Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on April 1, 1988, residents of the Lincoln Hills Estates, an affluent gated section of Phoenix, were awakened to the sound of a blaring alarm coming from the home of fifty-five-year-old realtor and wealthy socialite Jeanne Tovrea. When police arrived, they found it was no April Fools’ joke; Jeanne lay dead in her bed, having been shot five times in the head.

Seven years later, a man was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. He died on death row.

For many, however, the convicted killer’s death does not provide the ending of the saga, as they believe additional culprits are still unaccounted for in the murder of one of Phoenix’s most popular upper crust members.

Jeanne Tovrea

In 1971, a year after obtaining her real estate license, Jeanne Gunter met Ed Tovrea at a social gathering in Scottsdale, part of metropolitan Phoenix.

Ed was a decorated World War II veteran and multimillionaire businessman. He was a most impressive man and he was most impressed by Jeanne, thirteen years his junior.

Ed And Jeanne

Ed and Jeanne began dating and tied the knot a year later, in 1973. It was the third marriage for each.

Ed had three children with his first wife, Priscilla, whom he divorced in 1965: a son, Ed Jr., and daughters Georgia (Cricket) and Priscilla (Prissy), named after her mother. His second marriage to a woman named Joy in 1969 lasted less than a year after he concluded she had only wed him for his money.

Ed came from a prominent family; in stark contrast, Jean came from humble roots. Shortly after graduating high school, she married a lumber mill worker named Stan Nolan. They had a daughter, Debbie, the following year. She later had a brief marriage to a man named Daniel Daniels, reputed to be a professional gambler.

During their decade together, Ed and Jeanne were among the Phoenix social elite.

The Third Time Is the Charm

Ed, however, was plagued by respiratory problems ever since the war and was virtually bedridden by 1982. Jean nursed him around the clock until his death on July 11, 1983, at age sixty-four.

Jeanne Loses Her Love

After a mourning period, Jeanne again became active in the Phoenix social world. At 7:00 on the evening of March 31, 1988, she phoned her sister, Sandra Elder. Jeanne was excited about flying to Las Vegas the following day to see her old friend turned new boyfriend, coincidentally also named Ed.

Jeanne prepared invitations for a party at her home on April 15. Although the new Ed was married, Jeanne had told several friends they were going to announce their engagement at the gathering.

From A Party . . .

Instead of attending Jeanne’s party, her friends and family would be attending her funeral. The invitations to the party were received the following day, April 1, several hours after she was found shot dead in her home.

The murder weapon was determined to be a .22-caliber handgun, but it was never found. Jeanne had likely been asleep when she was shot as there were no signs of a struggle.

. . . To A Funeral

Police believe the killer was familiar with Jeanne’s neighborhood and the layout of her home. Footprints on the carpet indicated after entering the home the culprit took a direct path to her bedroom; there was no indication he had been in any other rooms.

The killer had scattered Jeanne’s costume jewelry in a likely attempt to simulate a burglary. Jewelry worth thousands of dollars, however, was left untouched in another room.

The contents of Jeanne’s purse were also scattered across the floor. The only items determined missing were her credit cards.

Crime Scene Photos

The killer entered the home through the kitchen widow, the only point of entry not linked to the home’s security system. He had triggered the alarm, however, when he exited through a sliding door.

Investigators believe his loud exit was likely done to let someone to know the job of murdering Jeanne Tovrea was completed.

The Kitchen Window Removed

Multiple fingerprints were found inside the home as well as on the kitchen window, found placed on a patio chair. None were matched to any police had in their records.

Fingerprints On the Kitchen Window

Investigators soon had a suspect in the murder of Jeanne Tovrea.

In the preceding year, she had been persistently contacted by a man calling himself Gordon Phillips. Claiming to be a freelance writer working for TIME magazine, the man said he was doing a story on World War II Prisoners of War and asked to interview Jeanne about Ed’s experiences during the war.

Ed had earned commendations for bravery as a World War II pilot.  After being shot down, he was among those who had helped orchestrate “The Great Escape,” described in a 1950 book and made popular in a 1963 film, by digging tunnels to help seventy-nine other POW’s gain their freedom.

Young Ed Tovrea

Jeanne informed Phillips she did not know much about Ed’s war service and advised him to speak to Ed’s first wife, Priscilla. Nonetheless, Phillips kept pestering Jeanne for an interview. She reluctantly agreed to meet with him at her home several weeks before her murder.

Jeanne told friends Phillips inquired little about Ed; instead, most of his questions were about her and her financial standing. She cut the interview short and told Phillips not to contact her again.

Phillips continued hounding her, calling her several times a day and leaving messages if she were out.

Hounded By An Alleged Reporter

Jeanne contacted TIME magazine. They did not have anyone named Gordon Phillips working for them and had never heard of him.

