REVISITING “JULY 4, 1961: MURDER & THE ENDURING MYSTERY at DEAD HORSE POINT” …by Jim Stiles

…and on writing a significantly expanded update of that story.

Last April, after a year trying to collect as much publicly available information as I could find, I started to write what ultimately became a 10,000 word account of one of Grand County’s most brutal crimes, and of a tragic mystery that endures to this day. We published that account on June 1.

The story is about a horrific incident that happened on the evening of July 4th, along the Dead Horse Point road. Three tourists from Connecticut, Charles Boothroyd, Jeannette Sullivan, and her 15 year old daughter Dennise were into the first few days of a planned two week vacation to Utah and Wyoming.

Traveling in a 1960 Volkswagen bug, they had arrived in Moab the day before, and arose early on the 4th to explore the Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point. The trio drove to the Island-in-the-Sky,  to the Neck, then down the Shafer Trail to the White Rim and Monument Canyon. In the late afternoon, they climbed back up the trail to the mesa and took a side-trip to Grandview Point.

As the shadows grew longer, they stopped at Dead Horse Point to watch the sunset and encountered a man named Abel Aragon, from Price, Utah.  He was alone, but seemed friendly enough; he explained that he knew the area and offered to tell them some of its history and lore. 

Finally Boothroyd and the Sullivans prepared to head back to Moab. Minutes later, Aragon passed them in his Ford sedan, and disappeared from sight. But eight miles from the main highway, they saw his car again, now on the road shoulder with the hood up. Boothroyd, like a Good Samaritan,  stopped to offer assistance. 

What happened in the next three minutes is still unfathomable. Aragon pulled a rifle from the front seat of his car, and demanded their money. When Jeannette Sullivan refused to cooperate, he shot her in the head as she walked away. Then he shot Boothroyd twice in the face, leaving him for dead as well. Dennise tried to escape in the VW, but barely made it a half mile before she was forced off the road by Aragon.  Dennise Sullivan vanished.  Boothroyd miraculously survived his wounds and was able to provide a description.

Three days later, the suspect was stopped by the FBI at the Crescent Junction intersection, but before he could be arrested, Aragon shot himself in the head. He never regained consciousness and died two hours later. Dennise was nowhere to be found. Today, her fate is as unknown and as heartbreaking to contemplate as it was that dark night.

*** *** ***

When we posted the long article four months ago, I added in an epilogue that “this is a work in progress.” I had managed to gather  a considerable amount of information, via dozens of newspaper accounts from that time, and with some additional input from Moab residents who are still alive.  But I knew there was so much more to this story, and I didn’t know where to look. Five years ago, I had contacted the Grand County Sheriff’s Office, hoping to recover the original reports and eyewitness statements, but nothing came back. I was told the reports were missing. 

From internet searches, I learned that Charles Boothroyd, who survived his critical wounds and returned to his life in Connecticut, had died in 1989, over 30 years ago, as had his son Charles Jr., in 2013. Two granddaughters were still alive, Carolyn and Linda, but I had no way of contacting them. And I remembered that Jeannette Sullivan had another daughter, Jeanne, who was only 4 1/2 years old when she lost her mother and sister. Jeannette and Charles had decided she was too young to make such a long and grueling trip, and left Jeanne with her grandparents for what was supposed to be a two week trip. Ultimately her grandmother, Grace Beaver, raised Jeanne,  but how could I find her? 

I wondered if any of them would want to be contacted and reminded of these awful events from 60 years ago. I was concerned that it would be an intrusion on their privacy and what must be a still inescapable grief.

And yet, I felt something of a bond to them. I was 11 years old on the 4th of July, 1961. The story of the Utah murder/kidnapping was national news and made the front page of every daily paper in the country.

I still have a faint memory of my father reading the story to us from the Louisville morning paper, the Courier-Journal.  Realizing that Dennise was just a few years older than me, the story made a sad and troubling impression.

Fifteen years later, I would find myself living in Utah, working as a ranger at Arches, just miles from the crime scene,  and I would hear the story again. I realized it was the same memory of that same awful front page report that my dad had read at the breakfast table, so long ago.

