Hello everyone and welcome back to our blog post regarding episode 7 of State of Murder's podcast. In this episode follow along as Amber and Celina share two stories from Arizona.
Amber's Story:
On May 30, 2009 Raul Flores would hear a knock on the his front door. When he opened it three people dressed in camouflage, stated they were the police and knew he was harboring a fugitive. The three pushed their way into the Raul's home and one stated "don't take this personal but this bullet has your name on it" and shot Raul. The three would then shot his wife and daughter. What reason did these three have to come into Raul's home? The answer is racism and hate. Listen as we discuss the Minuteman American Defense group and what lead to these murders.
If you have listened to the Arizona episode you will find that Amber is not great when it comes to pronouncing peoples names. Albert Gaxiola was one of the names she struggled with. Thanks to the help of our friends Crystal and Oscar we have how you would pronounce his last name.
Correction:
Resources
Wikipedia: Murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores
HuffpostL Brisenia Flores was a victim of border vigilantes and media indifference
Murderpedia: Shawna Forde
LA Times- Mother Describes boarder vigilante killings in Arizona
read:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-jan-25-la-na-minutemen-murder-20110126-story.html
Celina's Story
On November 12, 1966 in Mesa, Arizona a young man made a decision that would become the first copycat mass shooting in United States history. Robert Smith was a high school student, he was reportedly a loner, and was very isolated. Robert was very studious and loved John F. Kennedy and was very upset when Kennedy was assassinated. Once the family moved to Mesa, Robert started to become fascinated with murderers like Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilks Booth and moved to an interested in Richard Speck. This fascination morphed into wanting to become as well known as these murderers and this would lead to the events that took place on that fateful day in November.
Celina also took the time to look up what constitutes as a "mass murder", according to the FBI it is a murdering of 4 or more people during an event with no cooling off period between the murders. So Robert Smith by definition would be a mass murderer.
Resources
The story of the first copycat mass shooter
Murderpedia- Robert Benjamin SMith
https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/smith-robert-benjamin.htm
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