The Arizona Daily Star’s ace reporter, Brady McCombs,  reports that even as border crossings in Arizona decreased dramatically, presumed border crosser deaths stayed the same, which means the rate of deaths actually increased.  This tells me migrants in desperation travel in more deadly terrain, during treacherous times of the year, in spite of increased border enforcement.

Here’s the Star’s database of border crossing deaths.

Photo by Farmer Dodds from Flickr

Almost three years ago, on a cold night in November, two Border Patrol agents allegedly came across four “Mexican National” pot smugglers in the Arizona desert. The agents, Dario Castillo and Ramon Zuniga, forced the smugglers to take off their shoes, socks and jackets (just like drop house kidnappers) and burned them. They forced the smugglers to eat pot. Then they sent them hightailing into the desert. Now the two agents have been indicted for human rights violations by a federal grand jury in Tucson. Again, this is all alleged.  It’s too early for the BP agents to respond. But you  can read the DOJ press release below.
Border Patrol 2011-170(Castillo et al)

Albert Gaxiola, A Tucson Courtroom, The Arivaca Home Invasion Murders

A hot July morning, I’m sitting with journalist Dave Ricker in the media room of the Pima County Superior Court in Tucson.

A windowless room, a table, a few chairs.

We’re waiting for the jury to decide if Albert Gaxiola should be sentenced to death for killing little  Brisenia Flores and her dad Raul in a bloody home invasion in the Arizona borderlands.

We’ve been in this room  before, waiting to see if the other killers would be sentenced to death for the same crimes. They were. First, Shawna Forde, a disturbed beautician from Washington state who started her own border vigilante group, was sent to death row. And then Jason Bush, an alleged serial killer and pretend war hero,  was sentenced to die.

After a long trial, prosecutors  convinced the jury that Albert Gaxiola sicked Shawna Forde and Jason  Bush on Raul Flores because Raul was competition in the drug business.  So Albert is a killer.

Now Dave and I are  waiting to see if that same jury will sentence Albert to die, or to life in prison for the killings.

Me and Dave, we’re just talking and surfing the Internet.

Then we see  Albert’s lawyers rushing into the court room, and we pack up our  Macbook Pros and race after the lawyers.

We hightail it into the courtroom and set up our computers.  There’s a problem, the bailiff says. There’s a backup in the jail. The overworked deputies can’t get Albert up to the courtroom.

Gina Gonzalez and her family rush into the courtroom too. Gina is the mom of Brisenia Flores and the widow of Raul Flores, who Albert wanted dead. Her daughter and her husband were killed in front of her. She survived by playing dead on the floor after she was shot, and then engaging in a gun battle with the killers when they came back in to her bloody trailer to finish her off.

***

Here’s what you need to know about Albert Gaxoiola: He had been a friend of Gina and Raul.  Little Brisenia adored him. But he was a drug dealer and a drug user. His mom, now an obese woman with a pink walker, couldn’t care for him when he was little.  Too many men.  So Albert’s uncle and aunt raised him in California, and once he’d grown up, he’d sold mortgages there. Then he went back to see his mom, and started dealing drugs with her. And he got caught and served a light sentence. But instead of going back to his clean life in California, he settled in Arivaca, where I met him in 2008.

I was on assignment for a magazine. Writing about the border.

Albert and this guy were talking outside a feed store in Arivaca, just a few miles north of the Mexican border. Albert’s companion was an old hippie, I think his name was something like Stinky Steve.  They saw me, a reporter with a notebook, and Stinky Steve vamoosed.

Albert was very very guarded talking to me. He said he was of Basque heritage, that his family had been in the area for centuries, that his grandma sold tacos on the streets of Arivaca, that she died and he’d come home to attend her funeral, and that he was staying in Arivaca to get away from the California rat race.  One more thing: He  felt sorry for Mexican  immigrants hoofing through town. They just wanted a bit of the American dream, he said.

I didn’t know he was a drug guy, I just knew he was, as I told you before,  guarded.

And a year later, after he was charged with the Arivaca murders, I wondered why a guy so sympathetic to the plight of unauthorized Mexican immigrants would hook up with a Mexican-hating Minutewoman.

