Three Points, Arizona

Episode 62 / 22 March 2018 / 145 min / full

When Stupid People Kill...

"James: 'We're going to three points Arizona, also known as Roblis Junction'; south central Arizona, 40 minutes from Tucson, 45 miles from the Mexican border, in Pima County" about 0:06:18

The case: Murders of Farah Armstrong and Frank Williams (February 19, 1998). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2018

Population

5,313

Median age

46.2

Median household income

about $35,600 a year

Median home value

$142,600

Two-bedroom rent

$980

Cost of living

93

Religious

40%

Property crime

exactly average

Violent crime

▲ about 20% higher

History, in brief

• Three Points is also known as Robles Junction, and the community's motto is 'Three Points slash Robles Junction, two names, one community'. about 0:09:02
• The town is in south central Arizona, a little east, 40 minutes from Tucson and south and east of it, and 45 miles from the Mexican border. about 0:07:25
• It is in Pima County, has two zip codes (85735 and 85736, as heard) with the dividing line through the middle of town, uses area code 520, and covers 46.42 square miles. about 0:08:02
• The town was founded in 1882, the time of the Tombstone era. about 0:09:22
• Bernabe S. Robles was born in 1857 in Bavia Cora, Sonora, Mexico (as transcribed) and at the age of seven crossed into southern Arizona with his mother on donkeys. about 0:09:36
• The family opened a market in Tucson; Robles then started a ranch in what is now the Three Points area, spent time in Florence, and took a mail route from Tucson to Gunsite, Arizona. about 0:11:14
• Robles relocated to Robles Pass near Cat Mountain while looking for a shorter route to Gunsite; his brother Jesus homesteaded 160 acres in the Three Points area and the brothers dug a well for a watering stop and stage station. about 0:13:30
• Robles gave up the mail route and moved to the watering station, which became the Robles Ranch; his family later moved back to Tucson but he stayed and died in 1945. about 0:14:39
• The old ranch house is now the Three Points Robles Junction community center. about 0:14:57
• Accounts describe Robles as hard-working but harsh: he acquired large tracts of land by lending money to ranchers and taking their land when they could not repay. about 0:15:12
• A Tucson Weekly article opens 'Here we go again, said the anguished voices, another black eye for three points', and recounts a 19-year-old unemployed butcher who kidnapped three illegal immigrants and tortured them to extort money from relatives in Mexico, with another man, Barry Joseph Van Brocklin. about 0:16:05
• Activist Marian Whitfield is quoted as saying Tucson thinks of Three Points as drugs and crime and bodies in the desert stuffed into car trunks, and that some neighbourhoods are straight out of Steinbeck. about 0:17:00
• The article says the area is good country for hiding from ex-wives and husbands, the law and civilisation, and a Three Points clinic doctor says people move there because they do not want to be told what to do and do not trust the government. about 0:19:05
• The article describes signs for well pump repair, bees, no trespassing, and double-wides for $1,000 down, and Taylor Lane off Highway 86 as 'the grapes of wrath' with wreck trailers, junked cars and choking dust. about 0:21:04
• A neighbourhood of about 500 homes was called one of the worst wildcat subdivisions in Arizona by the Wall Street Journal: no paved roads, sewers, sidewalks, and often no addresses, exempt from basic county building requirements. about 0:22:27

Open the episode file