In 1934, a Tucson police officer ordered John Dillinger to “reach for the moon” or he would “blow his brains out.” Muttering, “Well, I’ll be damned,” the startled gangster did just that. What was characterized as a “podunk” police department in a “dusty desert town,” did what no other law enforcement agency—including the FBI—had done. It captured America’s Public Enemy No. 1 without firing a shot. Ever so briefly, while Dillinger awaited extradition, Tucson became the news capital of North America.



In 1917, an angry mob threw a rope over a telegraph pole and lynched Starr Daley, perpetrator of an ugly assault and murder. “He got what lot’s of other people ought to get,” was inscribed on the back of a photo in which Daley—surrounded by his executioners—dangled from a noose. Like lynchings everywhere, however, not a single member of the mob could be identified and no one was ever brought to justice.



In 1953, the largest police action in Arizona history occurred when more than 125 officers swooped down on Short Creek. Long a polygamist enclave isolated on the rugged Arizona Strip, two previous raids had not quelled polygamy—and neither would this one. Men went to jail briefly and became martyrs to the cause; women separated from their children won public sympathy. By Governor Howard Pyle’s own admission, it was a colossal waste of time and money.



In 1930, Eva Dugan, the only woman hanged in Arizona, mounted thirteen steps leading to the gallows. Moments later, her obese body fell through a trap door. Her head did not, but fell to the floor and rolled about the feet of horrified spectators. Arizona soon exchanged the hangman’s noose for the gas chamber.



These are but four of fourteen chapters, each a lively telling of intriguing Crimes & Misdeeds from Arizona’s Past.