***

Today in the courtroom I think he looks a lot like I remember him. Not real tall. Broad-shouldered.  Dark-skinned. Prominent nose. Short black hair in a businessman’s cut.

But his legs are manacled and his hands are cuffed behind him. Once the deputy unlocks the cuffs, Albert puts on  his dark tie.  And his belt.

His packaging is entirely different from the other killers. Jason Bush looked like a tall lunatic on a serious dose of psychiatric medication.  Shawna Forde: A  beautician with delusions of grandeur.

But Albert, he still looks like a man who sold mortgages in California.

Judge John Leonardo enters the courtroom, says  the jury can’t reach a unanimous decision.

Albert looks happy. Maybe he will escape lethal injection. He jokes with his legal team.

Then everyone leaves for lunch, and Albert is cuffed and taken back into a holding cell.

***

Dave and I barely get our granola bars scarfed down before the jury reaches a verdict.

Same routine. We race into the courtroom.

Albert is brought in.

“Another circus, different clowns,” a deputy tells a  prosecutor.

A reporter talks about having witnessed a lethal injection execution.  The reporter says it is an easy death.

Not like the deaths of Brisenia Flores, who begged for her life before she was shot twice in the head. Not like the death of Raul Flores, who was shot multiple times and drowned in his own blood. Not like the death of part of Gina Gonzalez, who saw all this and must live with it for the rest of her life.

Albert puts on his belt. He puts on his tie. He rocks in his chair. Rock. Rock. Rock.

The jury sentences Albert to life for arranging the hit on Raul Flores, but it can’t reach a decision on whether Albert is guilty of killing Brisenia.

Gina’s relatives seem upset. Why life? Why no decision on killing Brisenia?

The prosecutor tries to explain: This is an okay verdict. It really is. And here’s why: He’s  gonna spend the rest of his life in prison, he’s gonna be in the yard. Killers of children have a hard time in the yard.  This won’t be an easy life for Albert.  He’s scared. So scared, he’s been telling people in prison he didn’t do anything bad. He’s been putting out feelers to protect himself. Everyone knows he’s coming.

It’s not going to be easy.

Sen. John McCain, once a moderate who pushed for comprehensive immigration reform, now hints at least some of  Arizona’s wildfires were caused by  unauthorized migrants, according to The Arizona Republic.

This was at a press conference.

Asked which fires were caused by migrants, McCain couldn’t answer.

Sen. Jon Kyl, who was with McCain,  told reporters the Horseshoe Fire in the borderlands was caused by migrants.

Really?

Apparently, neither Gov. Brewer nor the Forest Service knew about the alleged migrant firebugs:

“The senators’ remarks came a day after Gov. Jan Brewer said the causes and sources of two southern Arizona fires have not been determined and that an investigation is under way,” the Arizona Republic  reported.

ABC News interviewed Tom Berglund, a Forest Service spokesman involved with one fire and reported:

When asked if there is substantial evidence that some fires were caused by illegal immigrants, as McCain said at a news conference Saturday, Berglund said: “Absolutely not, at this level.”

“There’s no evidence that I’m aware, no evidence that’s been public, indicating such a thing,” he said.

I’m sitting just a few feet away from a very tall child killer.

Jason Bush photo by Dean Knuth -- Arizona Daily Star

He’s wearing a light blue green shirt and gray slacks without a belt. His skin is sallow, and he’s got a five o’clock shadow.  He’s lost a lot of weight since he was arrested about two years ago. His black second-hand shoes are too big and flop off his heels when he walks. He’s got really big brown eyes  and a straight nose. Thin lips. He’s pulled his shoulder-length dark hair into a pony tail. He has a receding hairline.

Killers look just like anyone else. They don’t stand out in a crowd.

He appears completely calm as a clerk in a Tucson courtroom reads the jury’s guilty verdict.

He has no expression on his face. But I look carefully, and I think he’s breathing faster than normal as the verdicts are read.  Guilty of two counts of murder. One count of attempted murder. Various home invasion crimes.  Burglary. Robbery.

He puts on his glasses. He takes off his glasses. He closes his eyes.