*** *** ***

A few weeks after we posted the story,  I was surprised to discover an email from Linda Boothroyd Lazaroff, Charles Boothroyd’s granddaughter. She had been thinking of the shooting as the 60th anniversary approached and found The Zephyr article online. A few days later, Carolyn Boothroyd sent me a note as well. What has happened since then is nothing short of incredible.

When I wrote the original story, I knew nothing of Charles Boothroyd’s life before the incident. Over the last few months, Carolyn and Linda have been more than generous in sharing with me the history of their family. I learned that even before the shooting, the Boothroyds had endured a decade of sorrow and loss that would have decimated other families. But again and again the Boothroyds rose above tragedy and carried on. 

And I wondered how their grandfather survived the 28 years of life that remained to him after his near death. How had the incident affected the Boothroyd family? How did it change their lives? What Linda and Carolyn have shared with me is a remarkable journey of courage and resilience.  Like few stories I have known in my life, this one leaves me in awe of Charles Boothroyd and the family that he and his wife Dorothy raised.

Having been able to connect with Linda and Carolyn, I still wondered about the young daughter, Jeanne, who had found herself without a mother or sister at such a young age, and under such unspeakable circumstances. As it turned out, both Linda and Carolyn have stayed in touch with her over the last half century and more, and they contacted Jeanne on my behalf. Last month, Jeannette Sullivan’s surviving daughter, now Jeanne Nabozny, sent me an email as well. Since then, she has shared her own history of the last six decades. It’s a story that is shaded by years of shared grief and sadness that Jeanne and her grandmother endured,  but made brighter by the hope and generosity that defined both of them.

I cannot begin to express my gratitude to Jeanne, Linda, and Carolyn as I have come to know and regard these three remarkable women. They were just children when the terrible events of July 1961 occurred.  Though they have lived under the shadow of that day for so many years, they have lived their lives with dignity and grace, and with a shared compassion and love for a world that they know better than most, can be cruel and unforgiving. I am honored to know them. 

*** *** ***

Not only did my original story about the July 4, 1961 incident lack a deeper understanding of the Boothroyd and Sullivan histories, the incident itself is still  shrouded in confusion and misrepresentation. Seeking some kind of resolution has also been frustrated by a disturbing and inexplicable lack of official investigative reports and documents. As I noted earlier, my efforts to access the original Grand County Sheriff’s reports were essentially ignored in 2016. I was  told that the records could not be found.

Subsequent to The Zephyr posting of the article in June, I filed an Open Records request with the Grand County Sheriff Office, and separately, a Freedom of Information request with the FBI. Grand County notified me that “the records requested are not maintained by our agency.”  The County’s reply suggested the possibility that some of those documents may have been turned over to another agency, i.e. the FBI.

Weeks later, I received a letter from the FBI, which informed me that many of the materials I sought had “been destroyed.”  However, the agency also suggested that some of those materials may have been turned over to the National Archives. The FBI assigned me a file number and advised me to file a FOIA with them. I took action the same day. 

A week later, the National Archives replied, and assigned me a new file case number, but warned that because of Covid-19, it might take longer than expected to process the request. When I wrote back to ask for a time frame, the agency advised that they could not, and that they could only respond to further relevant questions every six months.

How any of these agencies could have disposed of all the evidence and information related to a double murder/kidnapping is almost incomprehensible, especially in an open, albeit cold case, in which one of the assumed victims has never been found.  Granted, the case is 60 years old, but Dennise is still listed in the database of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC #1162825).  The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), “a national information clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases across the United States,” also maintains an active file  (#MP8784).

And yet, none of the relevant law enforcement agencies have, so far, been able to provide a scintilla of information. Barring a miracle from the National Archives, the crime scene photographs are gone, and statements of witnesses are gone. The official reports by the Sheriff and the FBI no longer exist. There are so many questions that have lingered for decades, left unanswered or ignored. Even the most basic examination of the evidence collected at the time, could shed light on the mysteries that still enshroud the crime today.

*** *** ***

Consequently, I have continued to rely on other sources, to fill gaps in the narrative. An unexpected piece of information came to me a few days after the original Zephyr story was posted. A native Moabite, who was a child in 1961, contacted me with information regarding a late night phone call that was placed to Price, Utah, by Abel Aragon, in the days after the shooting.  Her mother was a telephone operator at the time. It had never been reported before. 

