Why I Wrote “Who Killed Bob Crane?”

“Who Killed Bob Crane?” is my first book. To say this became a reporter’s obsession would be an understatement. I interviewed Bob Crane’s son, Robert Junior in April of 2015. That interview started me on this journey. A son’s profound sense of loss, all the unanswered questions about who killed his father, haunted me for weeks following the interview.

Sometimes you have, what Oprah calls, “an ah-ha moment.” I had one concerning this baffling cold case. Days after the interview, it came to me, suddenly and quite unexpectedly. I wondered, “What happened to all the physical evidence in the case? Could it be found? And more importantly, was there a chance that we could find the original blood and DNA evidence in the case and possibly retest it?” What would it tell us after all these years. What answers might it yield, with modern DNA testing in 2015, that the scientists couldn’t detect with primitive DNA testing in the late 80’s and early 90’s? This became the premise for the book, “Who Killed Bob Crane?”

I first had to get the blessing from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office which re-opened the case in the early 90’s leading to John Carpenter’s arrest and trial for the murder of Bob Crane.

It took months to first locate the evidence, stored in 11 boxes eventually found in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office evidence room. Then I had to convince the DA’s office to allow me to have the DNA evidence retested. According to Bode-Cellmark Forensics, which did the testing, they had never done this for a reporter before. I wasn’t only telling the story. I found myself on the inside of the case. Retesting physical evidence from a cold case murder. A function typically reserved only for police departments and prosecutors.

I, along with everyone else close to the case, believed another round of testing would yield either an “inconclusive” determination (because the samples had been tested so many times) or it would prove that John Carpenter was the killer. That’s not what happened. The results from the testing were stunning and shocking.

When my television story aired on November 14, 2016, the T-M- Z headline the following day said it all “ ‘HOGAN’S HEROES’ STAR BOB CRANE BOMBSHELL REVEAL ON LIVE TV. SON STUNNED”.

We got a result. A DNA profile. But the results raise troubling new questions about “Who Killed Bob Crane?” Did police focus on an innocent man?

Few unsolved murders have aroused so much interest for so many years. It’s been with me since I first moved to Arizona in 1978 to study journalism at Arizona State University. The murder happened that year – 7 miles from my college dormitory. This is the story of one of the most enduring celebrity murders of all time. I’m going to take you along on my journey – a search for the truth. A search for answers in “Who Killed Bob Crane?