***

Back in 2009,  Jason Bush was a drifter and ex-con who pretended to be a decorated Army sniper involved in covert operations.

He had fake certificates that he showed to Shawna Forde, a beautician from Everett Washington who wanted to rob a family of money and drugs. She believed his sniper story. Shawna enlisted Jason for her little Minuteman group.

One day in May 2009, Jason painted his face black, just like in the movies.  He and  Shawna barged into a trailer in Arivaca, Arizona, just a few miles north of the border. They wore camouflage and uniforms and pretended to be officers in search of fugitives. A few minutes later, Jason killed a little girl and her father. He shot the mother, but she played dead.

After Jason and Shawna left the trailer, (disappointed that they hadn’t found drugs or money to fund Shawna’s border vigilante activities) the mother called 911.

The child was still dying,  convulsing and vomiting blood. The mother begged the 911 operator for help.

Then Shawna came back into the trailer.

Shawna  saw the mom calling 911, and yelled to Jason to come back in the trailer. There was a witness still alive, Shawna shouted, and someone had to finish the job.

The wounded mother got herself into the kitchen area, found her husband’s loaded gun.

When Jason came back in the trailer,  the mother  shot him in the leg.

He ran away.

***

That was two years ago, and Jason almost immediately confessed to the murders. Later, he  pleaded innocence.

The evidence against him is overwhelming. The mother’s testimony. The DNA on the guns and on the floor of the trailer. His lawyers didn’t even mount a defense.

They just want to spare him from the death penalty.  They plan on introducing evidence of his grim young life. His parents put him in a mental institution when he was 11. He was raped there. Then he was raped in foster homes.

The lawyers don’t want to include allegations and charges leveled by law enforcement authorities that Jason knifed a Mexican to death and then executed a “race traitor” in Washington. That was way back in 1997.

***

In Arizona, a jury, not a judge, will decide whether Jason should be executed by lethal injection.

You’re getting a real time report. Right now, as Jason puts on his glasses one more time, then takes them off,  the jury exits to a room where it will decide whether Jason’s crimes merit consideration for the death penalty. If it decides, in the next hour or so, that the crimes do merit the death penalty, Jason’s lawyers will present evidence in the next couple of weeks indicating he is a broken soul who should live.

Jason swings in his chair. Jason watches a young girl who just walked into the courtroom.

Now the guards take Jason away. He shuffles in his leg chains. Those white socks. Those floppy black shoes.

A few minutes later, he hobbles  back in the room.  It took about 15 minutes for the jury to decide that Jason’s crimes were horrific and cruel, and merit consideration for the death penalty.

Jason just sits.

***

Shawna Forde was sentenced to death for masterminding the murders. In the next weeks, we will learn if  Jason Bush will face the same fate.

***

UPDATE: Jason Bush was sentenced to death by lethal injection. As I wrote in my verdict story in The Daily Beast, he is a suspected serial killer.

After he was sentenced to death, he looked down at his lawyer and appeared to say: “This sucks.”

SUE KRENTZ, WIFE OF SLAIN BORDER RANCHER ROBERT KRENTZ, WHOSE UNSOLVED MURDER SPARKED PASSAGE OF SB 1070, ARIZONA’S IMMIGRATION LAW, WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED SATURDAY ALLEGEDLY BY A DRUNK DRIVER

Robert Krentz, a well-known borderlands rancher, was gunned down by a mysterious assailant on his ranch in late March. Although his murder has not been solved,  it was widely blamed by locals and national conservative groups on narco-smugglers in the country illegally. The murder sent a shock wave through Arizona’s legislature, and moderate Republicans who were set to vote against SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, voted instead for its approval. Arizonans were concerned about border security in the wake of the Krentz killing, and many did not understand that not a word of SB 1070 relates to border security.  Sue Krentz, by all accounts, became a reluctant but brave spokeswoman for conservative causes, and  recently was honored with a front-row seat at the Glenn Beck rally in Washington, according to the Tucson Weekly.

She is a Catholic, and while crossing the street from the Catholic Church in Douglas on Saturday, she was hit by an allegedly drunk driver, a local named Ramon Parra Saucedo. According  to court records I looked up, he  is 69 years old. He’s had many traffic violations, including a previous DUI and a hit and run of a vehicle, the records say. He’s facing aggravated assault and DUI charges in connection with the Krentz hit-and-run.

