Michael Cooley’s nightmares began some weeks before he finally allowed a Scottsdale neurosurgeon to operate on his brain. Cooley recalls waking up from his nightmares with a sickening sense that something dreadful would happen to him in the operating room. But he also knew the surgery was necessary; the large,…
Screening for pedophiles is nearly impossible because they often appear to be psychologically healthy people, experts say. As a result, they’ve cropped up not only in the Diocese of Phoenix, but in churches of all denominations, Indian reservation schools, Scouting groups and any other organization where there are children. And…
In its answer to the lawsuit, the diocese admits that Father George molested the children but denies negligence. Father George, who has a separate lawyer, denies he even molested the boys or that he was negligent. In his answer to the lawsuit, he asks that the case be dismissed. The…
The crisis of pedophilia in the Roman Catholic priesthood exploded in 1985, when a pasty, bespectacled Louisiana priest named Gilbert Gauthe admitted under oath that he’d sexually abused 37 young male parishioners. Gauthe was sentenced to twenty years hard labor with no possibility of parole. The Catholic Church doesn’t keep…
Joe Lessard was already in his thirties when he started training to become a priest in the Phoenix diocese. He already had a master’s degree in psychology and had been honorably discharged from the Marines after three years of service. Other priests contacted by New Times say they remember nothing…
The road dips into rocky washes, winds through forests of saguaros and climbs up a windswept hill to a toppled wooden cross that marks the entrance to Father George Bredemann’s twenty-acre kingdom. Father George spent practically every weekend at his “Castle.” Nestled a few miles south of U.S. 60-89, the…
Lillian and Al Jones were always proud that their teen-age son, Fred, was such a good Catholic. “I never had to fight him to go to Mass,” Lillian says. Fred, a student at a Catholic school, told his mother he wanted to be a priest some day. “I talked to…
Okay, City Council, listen up. I’ve got this idea that’s sure to keep you in office next election and the election after that. Just take a few little steps to cool down Phoenix, and you’ll win over a gigantic block of registered voters who’ve been too damn hot to make…
MDBOMAKE THE CANALS SOMETHING SPECIAL AGAIN Ask native Phoenicians over the age of thirty, and they’ll tell you the canals were really something once. The more gritty oldsters insist they used to water-ski the canals. My friend Steve recalls that he and another twelve-year-old once floated from east central Phoenix…
Some people never abandon hope that Phoenix could truly be a wonderful city. Like us. We hang on, even faced with a Phoenix City Council election where a few pathetic candidates contemplate nothing more significant than their hangnails. Come on! You guys allergic to fun? We’re not. Even as we…
Last winter, a handful of Arizona State University engineering undergrads and a couple of professors slaved for weeks on a proposal for a solar-powered dream machine they named the “Sundevil Suncruiser.” When the ASU team beat out dozens of other schools from across the country, you’d think state legislators would…
Tens of thousands of raw-footed hikers who’ve trudged into the Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch know what a relief it is to finally collapse in the shade of the famous campground’s giant cottonwood trees. Until last fall, though, no one realized that the trees themselves could use a little relief…
People remember Harvey Keith Smith as a world-class gentleman. The grandfatherly, silver-haired real-estate developer always dressed elegantly, commuted to his various Arizona developments in a private jet and drove around Scottsdale in a purring Jaguar. He was a global businessman who traveled extensively–he prized a photo of himself as a…
Tens of thousands of raw-footed hikers who’ve trudged into the Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch know what a relief it is to finally collapse in the shade of the famous campground’s giant cottonwood trees. Until last fall, though, no one realized that the trees themselves could use a little relief…
About four times a year, Geri Owens rolls into Phoenix in a dusty gray van that’s practically exploding with yapping puppies. The pups, mostly golden retrievers and German shepherds, are future guide dogs for blind people. The dogs are owned by Guide Dogs for the Blind, Inc., a fifty-year-old San…
The man who’s seen more bunco, bamboozling and balderdash in the past two decades than any other person in Arizona is finally retiring. This connoisseur of cons, C. Van Haaften, has charted thousands of swindles in the Valley during his eighteen years as president of the Better Business Bureau. He’s…
Unlike the crowds that amble through St. Peter’s Square, few people ever venture to downtown Phoenix’s grease-stained concrete piazza–the courtyard of the Phoenix Civic Plaza. In the summer, those inhospitable acres of cement stretching out from Symphony Hall are just too hot for human beings to endure. In the winter,…
A handsome warrior with a perfectly dashing Schwarzenegger physique creeps into a dark tunnel, where he encounters a slithering reptile-man oozing pus. Just as the monster is about to pounce upon a naked, shackled princess, the warrior slashes off the reptile-man’s noggin with a mighty stroke of his scimitar. Then…
The nagging aches and pains from a minor traffic accident sent Eileen and Paul Moore to the doctor in 1982. They just wanted him to make their pain go away. But over the next 23 months, until their insurance ran out, Dr. Ranjit Bisla sliced into their bodies ten different…
If the public’s first line of defense against lousy doctors weren’t sometimes a joke, there wouldn’t be surgeons in this state performing unnecessary operations on innocent people. But even doctors admit there are major flaws with that first line–a state law requiring hospital physicians to police each other in secret…
The 800 people who stormed into the Maryvale High School auditorium one June night in 1987 were outraged and insulted. They had just learned from this newspaper that for more than a decade, a suspiciously high number of children in their working-class part of town had died of cancer. Although…
