The following article appeared in todays Arizona Daily Star:
Bolles kin object to car-display site
PHOENIX (AP) - A son of a newspaper reporter killed in a 1976 car bombing
says his family may not allow the car's wreckage to be displayed at a museum
named for a man implicated but never charged in the killing.
Unless the Arizona Historical Society accedes to conditions set by the
family, ``I think we would see the car destroyed,'' said David Bolles,
eldest son of Don Bolles.
Those conditions would include the family having say over how the car is
displayed and where, the son told Phoenix television station KPHO in a
broadcast Monday night. Family members could not be reached yesterday by The
Associated Press.
The father, a longtime investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, was
fatally injured on June 2, 1976, when dynamite planted under the driver's
seat of his white Datsun sedan was detonated by remote control. Bolles, 47,
died 11 days later.
The chief prosecution witness claimed land baron and liquor magnate Kemper
Marley was behind the bombing.
The witness, small-time thief and racing dog trainer John Harvey Adamson,
admitted planting the bomb and testified to three other men's involvement,
but could not directly link Marley to the plot.
Marley testified during Adamson's 1977 trial and denied any involvement.
Marley died of cancer in 1990 at age 83.
Bolles' sons have not flatly refused to turn the car over to the society,
but they did not realize the Marley Center would be a likely set for its
display.
``We don't want any link to the Marley name,'' David Bolles told the
television station.
``Marley killed my father. That man was responsible for my father's death,''
said another Bolles son, Chris. ``How can you say, `Let's put this in the
Marley museum?' This is what he did.''
The Marley Center is a $10 million museum built in 1991 but vacant since
then because there was no money to furnish it. The center in Tempe is
expected to open this year.
The museum did not return repeated telephone messages left yesterday by The
Associated Press.
Appeals and retrials in the case dragged on until 1994, when former
contractor Max Dunlap was sentenced to life in prison on 1993 convictions of
murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice. It was Dunlap whom prosecutors
alleged had arranged the killing at Marley's behest over some embarrassing
articles written by Bolles.
Last year, after the Datsun had been sitting in an impound lot for 19 years,
Phoenix police asked prosecutors whether they could dispose of it. After
being examined by bomb experts, the car was saved for possible use as trial
evidence.
But both sides in the various trials used photos rather than having the jury
view the car, which remains property of the Bolles family, state prosecutor
Warren Granville said Tuesday.
And even though Dunlap is appealing his 1993 convictions and conceivably
could win another trial, ``the fact that it's never been used in previous
trials makes me think it's never going to be used,'' said Granville, an
Arizona assistant attorney general involved in the case since 1988.
A friend of Bolles and an attorney general's investigator contacted the
historical society and other groups last year about displaying the wreckage
as a memorial to Bolles.
Society officials told KPHO the Bolles family's conditions would be
discussed by the board.
``I'm sure it will be an interesting discussion,'' said Paul Piazza,
director of the society's Central Arizona division.
--
Robert O. Dahl <[log in to unmask]>
URL: http://www.indirect.com/user/ottar/
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