He is an American citizen, according to press reports.

Sue Krentz was airlifted to a hospital in nearby Tucson.  Leo Banks, a personal friend of Sue Krentz, writes in the Tucson Weekly that Sue Krentz was “thrown thirty feet and suffered a broken pelvis, head and facial injuries and internal bleeding.” Banks reports that Krentz underwent  blood transfusions “and is conscious and in stable condition. “

The unsolved murder of Sue Krentz’s husband has fueled speculation on both sides. Here’s what I wrote for The Daily Beast in July.

Former State Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez says the unsolved murder probe is a case of “purposeful ignorance” and an “attempt to cover up the truth” in a prime drug- and human-smuggling corridor. Politicians talk about securing the border, he said, but they do not address the possibility that the business of Cochise County “ain’t cows, ain’t hay; it’s smuggling drugs and people.”

“Everybody knows what’s going on but nobody knows what’s going on,” said Gutierrez, one of the state’s leading Hispanic leaders.

Such a suggestion is just plain wrong, said Cochise County’s embattled sheriff, Larry Dever.

“He’s suggesting I am dirty and people I know are dirty, and if anyone can establish that, I’d invite them to give it a try,” Dever said.

Born and raised in Cochise County, the 57-year-old sheriff was a friend of Krentz’s. He said he has heard the allegations that U.S. citizens living in the area are involved in criminal activities linked with the Krentz killing, but he dismissed those claims as purely political.

Instead, Dever said, he has a suspect in Mexico and is “very, very close” to solving the case, though he said he cannot put a time frame on it.

The Krentz killing was the result of “a dog protecting his master and the master protecting dog…I think the encounter was accidental,” the sheriff theorized. “Rob was checking out his ranch. The smuggler was smuggling. They came across each other’s paths with a very good man being killed with no reason whatsoever.”

In either case, the Krentz  family has had more than its share of unexplained tragedy.

ARIZONA JOURNALISTS RAISE EVEN MORE TROUBLING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO AND HIS NEIGHBOR AND ALLY, PINAL COUNTY SHERIFF PAUL BABEU, AND A SUSPICIOUS DEPUTY SHOOTING THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A HOAX

Two close political allies who’ve made names for themselves as lawmen protecting Arizonans from perceived misdeeds of “illegal aliens” are now facing increased scrutiny from reporters and public officials.

This week, the Maricopa County Board of  Supervisors, which oversees funding for the office of Sheriff Joe Arpaio,  learned that an internal audit of the sheriff’s office indicates that the sheriff may have misspent up to $80 million in the past five years. According to The Arizona Republic, the  auditors allege that the sheriff’s administration kept two sets of books, which allowed it to secretly take  money from one untouchable fund and funnel it into those well-publicized immigration enforcement activities. (Read, raids.)  Of course, the board, which has felt the wrath of Sheriff Joe, turned its findings over to the U.S. Department of Justice, which is conducting two ongoing investigations of the sheriff’s administration that may lead to the indictment of Sheriff Joe himself.

Sheriff Joe isn’t the only guy who’s being scrutinized.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, the former boarding school principal turned anti-migrant lawman, first grew famous by walking along the “dang fence” in John McCain’s primary-campaign television ad. Then Babeu (he likes to call himself “Sheriff Paul” just as Arpaio is known as Sheriff Joe guested on a white-supremacy show and a conspiracy theory show. ) Sheriff Paul blamed his appearances on the radio shows on a bumbling aide, and the McCain camp did not pull either the dang fence ad or Sheriff Paul’s endorsement.

For months, Sheriff Paul has stood behind his deputy, who claimed he was shot by AK-47 toting Sinaloan narcos.  Despite a massive search, the narcos were never found. Nor was the massive load of pot they were supposed to be carrying. And the deputy who claimed he was shot by the narcos suffered a grazing wound that experts now say was shot at close range. You can thank Paul Rubin, of the Phoenix New Times, for having the fine good sense to send a picture of the deputy’s wound to forensic experts.

