Decades later, search continues for answers in Arizona journalist’s murder

Their stories looked at land fraud, the influence of organized crime and business owners skirting the law. The work sought to send the message, Cochran said, that “even if you kill the journalist, you won’t kill the story.”

That project’s legacy was not necessarily the stories themselves, but the idea of other journalists picking up the mantle for one who fell.

“The purpose of the Arizona Project was to carry on Don’s work,” Weisz said, “and provide an insurance policy for reporters everywhere.”

The Arizona Daily Star ran the series. The Arizona Republic did not run the series, saying in a front-page note to readers that some of the articles repeated prior Republic reporting. And parts that were new could not be verified.

“Some of the previously unpublished material contains statements and allegations for which The Republic and The Gazette have not yet been able to obtain sufficient documentation and proof to justify publication,” an unsigned letter to readers said.

The fact that Bolles’ own paper didn’t run the project inspired by his death was vexing to those who worked on it, Weisz said. “It still makes no common sense.”

Through the years, every report, transcript, note, photo and phone message related to the decades-long investigation into the car bombing of Bolles was preserved in folders and placed inside cardboard boxes housed at the state’s archives.

Access to those materials, stored in some 150 cardboard banker’s boxes, is restricted.

Under an agreement reached in 2010 between the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and the archives division of the Arizona State Library, the documents could only be viewed by “bona fide historians,” “serious researchers” and attorneys or law students.