The Wat Promkunaram temple in Waddell, Arizona was the scene of a mass murder discovered on the morning of August 10, 1991. Pairuch Kanthong, a 36-year-old Thai monk who served as the temple’s abbot, was among nine people—five other monks, a nun, her nephew who was a novice monk, and a temple employee—found executed inside the temple. The victims had been arranged in a circle, lying face down, each shot in the back of the head. Investigators concluded the motive was robbery.

Early suspects included four men from Tucson who confessed and later recanted; those four were ultimately cleared. Tracing the .22-caliber rifle used in the killings led to two local teenagers: 17-year-old Johnathan Doody and 16-year-old Allessandro Garcia. Garcia told investigators that he and Doody entered the temple armed with that rifle and a 20-gauge shotgun intending to rob it, and both were charged with robbery and first-degree murder. Garcia accepted a plea deal; Doody’s case went through multiple trials with convictions overturned and later retried.

Did anyone who knew the temple or the victims in Waddell in 1991 notice anything out of the ordinary before August 10?