In short, lawmen, forensic experts and newspaper reporters have all questioned whether the deputy’s shooting was a hoax.

Was it intended to further terrify Arizonans already terrified by false reports that an Arizona rancher was definatively shot by an “illegal alien?”

That rancher murder, which spurred the passage of SB 1070, is actually unsolved.

Babeu’s office said the deputy’s shooting was not a hoax. It was the real deal, Babeu said.

Now Sheriff Paul,  incredibly, is investigating the alleged crimes at Sheriff  Joe’s office.

AN AWARD-WINNING NEWSPAPER REVEALS ARIZONA GOVERNOR JAN BREWER’S SON, RONALD, IS CRIMINALLY INSANE. WHY DOES HER POLITICAL RIVAL HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS?

True Confession: For months I have been off-and-on puzzling over  what to do about a sealed criminal court case involving Jan  Brewer’s kid, Ronald. The case was sealed right around the time Brewer, then secretary of state, was appointed governor to replace Janet Napolitano, now the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

I never got around to getting the police report, but Phoenix New Times  did. Here’s what the newspaper reported:  Phoenix Police said Ronald (he’s in his forties now) kidnapped and sexually assaulted  a woman in 1989. He was indicted, but judged criminally insane, and sent to a state-funded facility for the seriously mentally ill in Phoenix. He’s still there.

What’s important about this story is that Brewer as a public figure had long campaigned for  the mentally ill. Then she stopped campaigning so hard when she became governor, and the records about her  own son were sealed.

Earlier this summer,  I wrote about Brewer for  The Daily Beast. She  gave birth to three sons. One died. One is criminally insane.  The third is fine. At the time, I asked Doug Cole, Brewer’s campaign spokesman and a shrewd political strategist, about whether Brewer had a son who was mentally ill.  ”She has a family member in the system, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.” He said this rather harshly.

Now I know why.

Back to the New Times story exposing the record-sealing — Democrat Terry Goddard, who is running against Brewer in the upcoming Arizona gubernatorial race, blasted the newspaper for writing about Ronald.

Truth is, this is a valid news story, because Brewer is a public figure who has used advocacy for the mentally ill as one of her feel-good causes. Then she became governor and the records on her own son were sealed.  Something else was sealed, too.

Jan Brewer’s heart.

Arizona’s current governor, Jan Brewer, falters as she debates Democratic candidate Terry Goddard, who is now attorney general.

Brewer may falter, stumble and misspeak, but she’s never lost an election.

Goddard is a policy wonk, and knows his material. But he’s lost lots of elections.

So there you have it.

Welcome to Arizona.

IN THE LAST DECADE, HUNDREDS HAVE DIED CROSSING ARIZONA’S DESERT.  IF ONLY WE KNEW WHO THEY WERE.

The Arizona Daily Star, a Tucson newspaper, has been tracking migrant deaths in the desert for years. If it weren’t for this plucky newspaper, and the handful of reporters and editors who have stuck with this story, we wouldn’t have a handle on how many died.

Virtually every major newspaper in the United States has published stories on migrant deaths, often without giving credit to the Arizona Daily Star for its consistent tallying.

Now the Star has published a  six-page special report,  ”A Decade of Death,” that takes readers inside Arizona’s desert death chamber and reads like a heart-wrenching detective story.  You feel as though you’re standing right next to the scientists at the morgue, inspecting  mummified flesh and white bone, hoping to piece together an identity  from a note found in a jeans pocket, or a photo in a dusty  backpack.

(In one case, the Star reported, a head was missing from a body recovered in the desert. The scientists attribute the decapitation to animal activity, but still, they aren’t entirely sure. Is this headless corpse that Arizona’s governor, Jan Brewer, had been referring to when she said there were beheadings in the desert?)

The Star’s online media package that accompanies the story enhances the immediacy. If you don’t believe me, check out this  creepy  but mesmerizing audio slideshow.

When increased border enforcement in California and Texas funneled so much illegal immigration through Arizona, officials may have thought that Arizona’s harsh deserts would act as a sort of natural barrier, keeping migrants out.

The bones in the desert refute that theory.