hallways in handcuffs, his eyes blank and downcast, cameras whirring and clicking, the TV reporters shouting “Did you kill those two kids?… How come your fingerprints were all over the car?” A newswire story had Carol explaining that she’d turned in her husband because she “feared for her life,” given the divorce proceedings. Another story quoted Tim McKillop’s mother crying, “May God have mercy on his soul.… I just feel sorry for him,” and Joyce Sterrenberg’s father saying, “I’d like to know what his state of mind was, why it was so important that he kill two people for nothing?”
But one article on August 30, in a small newspaper serving Macumber’s local Deer Valley community, offered a different perspective. “DV Residents Upset with Macumber’s Treatment,” the headline reported. The story continued: “Deer Valley residents are talking about nothing else since William Wayne Macumber has been charged with the shooting deaths 12 years ago of a young couple north of Scottsdale. The general consensus of Macumber’s neighbors is he was a model citizen.… The residents of the area in which Macumber lived are concerned about the way Macumber is being treated, both by the police and the media. And they’re upset because Mrs. Macumber is familiar with police operations due to her work at the sheriff’s department, and she may have access to privileged information. Residents feel she may be using that knowledge in the divorce proceedings the Macumbers are going through.” Already, a hint of certain suspicions: “When asked if he felt Macumber was being set up by his wife, a member of the desert survival unit replied, ‘No comment.’”
* * *
Yet another perspective emerged that same day. An elderly woman named Mildred Lunsford called the sheriff’s department to say that she, in effect, had an alibi for Bill Macumber on the night of the Scottsdale murders. Two detectives came to take her statement. The story she told them: That day, May 23, 1962, she’d been headed for Veterans Hospital to visit her very sick husband. Her “little Rambler” started giving her trouble. It would go, it would stop, not moving until she shifted. She called the Macumbers at their gas station. “Mac”—Harold Macumber—gave her a ride to the hospital, then took her car to their station. She called over there at 7:30 P.M. and talked to Bill, who was still working on the Rambler. She called and talked to Bill again at 8:00 P.M. When she called at 9:30, Harold answered the phone, and Mildred could hear Bill in the background, “yowling because he couldn’t figure what was wrong.” At 11:00 P.M. , she called again and talked to Bill. They were still working. “That’s all I know is that they were there, Bill was working on my car the 23rd of May,” Mildred told the two deputies. “I talked to Bill at 9:30, then again at 11.” She recalled the date clearly because her husband (“Harry J. Grimston, veteran of World War I”) moved to the hospital’s “dying room” that day and passed away five days later, on May 28. Also, she kept a journal in her glove compartment of all her car repairs, listed by date. She was absolutely certain. She’d talked to Bill that night, right up to 11:00 P.M.
Millie Lunsford’s account, of course, didn’t fit with the murder complaint signed that day by Ed Calles—or with what the detectives questioning her apparently believed to be Macumber’s statements during his August 28 interrogation. So one of the officers now attempted to dissuade Millie.
Detective Heberling: “Mrs. Lunsford, we have explained to you that William Macumber has given a statement and it does not corroborate what you have told us. With this knowledge, do you still claim that William Wayne Macumber was working on your vehicle on the night of the 23rd, May the 23rd, 1962?”
Lunsford: “Well all I know, to my knowledge I know they were working on my car. I mean they were there,
But one article on August 30, in a small newspaper serving Macumber’s local Deer Valley community, offered a different perspective. “DV Residents Upset with Macumber’s Treatment,” the headline reported. The story continued: “Deer Valley residents are talking about nothing else since William Wayne Macumber has been charged with the shooting deaths 12 years ago of a young couple north of Scottsdale. The general consensus of Macumber’s neighbors is he was a model citizen.… The residents of the area in which Macumber lived are concerned about the way Macumber is being treated, both by the police and the media. And they’re upset because Mrs. Macumber is familiar with police operations due to her work at the sheriff’s department, and she may have access to privileged information. Residents feel she may be using that knowledge in the divorce proceedings the Macumbers are going through.” Already, a hint of certain suspicions: “When asked if he felt Macumber was being set up by his wife, a member of the desert survival unit replied, ‘No comment.’”
* * *
Yet another perspective emerged that same day. An elderly woman named Mildred Lunsford called the sheriff’s department to say that she, in effect, had an alibi for Bill Macumber on the night of the Scottsdale murders. Two detectives came to take her statement. The story she told them: That day, May 23, 1962, she’d been headed for Veterans Hospital to visit her very sick husband. Her “little Rambler” started giving her trouble. It would go, it would stop, not moving until she shifted. She called the Macumbers at their gas station. “Mac”—Harold Macumber—gave her a ride to the hospital, then took her car to their station. She called over there at 7:30 P.M. and talked to Bill, who was still working on the Rambler. She called and talked to Bill again at 8:00 P.M. When she called at 9:30, Harold answered the phone, and Mildred could hear Bill in the background, “yowling because he couldn’t figure what was wrong.” At 11:00 P.M. , she called again and talked to Bill. They were still working. “That’s all I know is that they were there, Bill was working on my car the 23rd of May,” Mildred told the two deputies. “I talked to Bill at 9:30, then again at 11.” She recalled the date clearly because her husband (“Harry J. Grimston, veteran of World War I”) moved to the hospital’s “dying room” that day and passed away five days later, on May 28. Also, she kept a journal in her glove compartment of all her car repairs, listed by date. She was absolutely certain. She’d talked to Bill that night, right up to 11:00 P.M.
Millie Lunsford’s account, of course, didn’t fit with the murder complaint signed that day by Ed Calles—or with what the detectives questioning her apparently believed to be Macumber’s statements during his August 28 interrogation. So one of the officers now attempted to dissuade Millie.
Detective Heberling: “Mrs. Lunsford, we have explained to you that William Macumber has given a statement and it does not corroborate what you have told us. With this knowledge, do you still claim that William Wayne Macumber was working on your vehicle on the night of the 23rd, May the 23rd, 1962?”
Lunsford: “Well all I know, to my knowledge I know they were working on my car. I mean they were there,
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