We mourn the loss of Chandler police officer Carlos Ledesma, the murder victim during an undercover operation in south Phoenix early Wednesday evening–and we are going to look into the ill-fated circumstances at a later date.      We first heard about the shootout inside a residence in the crime-ridden Lindo Park neighborhood shortly after it…

Lisa Randall stepped into the bright sunlight Thursday morning, July 22, surrounded by family, friends, and her attorney. Randall took a deep breath and held onto the youngest of her five adult children, daughter Brenna. She pulled one of her pant legs up a few inches to expose the ankle…

Not a day or two goes by without someone contacting us to ask about the legal status of Faleh Al-Maleki, the Glendale man whose fatal October 2009 attack-by-car on his 20-year-old daughter Noor appalled (much of) the world. The comments usually go along the lines of this: “When is that…

Above is what is known in the journalism biz as a “standing headline,” as in we could file it away for a year and then pull it back up with nary a change.     What is it about Arizona and children? Doesn’t seem to matter who’s in charge — Republicans (personified by…

A few hours ago, the Utah Supreme Court announced that it has reversed the 2007 criminal convictions against Warren S. Jeffs, the super-creepy messianic leader of an Arizona-based polygamous sect. We have written often in these pages about Jeffs (pictured smooching one of his young “brides”) and his sect, the Fundamentalist Church of…

We just returned from a downtown Phoenix courtroom where a judge dismissed first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse charges in the case of Peoria day-care operator Lisa Randall (pictured feeding a grandchild). “The dismissal is in the interests of justice,” Deputy County Attorney Belle Whitney told Judge Michael Kemp, during a…

On Monday, July 19, a top aide to Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley told New Times that prosecutors will file a motion to dismiss murder and child-abuse charges against Lisa Kathleen Randall, whose case is the subject of this story. Cindi Nanetti, division chief over major crimes, said senior prosecutors…

Joey Strickland, director of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services, was giving a nice little speech about how Arizona supposedly is getting better at helping out returning (from Afghanistan and Iraq) vets and their families. Suddenly, the director, a retired Army colonel, veered briefly from his prepared remarks to speak about a recent trip to…

Back in 2003, we published a cover yarn about the mysterious death of elderly Scottsdale socialite Kathryn Howard: The Maricopa County Medical Examiner eventually called it murder, probably by suffocation.     Entitled “Dying for Love,” the desert gothic tale described Ms. Howard’s “love affair” with a 50-ish building contractor with…

Here’s one for you: Early on the evening of May 8, a ranch hand at a spread in Apache, a dot off Highway 80 near the New Mexico border north of Douglas, phoned local authorities. A sheriff’s department report describes how the fellow was driving home on remote Skeleton Canyon…

It’s late Saturday afternoon, June 5, and the roof at Chase Field is closed for the Diamondbacks’ game against the Colorado Rockies. John McCain steps out of the Diamondbacks dugout onto the diamond. The famed U.S. senator’s mission, along with that of a new friend of his named Paul Babeu…

We’ve gotten our hands on a heavily redacted police report made public a few hours ago by the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office. It’s about the Rob Krentz murder case, a subject that we explored last week in the story “Cowboy Down.” It is available right here if you haven’t checked…

New Times has secured an Arizona Department of Public Safety report on its crime-scene investigation into the alleged April 30 daytime desert clash between Pinal County sheriff’s Deputy Louie Puroll and a group of drug-smuggling undocumented aliens. Short analysis of the highly publicized incident:    The DPS investigation raises more questions than it  answers…

A few years ago, we wrote a wild yarn entitled “I Dunnit,” about a Kentucky knucklehead named James Mullins who confessed to a murder he didn’t commit — the first known homicide victim of the infamous Baseline Killer.   reporting the piece (that’s the cover illustration from the story), we…

We have made many a visit over the years to the law library at the downtown Phoenix county court complex, to do legal research (believe it or not) or to write our stories away from the distractions (i.e. procrastination) over at the newspaper.   During that time, we have come…

Sue Krentz answered the phone about 6 p.m. It was March 27, a Saturday, and she was in Phoenix, tending to her aged parents as a sister attended a conference. Sue usually doesn’t stray from her family’s venerable cattle ranch in Cochise County for too long at a stretch. But…