Innocent Until Interrogated: The True Story of the Buddhist Temple Massacre and the Tucson Four

4. A Waiting Line for Confessions

4 a waITInG LIne For conFeSSIonS OnceMikeMcGrawbegantospilloutnamesandlocations,thesearchwas on for everyone he implicated. The Arizona Motor Vehicle Department’s database yielded addresses and driver’s license photos. Task force members and Tucson Police Department SWAT teams went to South Tucson to pick up the suspects. While McGraw was still talking, his neighbors and former friends were being tracked down and driven to Phoenix. On the fourth floor of the East Court Building, the mood at midday on Wednesday, September 11, blended high anticipation, uneasy confidence in McGraw’s ramblings, and the thrill of the chase. Interview rooms were hastily outfitted with hidden microphones. Room 469, known as the prop room, got a video camera and a display of information about the case: documents describing the crime scene, photographs of the victims, a floor plan of the temple, and on one wall a large chart, drawn on butcher paper, connecting themenMcGraw had named with theguns and vehicles he claimed they had used in the murders. The first suspect picked up was Patrick “Pete” Sherfield, portrayed by McGraw as the group’s terrifying leader. Tucson police officers staked out Sherfield’s house until he came outside, and he agreed to accompany them to Phoenix. Officer Troutt and Detective Griffiths began interrogating him shortly after 1:00 p.m., just a few hours after McGraw first gave his name. Sherfield said he seldom went to Phoenix, and he denied knowing anything about the murders. Later he told Troutt, “My baby godbrother, come to think of it, said he was in Phoenix.” His godbrother’s name was Dante Parker. He added that Parker’s trip to Phoenix had been the previous May, not in August. The detectives were more interested in what he told them next: his identification had been stolen a while back, and he 58 chapter 4 suspected Parker of taking it. Parker, he said, had a bad temper, owned a .22-caliber automatic handgun, and had been in prison in California on a gun charge. The detectives bought his suggestion that Parker was the one they wanted. Mike McGraw showed as much flexibility about Sherfield’s name as he had about his own, saying that “all the information he had provided investigators so far regarding Peter Sherfield actually applied to Dante Parker.” The case reports do not say why the task force so readily believed Sherfield’s claim of innocence. None of the other suspects’ denials would get such respectful treatment. He first said he had been home alone with his wife on the evening of August 9, then changed his mind and claimed he had gone to a birthday party. The documents do not mention confirmation of either alibi—and strong alibis did not protect the other young men fingered by McGraw. For whatever reasons, the investigators released Sherfield and started searching for his godbrother. They would have two other suspects in custody and under interrogation before they found Parker. At suppertime that Wednesday, Marcus Felix Nunez was alone at home, expecting his mom any minute. Just nineteen, a student at Pima Community College, he still lived with her. Marky, as friends called him, was a big guy, tall and heavy, but mild mannered and shy. Outgoing in small groups, he could be nearly invisible in larger ones, in spite of his size. He didn’t make new friends easily, but his old ones stuck by him— or at least they had until now. His family situation was complicated. The woman he called Mom was actually his grandmother, who had adopted him when he was a child. His biological mother and her husband also lived in the house. And Mike McGraw, busily blabbing Marky’s name to the police, was his first cousin. It wasn’t his mom who came to the door. Instead, at 6:27 p.m., the Tucson SWAT team burst in. With only a bewildered teenager to subdue , they declared the house secured by 6:34. Four more officers, including MCSO sergeant Mike Mitchell, went in and found the suspect handcuffed and lying face down on the living room floor. They helped him to his feet and told him they were taking him to Phoenix. Nunez asked a waiting Line for confessions 59 what it was about, but Mitchell said detectives in Phoenix would answer his questions. He asked them to leave a note for his mom, and Mitchell did so. Shortly after 8...