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Love After Lockup Arizona Murder

1:17:26 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

A drunk drifter stabbed 84-year-old Freda Brown for $500, and a deputy first called it natural causes.

  1. An 84-year-old killed for $500 in a desert trailerBoczarski admitted he snapped and stabbed her, took the money from her purse, locked the door and burned his jeans in his campfire.
  2. The investigation almost lost the case at the startThe responding deputy called it natural causes, blamed the blood on the cats eating her face, and handed the trailer to friends who emptied it and sprayed Lysol before the medical examiner found a mur
  3. A brutal childhood argued as mitigation, rejected anywaySevere neglect, foster care, beatings with Hot Wheels tracks and years of rape by Chuck Below were all in evidence, and the court still found the mitigators did not outweigh the aggravators.
Executive Summary AI
  • The hosts set the episode in Congress, Arizona, a Yavapai County mining leftover of 1,548 people with a $55,104 median household income, $320,000 median home cost and a Sperling's ranking of 1,437th in the state.4:46
  • In April 1995 the victim is Freda Brown, an 84-year-old woman who owned the Copper Basin Riding Stable, had a daughter named June, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, and wintered in a desert trailer outside town with a dog and a pile of cats.11:06
  • She paid Philip Allen Boczarski, a mid-30s drifter born February 22nd, 1962 who had left Michigan in November 1994 and lived in a tent nearby, to drive her to Wickenburg for errands and to cash checks.12:57
  • After a night of bourbon and Cokes at the Arrowhead Bar on May 10th, 1995, Boczarski turned up with $500 in $50 bills wrapped in newspaper and told Richard Towle he had robbed and killed an old lady at her trailer in Congress.36:57
  • A deputy blamed her injuries on the cats and released the trailer to the Hadlocks, who sprayed it with Lysol, but the May 15 autopsy found at least 24 overlapping knife wounds to her head and Boczarski was convicted of first degree felony murder and burglary, sentenced to death twice, and finally resentenced to natural life without parole.46:31
Key Quote
“And then people realized there is no other goddamn reason on earth to be here other than mining.”
— James Petrigallo7:03
Key Quote
“I'm in here for murder and there's nothing they can do to me.”
— James Petrigallo54:35
Key Quote
“If I could give up my life so Frida could live again, I would gladly do that.”
— James Petrigallo1:08:16