Waddell Buddhist Temple Shooting

In the early morning hours of August 10, 1991, nine people were found shot to death at the Wat Promkunaram Buddhist temple in Waddell, Arizona. The victims, all connected to the temple and either Thai or of Thai descent, were abbot Pairuch Kanthong; monks Surichai Anuttaro, Boochuay Chaiyarach, Chalerm Chantapim, Siang Ginggaeo, and Somsak Sopha; nun Foy Sripanpasert; her nephew and novice monk Matthew Miller; and temple employee Chirasak Chirapong. A cook discovered the bodies later that day. The victims had been shot in the back of the head and placed face down in a circle. Investigators recovered 17 spent rifle casings and 4 spent shotgun shells at the scene.

Shortly after the killings, four men from Tucson were arrested based on a tip from Mike McGraw, a psychiatric patient with a history of making unreliable, outlandish claims. Three of the four men gave written confessions after interrogations lasting up to 13 hours at a stretch, with some suspects kept awake for more than 30 hours. The fourth maintained his innocence through two rounds of interrogation and was eventually released after investigators verified his alibi with video evidence placing him at a dog racing operation far from the scene at the time of the murders. It later emerged that a .22-caliber Marlin rifle recovered by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office — one of the actual murder weapons — went untested for nearly two months and had no connection to the four Tucson suspects. Charges against the men, later called the "Tucson Four," were dropped. Investigators were later found to have fed suspects supposedly unknowable crime details by staging a room with crime-scene photos and reports before interrogations. The Tucson Four filed lawsuits against Maricopa County; in 1994, two received $1.1 million each and a third received $240,000.

The murder rifle was ultimately traced to a 16-year-old and found in the car of a friend of 17-year-old Johnathan Doody. That led investigators to Doody and Allesandro Garcia. According to Garcia, the two went to the temple armed with the rifle and a shotgun to commit robbery, taking roughly $2,600 and audio-visual equipment; Garcia said Doody panicked and shot the victims in the head, while Garcia shot four of them again in the torso. Garcia pleaded guilty in 1993 and was sentenced to 271 years in prison. Doody was convicted in 1994 and sentenced to 281 years. Doody's conviction was later overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found his confession had been illegally coerced. Following a mistrial in 2013, a third trial concluded in January 2014 with Doody found guilty on all counts, including the nine murders, based on Garcia's testimony and circumstantial evidence; he was sentenced to nine consecutive life terms.

The mishandled investigation and false confessions generated public controversy and contributed to the electoral defeat of then-Sheriff Tom Agnos by Joe Arpaio in November 1992. As of 2024, this remains the deadliest mass shooting in Arizona history.