Sleep In Heavenly Peace. M. William Phelps
made thirty-eight jumps,” Bright recalled humbly. “I was stationed in Panama.”
When he got out of the army, Bright moved to Illinois, where his half brother lived, and found a job in manufacturing.
After bouncing around the country, getting married and divorced, Bright finally settled down where his roots were, in Safford, with his second wife, Molly. To Bright, like a lot of people in Safford, getting up every morning in such a beautiful part of the country was like staring into God’s eyes. The mountains. Trees. The land. Pure bliss.
Located in Graham County, which also includes the towns of Thatcher and Pima, a visitor’s guide to the region boasts of its “green valleys and open spaces.” Indeed, much of the county is made up of desert land, mountains, and talcum-dry terrain. On average, the high temperature is 80.9 degrees, while the low comes in at around forty-seven. Based on a thirty-year average, as little as 1.3 inches of snow, hail, and sleet fall annually.
Not a bad place to live.
For Thomas Bright, living in Safford had always been a solemn, simple way of life: hot weather, long, straight roadways, maybe a stop at a friend’s house once in a while to chat it up. Getting on in years, Bright never saw himself at the center of one of the biggest stories ever to encroach upon Safford—a story so bizarre, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, PTA members and churchgoers alike, would be talking about it for years to come.
3
Little Dianne Molina’s father told her to answer the door if the bell rang. He was eating (and drinking) and didn’t want to be disturbed.
When the doorbell finally rang some time later on that night, Dianne jumped up off the couch and began walking toward the corridor. It was dark going down that hallway, she remembered years later. But she knew there was a light switch at the end. All she had to do was make it there and the darkness would disappear with the flick of a switch.
Her father was still sitting at the dining-room table, one room away, eating and drinking, watching her out of the corner of his eye.
At the end of the hallway now, with her left hand on the doorknob, Dianne reached with her free hand and turned on the light.
No sooner had the hallway lit up when Dianne saw a man waiting on the doorstep. He was tall. Heavyset. An adult for sure. She couldn’t tell who he was because he had a black stocking over his head covering his face.
Looking at him, Dianne screamed…then she ran.
“He chased me down the hall,” she recalled, “and I turned a corner to hide and he followed me. Then he backed me into a corner of the room.”
Like a boxer caught between the ropes, she had nowhere to go.
“Do you want to live, little girl?” she claimed the man said, staring at her through the mesh of the black stocking covering his face.
Then he took a switchblade knife out of his pocket and snapped it open. As soon as she saw the stainless steel of the blade glaring in the light, Dianne held her hands over her face and once again started to scream as loud as she could.
As he twisted the blade in front of her face…“Daddy?”
No answer.
“Daddy?”
Nothing.
As far as she could tell, John was still sitting at the dining-room table.
She was sure he could hear her.
4
One of Thomas Bright’s favorite after-work and weekend activities was sitting on his front porch, or walking the lot near the Thunderbird Mobile Home Park, where he lived, watching the birds. It was meditative for Bright to sit and gawk at what amounted to over three hundred species of birds inhabiting Graham County and much of Arizona. With the Mexican border one hundred miles south, “many migratory birds from Central and South America,” the Graham County Chamber of Commerce says, swoop into the region and offer residents like Bright a wide spectrum of species to observe.
With his binoculars, Bright would sit for hours waiting, watching.
A cement- and dump-truck-driver, Bright was living happily during May 2003 at the Thunderbird Mobile Home Park, going to work every day and returning home to spend time with his wife and watch the birds—this calming ebb and flow of life seemed to fit Bright well at this stage in his life. He had quit drinking alcohol some time ago because, he said, “it’s done taught me a lesson after I got busted a second time.” He added, “Safford itself is made up of about [thirty-five thousand] people. Compared to towns back east, it’s not very big.”
Bright speaks with a patent Western drawl. His voice is low-pitched, relaxed, composed. He wears a tightly cropped beard, neatly trimmed. The directness he exudes is admirable. Thomas Bright doesn’t mince words. He tells it like it is and, for the most part, speaks confidently.
Molly, Bright’s wife, had suggested he go to an auction that a local self-storage facility was having.
“Molly’s boy got in trouble…and he lived in the same trailer park we are,” Bright recalled. “We helped him get a trailer and he was livin’ down on a lot in the same park.”
That trailer, Bright said, needed to be furnished. Around the same time, Smith Storage, a self-storage facility near the center of town, had announced it was going to auction off the contents of about fifty units whose renters had been delinquent on payments. Some people had rented units, stocked them with personal items, but for whatever reason failed to keep current on payments. Part of the contract renters signed read that should the bill not be paid, the contents would become the storage-facility owner’s property. Auctions were held at various times to make restitution for delinquent payments. Collectors, mostly, flocked to the auctions with the hope of buying relics and antiques people had forgotten about.
One man’s junk is another man’s…
Bright had never been to an auction. It just wasn’t something he had ever put any thought into, he said, and didn’t much interest him.
Early Saturday morning, May 10, 2003, Bright got into his truck and drove to his good friend Tom Summers’ house. When he got there, he asked Tom if he was interested in going to Smith Storage to attend the auction with him. It would be fun, Bright said. Two friends hanging around on a beautiful spring Saturday morning.
“Sure,” Tom Summers said, “but I don’t have any money.”
The bidding was supposed to start somewhere around 9:00 A.M. It was pushing 8:45 now.
“Let’s get it goin,’ then,” Bright said. “We runnin’ late.”
Bright and Summers arrived shortly after nine o’clock, but got lucky; the bidding hadn’t started. There were about one hundred people anxiously waiting, scurrying around the site, Bright remembered. There were about one hundred units, many of which were small, five feet by eight feet. Bright was hoping to purchase some items for his stepson’s trailer and maybe—just maybe—hit a cache of collectibles or antiques for himself.
The first thing Bright had to do was find the auctioneer’s table and register. By that time, the auctioneer was in the middle of explaining how the bidding was going to work.
As potential bidders walked in front of each unit, sizing up the contents, Bright and Summers speculated about what Bright might end up with at the end of the day. Laughing, Bright said, “Maybe we’ll hit a treasure, Tom…somethin’ somebody dun forgotten about.”
Tom Summers shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “Yeah, sure!” he said in jest.
As the bidding go under way, Bright was outbid on a unit he’d decided earlier might be worth his money. He had noticed a bed, refrigerator, and some other items that could potentially help out his stepson. With Bright, most of what he did in life centered on other people. Sure, he might end up with an old lamp or box of baseball cards worth a few bucks, but his main objective was to help out his stepson.
Being