo from Tribune file. August 2006.
Join me this morning as I blog live from the trial of Dale Hausner, the man prosecutors say is responsible for eight murders, known as the Serial Shooter killings, from May 2005 to August 2006. The second full day of testimony gets started momentarily.
Posted in: Uncategorized | Post a Comment »
September 26th, 2008, 2:36 pm by Nick R. Martin
 Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman’s teenage niece, missing since last weekend, was found in good condition and reunited with her family Friday morning.
Police said they are investigating the disappearance of Paige Hallman, 16, (pictured) as a possible runaway incident. She has a history of running away from home, according to authorities
Hallman had gone missing last Sunday night.
This post was written and reported by Tribune reporter Mike Branom
Posted in: Tempe | 7 Comments »
September 23rd, 2008, 4:36 pm by Nick R. Martin
Jose Rios Rico was sentenced this afternoon in federal court to life plus 55 years in prison for the murder 2003 murder of a mom-turned-drug-runner. (See previous post.) As part of the sentence, he will never be eligible for any type of release from prison, including parole.
More will be posted online later at www.evtrib.com and in tomorrow’s print edition.
Posted in: Uncategorized | Post a Comment »
September 23rd, 2008, 3:10 pm by Nick R. Martin
 A murder defendant the Tribune featured two weeks ago in a story titled “Death of a mom turned drug runner” will be sentenced this afternoon in federal court. Jose Rios Rico (pictured) pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this month to a slew of charges, including the murder of Angela Pinkerton, a mother of three who delivered methamphetamine to him at a Chandler apartment.
The case is arguably one of the reasons Arizona’s then-top federal prosecutor, Paul Charlton, was later fired by the Bush administration. Charlton believed that there was not enough evidence against Rios Rico to seek the death penalty. For one, Pinkerton’s body had never been unearthed from the Arizona landfill she was thought to be buried beneath. However, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales forced Charlton’s hand on the matter and ordered him to seek the ultimate punishment against Rios Rico.
For today’s sentencing, though, none of that matters. As part of his deal with federal prosecutors, Rios Rico pleaded guilty to spare his life. Though he is expected to spend decades — if not the rest of his life — in prison, he escapes death row.
Posted in: Chandler • Phoenix | 3 Comments »
September 20th, 2008, 12:06 pm by Nick R. Martin
 A 15-year-old boy was killed late Friday when he was thrown from the bed of a pickup truck as it careened off a road in north Scottsdale. Police later arrested the driver, Frank Poston, 36, of Phoenix, on suspicion of manslaughter, aggravated assault and endangerment after tests showed he had been drinking, authorities said. The boy’s name was not released.
Two other teens, 17 and 18 years old, were also injured in the crash, which happened about 10:15 p.m. at Cave Creek and Lone Mountain roads. Their names were also not released, but Scottsdale police said all were from Phoenix.
Scottsdale police spokesman officer Dave Pubins said the boy who was killed appeared to be an acquaintance of Poston’s somehow, but their exact relationship was unclear. Police kept the streets near the crash closed well into the morning while they investigated, but they were back open before 8 a.m. Saturday.
Posted in: Scottsdale | 18 Comments »
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