Rick Romley remembers precisely what he said to his rescuers after a land mine in Vietnam blew his body apart on April 7, 1969. “I asked them if my balls were still there,” he says. Turned out, the 19-year-old Marine Corps squad leader’s cojónes were among the few outward body…

Hours after storied Phoenix attorney Tom Thinnes died September 14, two of his adult sons drove to a rental storage facility on West Indian School Road. Despite overwhelming grief, they needed to see if their father’s safe was there, and in it vital papers about his burial wishes, life-insurance policies…

Lenny Aviles and his girlfriend Lulu Saldana slipped away from his mother’s west Phoenix home on the early evening of June 23, 1999. The longtime couple wanted to shop at Sam’s Club before Lulu went home to Rio Grande, Texas, the next day. Lenny stepped outside to tell his mother,…

These days, few students at Gateway Community College at 40th Street and Van Buren are aware of the horrible events that happened at the site more than 13 years ago. On a chilly March evening in 1991, 72-year-old John Lee Sr. and his 50-year-old daughter, Ginger, were tending to their…

If you’ve ever stood in line waiting to pass through security at downtown Phoenix’s county courthouse, you’ve surely uttered a word or two that qualifies as obscene. It’s not that the folks manning the metal detectors and rubbing their magic wand over your body aren’t polite. But the lines –…

In his cruel and unusual 1994 book Crime and the Sacking of America: The Roots of Chaos, Maricopa County Attorney hopeful Andrew Peyton Thomas wrote this: “By publicly incarcerating drug dealers and other criminals, displaying them before their neighbors in large, open-air holding pens with their names and crimes prominently…

On March 24, 1993, Robert Shawn Owens stood before Judge Ronald Reinstein in a downtown Phoenix courtroom. Owens recently had turned 30 at the Arizona State Prison, his residence for the previous six and a half years. In December 1986, another judge had sentenced him to 20 years on theft…

“It’s going to unravel like a cheap sweater.” That’s how Phoenix attorney Holly Gieszl reacted to word of the arrests in Southern California last week of six key players in the now-infamous “rent-a-patient” scam. First reported by New Times (“Rent A Patient,” April 24, 2003), the scheme included thousands of…

Robby Hammock remembers his every glorious hop, skip and jump into the arms of Randy Johnson after the Perfect Game last month. “I know I looked like Mini-Me out there on the mound, but I was so flippin’ excited,” says Hammock, the unlikely starting catcher of the Arizona Diamondbacks and…

Carletta Tilousi got a phone call in March 2003 that would not only change her life, but that of every person in her tribe. She’s a member of the Havasupai, a small Indian nation in northern Arizona with about 650 members. Most of the tribe lives in Supai, a picturesque…

On his first solo night in February 2001, P hoenix rookie cop Shawn Dirks found himself accused of anal rape. He knew his accuser was drunk — he’d encountered her during a DUI stop. But he didn’t know until later that she was also mentally disturbed. It quickly became evident…

Have you heard the one about the onetime felon who threw a fund raiser for the guy who wanted to be the county’s top prosecutor? Mike Bailey, one of several candidates hoping to succeed outgoing Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, started off his remarks with a wisecrack during a debate…

A court commissioner has dismissed criminal charges against two men and is likely to drop many other cases because he says the agency providing mental health services to county inmates is failing badly at its job. Commissioner Benjamin Vatz’s recent rulings — which followed six days of little-publicized hearings held…

The world’s fastest 17-year-old girl summons her teammates to the finish line of Peoria High School’s oval track. It’s the end of a grueling two-hour practice at Peoria High School, on a blustery day in late February. Jessica Onyepunuka, her defending state champion team’s undisputed leader, has worked hard all…

Shawn Dirks says he couldn’t wait to report for duty. After months of training, February 17, 2001, would mark the first time that Dirks would be patrolling alone as a rookie officer with the Phoenix Police Department. That night, a Saturday, 42-year-old Lori Levinson was out on a date that…

Convicted murderer Jasper McMurtrey III says he feels “like Rip van Winkle winning the PowerBall.” McMurtrey was released from Arizona’s death row just before Christmas, the result of an unusual legal snafu that has the state and a federal judge pointing fingers at each other. Now, state prosecutors contend U.S…

During the first hours of what turned out to be a grueling 44-day trial, Brian Finkel said to no one in particular, “I’ll be glad when this clown show is over.” That was vintage Finkel — always the wise guy, cocksure, always in control. Until last week, when the former…

One question that nags in the Southern California rent-a-patient scam is this: Why have health-care insurance companies paid crooked clinics and doctors millions of dollars since 2001 for medically unnecessary, often dangerous procedures, when these same companies routinely shortchange honest consumers? New Times first exposed the scheme (“Rent-A-Patient,” Paul Rubin,…

In mid-November, more than 200 FBI agents and insurance industry investigators packed into a banquet room at Tampa’s Marriott Waterside Hotel. They came to hear what an FBI supervisory agent and a prominent insurance investigator had to say about a stunningly successful health-insurance scam centered inside Southern California outpatient surgery…

JoJo Shedd will celebrate her first Thanksgiving on Thursday, and her adoptive mom couldn’t be happier. “She’s really had an amazing life so far,” says Louise Sumner, a Paradise Valley woman who adopted JoJo last spring. “She’s been here, there and everywhere, and we’re thrilled she’s finally back home.” By…

No one pays much attention as the black man in an oversize ball cap walks into the Vietnamese restaurant on Phoenix’s west side. A woman wrapping egg rolls on a table near the kitchen tells the man to sit where he wants. She and everyone else in the tiny joint…

The long-expected happened Monday afternoon, when abortion doctor Brian Finkel took the witness stand in his own defense at his sexual assault and abuse trial. A minute or so after Finkel took his seat, his lead attorney, Richard Gierloff, asked him if he’d sexually assaulted or abused any of his…