And thanks to Carolyn and Linda, I was able to gather an additional wealth of information from the massive archive of newspaper clippings that the Boothroyd sisters had collected over the years, and shared with me.  

From them, I also learned of a small booklet  about the crime. “Whatever Happened to Denise Sullivan: A Bazaar (sic) Murder & Kidnapping” was written in 1979 by Utah historian Steve Lacy. He has been in touch with Linda and Carolyn, and with Jeanne Nabozny, for decades.

Six weeks after The Zephyr story was posted, ABC4-TV  in Salt Lake City ran a four part series on the crime that featured Lacy. It also introduced clips from an 8 mm film that Boothroyd shot of the trip in 1961.  Charles Boothroyd gave the film to Jeanne decades ago and just this summer, Lacy was able to transfer it to a DVD. 

Now, Jeanne, as well as Linda and Carolyn have given us permission to digitize their grandfather’s film. It is painful to watch, to see how happy Dennise and Jeannette were on their first trip to the American West, unaware of the horrific events that awaited them just a few hours in the future. But it is also a remarkable, if tragic contribution to history.

Finally, Linda and Carolyn shared with me a long lost copy of an obscure 1961 story about the July 4, 1961 murders. Without access to official law enforcement records, this article proved to be the most well-documented account of the incident. The story is a firsthand, on-the-ground report, gathered in the days immediately following the shootings.  It reached newsstands just seven weeks later.  And yet even this remarkable article, with new information and descriptions, leaves gaps in the narrative and sometimes creates even more questions. Ultimately, and tragically, there are parts of this mystery that may never be resolved.

*** *** ***

When I spoke recently to Linda Boothroyd Lazaroff, Carolyn Boothroyd and Jeanne Nabozny, they shared one hope — that Jeannette and Dennise Sullivan would never be forgotten—that this terrible tragedy would never allow the passage of time to erase the memory of them….

Jeannette Sullivan was a remarkable woman for her time who defied the conventional mores of the 1950s.   She was fiercely independent and determined to protect her children, even when it meant divorce from an abusive husband. Jeannette Sullivan had been willing to face whatever uncertainties lay ahead, no matter the sacrifice. Meeting Charles Boothroyd was the light that she had hoped would make their future bright.

Dennise Sullivan had only recently turned 15. Bright and caring, and excited by the possibilities that lay ahead of her, she had probably never been happier or felt more positive about the world than in the hours and even minutes before 9 PM on July 4, 1961.

Charles Boothroyd somehow managed to survive his horrific wounds, but he was never the same.  His granddaughters remember that he never spoke openly of the incident to either of them. There was “a sadness about him”  that never went away. The Boothroyds had already endured a decade marked by death and unexpected loss. The family seemed caught in the never ending process of rebuilding their lives in the wake of one tragedy after another.  

For Charles Boothroyd, meeting Jeannette and Dennise had been his hope of starting a new life. 

*** *** ***

Learning all that I have about the Sullivan and Boothroyd families, I realized that I would be doing them a disservice if I didnt return to the original story I wrote in June and dramatically expand the narrative to reflect more deeply these lives that were so painfully and brutally affected.  And changed forever.

Consequently, I am re-writing the story. It has already been read by several thousand Zephyr readers and I hope all of you will return to it when we re-post the story soon, as a special edition. I have been deeply affected too, as I have come to know Jeanne and Linda and Carolyn. It is a story worth pursuing as far as is humanly possible, more than 60 years after the murder of Jeannette Sullivan.  

Contemplating the enduring mystery and fate of Dennise, we keep hoping against hope that an overlooked clue might lead to some kind of closure for her family and for those who loved her.  

NOTE: The newly expanded version of the “Dead Horse Point” article appears in the December/January Issue as:

July 4, 1961: Murder & the Enduring Mystery at Dead Horse Point (Part One)…by Jim Stiles

July 4, 1961: Murder & the Enduring Mystery at Dead Horse Point (Part Two)…by Jim Stiles

Jim Stiles is Founding Publisher and Senior Editor of the Canyon Country Zephyr.

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