In May 1995, Lori Romaneck asked a clerk at the state’s Office of Vital Records for copies of two death certificates. “I wanted to bury my two sisters with my mother, and I needed the right paperwork,” she says. “That was it.” But at that moment, Romaneck saw something that…
George A. Hormel II went on a shopping spree in 1992. With a $13 million inheritance in his pocket, Hormel, whom everyone calls “Geordie,” had been lured from Los Angeles to buy the 57,000-square-foot McCune Mansion in Paradise Valley. Phoenix-area real estate values were still in the dumper, and, at…
1956–Gene Keidel and DiAnne Kidder married in Peoria, Illinois. September 17, 1966–The last time DiAnne Keidel is seen alive. January 9, 1967–Fire at the Citrus Way home kills two of the Keidel children and seriously injures a third. January 10, 1967–Police investigator concludes that the fire had started accidentally on…
Karen Hayward has been trying for years to get her ex-husband to pay overdue child support. She thought she’d finally succeeded when the Maricopa County Superior Court ordered him to pay up or be arrested in June. Hayward even had the help of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office to collect…
The young man lies dead at the end of the room. I can’t stop looking at him. He’s lying in an open casket in front of the altar in the church. His face is unmarked. The bullet that killed him tore into his chest. Although the face is intact, something…
Raising — Arizona Style “VisionQuest and Boys Ranch claim lower recidivism rates for kids. . . . Studies . . . seem to bear them out.” This one paragraph in your article (“Business AZ Usual,” Chris Farnsworth, August 6) says it all. These are children who will be murdering, raping,…
In 1996, a developer and the ranch’s owners announced plans to build a golf course and a residential/hotel development at Spur Cross Ranch. Because the ranch holds significant Hohokam Indian ruins and a rare riparian area, preservationists and environmentalists were alarmed. Cave Creek annexed Spur Cross and additional land, bringing…
Almost 200 people are gathered at Scottsdale City Hall on a mid-July afternoon for what Mayor Sam Campana blissfully has dubbed an “information workshop” on the city’s latest conundrum: the proposed Spur Cross Ranch land exchange. Spur Cross Ranch is not actually in Scottsdale, but the proposed trade that would…
The video opens with shots of a choir: well-groomed young men singing “Silent Night” to a group of senior citizens. Then the image cuts to cops arresting kids. Cut back to the chorus, voices raised in song. Cut back to a cop confiscating an ugly-looking gun. Baseball celebrity Joe Garagiola…
Bidwill Hunting While his father, Arizona Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill, faces pressure to fork over big bucks to sign rookie defensive back Andre Wadsworth, Patrick Bidwill has apparently dug into his cash reserves in his own preseason holdout drama. The younger Bidwill faced the distasteful chore of defending himself against…
A Black Canyon City woman says the Baptist Foundation of Arizona (BFA) is refusing to return her life savings, even though she needs the money to pay mounting medical bills. Annette Earl, 60, claims that a BFA representative “misled” her in April 1997 when she invested $99,000 with the Arizona…
Porn Free Although the article on porn star Nikki Lynn and husband Richard (“The Best Laid Plans of Nikki Lynn,” Brian Smith, July 30) portrayed them as “just folks” and loving members of a happy family, the description of the families in which they grew up is quite enlightening: Nikki’s…
When she opens the door, her life is written on her face. The bruises around her eyes. The off-white, puffy skin. The frightened look, which she tries and fails to hide with her forced cheerfulness. Her name is Judy. She lives in a motel on Grand Avenue. It’s the kind…
Picture the setup for a girl-on-girl tryst in a porn nugget titled Hot Seats released last summer on VCA video: Horny babes on mountain bikes traversing the hills outside of Los Angeles, clad in tight bike shorts, nipple-enhancing jerseys and enough makeup to challenge any Spice Girl. Two of them…
All week long, people had been telling me upbeat things about Globe. What a small, welcoming and crimeless community it is–congenial to families, kids, retirees and everyone in between. How cool the summer air is in the evenings. How close it is to other worlds. The San Carlos Apache Reservation,…
Last week, state treasurer Tony West got caught in the Web when the dailies reported he was pimping his corporation commission campaign on his state-sponsored treasurer’s office Internet site. The offending statement–“Treasurer West is running for election to the Corporation Commission this year. Click here to visit his campaign web…
The nurse who examined a 16-year-old boy in the weeks before he died at the Arizona Boys Ranch says she is not responsible for the teen’s death since he showed no signs of an infection. In her first interview since the boy died on March 2, the nurse, Linda Babb,…
America’s Worst While waiting for a recent America West flight to be delayed and then canceled, the Flash pondered the Arizona Republic’s coverage of the airline’s woes. At the risk of inciting America West chairman Bill Franke (who also sits on the board of Central Newspapers Incorporated, the Republic’s parent,…
Jail Berate I have recently learned about the terrible conditions at Maricopa County jails. A very good friend of my family died recently because of the treatment he received at Tent City. Our friend had been suffering from liver problems for many years, which, unfortunately, had been brought on by…
We arrange to meet in a restaurant. I ask how I will recognize her. “Do you know who Suzanne Somers is?” she asks me. I say I do. “Well, I look exactly like her.” She’s not kidding. I arrive at the restaurant and find her waiting near the door, all…
The area adjacent to the retail center should eventually be cleared for market rate housing. Downtown lacks any significant market rate housing. This is too valuable and important land and should be dedicated to high density, market rate residential. No Downtown in the United States, no matter how small, has…
Michael Kerski moved from Hartford, Connecticut, to Arizona in November 1996 to revitalize downtown Chandler–and a career rocked by scandal. Last August, the Connecticut attorney general sued Kerski, claiming that as executive director of the Greater Hartford Architectural Conservancy, Kerski used the conservancy’s funds to “personally enrich” himself. The suit…
