On August 15, 1996, deputies in Golden Valley, Arizona, discovered three badly decomposed bodies inside and near trailers on a rural property. Victims were 50-year-old Roland M. Wear and his companion, 37-year-old Leta B. Kagen, both shot to death inside one trailer, and Kagen’s 15-year-old son, Robert Delahunt, found stabbed to death in an adjacent trailer. Authorities estimated the victims had been dead at least two days before discovery, and Wear’s Nissan pickup was missing from the scene.

Investigation focused on three people who had been living with the victims: 19-year-old Robert Poyson, 48-year-old Frank Anderson, and 14-year-old Kimberly Lane. Prosecutors alleged the three conspired to kill the household so they could steal Wear’s truck and drive to Chicago. Later that night Poyson allegedly shot Kagen and Wear; Wear was alive long enough to struggle outside before Anderson and Poyson delivered fatal blows with a cinder block. The three fled in the truck and were arrested days later in Anna, Illinois; all three were charged in the triple homicide.