A Young, Budding Serial Killer

St. Johns, Arizona, sits in the White Mountains in the north-east of the state, close to the New Mexico border. It is a small town of roughly 3,500 people spread over 26.1 square miles, with a median age of 46.7 and a population that grew by 155% between 1970 and 1980 after the Salt River Project built a large power plant nearby. The town was first settled as San Juan. In 1879 a Mormon land agent bought land and water rights from Solomon Barth, a freight hauler who had built a bridge over the Little Colorado River, only to find that Barth had already sold much of the land to 17 Mexican families. Mormons and Mexican settlers resented each other for years, and on 24 June 1882 cattle ranchers from the nearby Greer Ranch fought a shootout with the Spanish settlers. An anti-Mormon newspaper in the town wrote in May 1884 that 'the Mormon disease is a desperate one, and the rope and the shotgun are the only cure.'

By the twenty-first century the town had acquired a reputation for eccentrics. One of them was 72-year-old William 'Stony' McCarger, an old man who carried large amounts of cash and paid teenage boys to work on his property. In April 2007 he was found dead in his bed, shot several times with .22-calibre bullets fired from two different guns. The case went nowhere at first. Late that year an Apache County Sheriff's sergeant named Spyvey claimed that he spotted a truck in a Circle K parking lot and matched its tyre treads to the murder scene. details of the account remain covered until revealed

In March 2009 another local character disappeared. Daniel Acton, 60, known as Hummer Dan because he hummed constantly, was a retired Marine and Vietnam veteran who used drugs. He vanished from his home near St. Johns and police had no leads. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He never came back. His mother reported him missing on 14 August. Late that month a partially burned body was found in a shallow grave at Blue, in northern Greenlee County, 80 miles from St. Johns. It was Flores.

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He ran two and a half blocks to the Springerville police station, where he asked to make an informal complaint to Chief Steve West about the officers at his home. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed He said he had killed Hummer Dan after Acton killed his dog, during a dispute over their adjoining properties and drugs. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He said he was proud of those killings and had planned to kill two more drug dealers in town.

The Flores killing was different. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

The episode also looks hard at McCarger. James found him in the Boy Scouts' so-called perversion files, cited repeatedly from the 1960s for inappropriate relationships with young boys, and found that he had moved between states under aliases to keep working as a scout master. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now