PHOENIX — Forty-seven years ago, the parking lot of the Clarendon Hotel shook with the force of a bomb.
Don Bolles would spend the next 11 days in the hospital before succumbing to his injuries – dynamite placed under his driver seat had exploded.
The reporter was killed for doing his job.
"Someone screams, 'there is a car that just blew up at the Clarendon hotel and there is a reporter's tag on the window,'" Jana Bommersbach said.
Bommersbach was a reporter at the Arizona Republic back in 1976. She remembers making a long-distance call when the news came down about a bombing.
"The whole room got very cold and froze," Bommersbach said. "Somebody had decided to kill a reporter in broad daylight."
Bolles went to the Clarendon Hotel to meet a man who said he had information about a potential story. That man was John Adamson.
When he arrived, Adamson told investigators he put dynamite under the driver seat of Bolles' car. Adamson then drove to a nearby bar to call Bolles that the meeting was off.
Bolles got in his white Dotson, backed up, and the bomb was triggered.
Don Bolles, investigative reporter
Bolles started with the Arizona Republic in the early 1960s. He quickly developed a reputation for holding the powerful accountable and exposing corruption. No one was off limits, not even the mob.
"Bolles was writing about a lot of corruption and organized crime going on at the time," Rich Robertson said.
At the time, Robertson worked part-time for the Arizona Republic up in Payson. He worked with Bolles a month earlier, helping the veteran journalist cover the George Wallace campaign. Robertson would later lead the investigative team at the Republic.
"He was always on the front page coming up with some sort of wrongdoing," Robertson said.
"He was a real reporter who would have given up anything to get a story," said former Arizona Republic employee Bill Shover.
Bommersbach put it even more bluntly.
"This guy was a tenacious badass," she said.
The aftermath
After the bombing, Bolles spent 11 days in the hospital. Doctors amputated three of his limbs to try and stave off infection.
Bill Shover remembers arriving at the hospital and seeing Bolles for the first time.
“The nuns took me in and she said, 'Don is over there' and I said 'where?' There was so much blood on him I couldn’t tell it was a human being,” he said.
Shover would stay at the hospital to watch over Bolles.
"[Police] sat outside with shotguns thinking that the people who didn’t do the job would try to kill him at the hospital," Shover said.
Bolles would reportedly help officers while in the hospital bed, pointing to answer questions before he passed away.
"The funeral I once wrote married grief and shock," Bommersbach said. "The mood was vengeance, we are going to have vengeance on this crime."
Police first arrested Adamson on first-degree murder. His initial testimony would lead to the convictions of Max Dunlap and James Robison.
However, both Dunlap and Robison would have their convictions overturned. They would get new trials a few years later.
Robison was acquitted in 1993. Dunlap was convicted again and died in prison.
Remembering Don Bolles
Nearly five decades after the bombing, friends and coworkers gathered in the parking lot where the bomb went off.
They shared stories and memories of the revered reporter before holding a moment of silence.
"I think we have to remember him as a consummate journalist," Robertson said.
"We should remember Don Bolles as a journalist who gave his life trying to expose the truth," Bommersbach said.
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