Death Valley: Suspect Turns Himself In at AM/PM in Woman's Slaying; Scottsdale Police Make Arrest in Hot Tub Killing

News media covered the arrests of two suspected murderers this weekend, including one who allegedly confessed to an AM/PM store clerk. Channel 15 [KNXV-TV] has a good interview about the Tucson store clerk who chatted with Jerome Pringle, accused of killing 41-year-old Alice Saunders of Phoenix. Saunders' body was discovered...

By Ray Stern

July 13, 2009

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News media covered the arrests of two suspected murderers this weekend, including one who allegedly confessed to an AM/PM store clerk.

Channel 15 [KNXV-TV] has a good interview about the Tucson store clerk who chatted with Jerome Pringle, accused of killing 41-year-old Alice Saunders of Phoenix. Saunders' body was discovered in her home near 7200 West Camelback Road just after midnight on Saturday.

Clerk James Ehler told Channel 15 that Pringle was in tears when he came inside the store and spilled his guts:

"I just talked to him, and he's like, 'Well, I killed my brother's girlfriend up in Phoenix this morning.' And I was like, 'Damn, are you serious dude?' I didn't believe him at first," said Ehler.

Cops believe Pringle got into an argument with Saunders, his brother's girlfriend, before killing her and stealing her car.

**

Scottsdale police scored with the Thursday arrest in Chandler of Morgan Leigh Adams, 26, the former girlfriend of a guy named Dale Webber. Webber's decaying body was found floating in his hot tub days after the murder, but forensics investigators determined he had died of a single gunshot wound.

Detectives began receiving tips that pointed to Adams, who had once lived with Webber and continued to buy OxyContin from him even after moving out.

**

A fight between sisters-in-law left one woman dead of stab wounds last Thursday. Aminata Moutaba, 38, was the fight's loser, apparently. Her sister-in-law, meanwhile, has not been named or arrested by police.

**

You may have noticed Valley Fever giving extra attention lately to homicide cases in the Phoenix metro area. Today we've christened this side project to give it more attention. We'll be scouring local law enforcement reports for details about the alleged perpetrators and their victims to bring more attention to these crimes. We can't claim we'll publish something on every one -- there are so many. But if you know of any Valley homicide that hasn't received any attention from the news media, please feel free to write in.

[Mugshots above came from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office]

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.