Jeanne also believed Phillips was following her when she was in public and pointed him out to several friends. Based on these sightings, a composite image was created of the man after her murder.

A Composite Of “Gordon Phillips”

Multiple messages left by Phillips were found on Jeanne’s answering machine after her murder. After listening to the tapes in 1994, several people thought the voice of the man calling himself Gordon Phillips sounded like that of forty-one-year-old James “Butch” Harrod.

After Harrod’s fingerprints were obtained, they were matched to those found on the kitchen countertop inside Jeanne’s home and on the kitchen window, the killer’s entry point. Additional prints found on a gate outside the home were also matched to Harrod’s, as was a palm print found on the weather stripping removed from the window.

In all, nineteen finger or palm prints found inside and outside the Tovrea home on the morning of her murder were matched to Harrod.

James “Butch” Harrod

In 1995, seven years after Jeanne Tovrea was shot to death in her sleep, Butch Harrod was arrested and charged with burglary and murder. Authorities believe it was he who had masqueraded as Gordon Phillips and had gained entry into Jeanne’s home, thus familiarizing himself with the layout.

They also believed there was more to the story as the murder of Jeanne Tovrea had all the earmarks of a contact killing.

Harrod Is Charged

Harrod was a laborer who had worked a series of low-level jobs. He was hardly the upper crust socialite with whom Jeanne Tovrea typically kept company and investigators found no evidence he had ever met her prior to masquerading as Gordon Phillips. They did, however, find he had a connection to her late husband’s family.

Ed Tovrea’s son, Ed Jr., nicknamed Hap, had jointly engaged in several failed business ventures with Harrod. In addition, authorities found approximately 1,200 phone calls had been made between the men in the months prior to Jeanne’s murder, and fifty-two calls between them on the day before the murder.

After his arrest, Harrod’s former wife, Anne, who was married to him at the time of Jeanne’s murder, said after arriving home at approximately 2:00 on the morning of April 1, 1988, Harrod told her he had murdered Jeanne and been paid $100,000 by Hap. She also said he later admitted to being “Gordon Phillips” to gain entry into the home and learn its layout. To ensure her silence, Harrod took his then-wife to Barbados for a week of beaches and parties.

Harrod denied making the incriminating statements to his former wife.

Harrod And Hap

Ed Tovrea loved his children but had been disappointed by them. All three were spendthrifts and none had his business acumen. He was further angered by their dislike of Jeanne, whom they considered a gold digger. The relationship between Jean and her stepchildren further deteriorated in April 1985, nearly two years after Ed’s death, when the trio, against Jeanne’s wishes, scattered their father’s ashes.

In his will, Ed left $60,000 from a life insurance policy in addition to $200,000 plus interest in a fund to be distributed at $1,500 a month to each of his children. Most kin would be happy with such an inheritance, but the money-hungry Tovreas were jealous that it paled in comparison to what Jeanne received.

Ed Tovrea’s assets were listed at $8.7 million. He left Jeanne $3.7 million in bonds, property, and stocks, along with his home and valuable art collection.  He also established a trust fund of $4 million which stipulated that Jeanne, not his kids, could live off the roughly $400,000 per year income from which she could access the funds and not have to pay the estate taxes during her lifetime. After her death, the trust would pass to Ed’s children, but they would have to pay the hefty taxes before they would receive a cent of what remained.

Ed’s children spent most of the inheritance they did receive from their father on ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits trying to claim what was decreed to Jeanne.

Ed’s Kids Wanted His (Now Jeanne’s) Money

Many investigators believe Hap hired Harrod to murder Jeanne Tovrea because she had inherited the bulk of his father’s estate. Not content to wait for her to die naturally, they believe he wanted the trust fund money ASAP. Many believed there was enough evidence to charge Hap with orchestrating his former stepmother’s murder, but prosecutors disagreed.

Cricket and Prissy were said to dislike Jeanne even more than their brother. Some believe they also may have been involved in plotting her murder, but investigators emphasize they have found no evidence suggesting so.

Did Hapless Hap Hire A Hitman?

At his trial, Butch Harrod refused to finger Hap, claiming the money he received from him was for an aborted mining contract in China. Harrod also claimed his innocence in the murder of Jeanne Tovrea. His best explanation as to how his fingerprints were found throughout the crime scene was that the real killer wore a prosthetic fingerprint glove which was used to frame him. He insisted he was not at the Tovrea home on the morning of the murder, saying he was instead miles away purchasing cocaine.

Harrod was convicted of Jeanne Tovrea’s murder in 1997 and sentenced to death. He died while still on death row, in January 2019, likely taking some secrets to his grave.

Dies On Death Row

Did Butch Have Accomplices?

One of the people mentioned as possibly also having involvement in Jeanne Tovrea’s murder is James Majors, who was later convicted of a triple murder in California.

Majors died in 2017, while also on death row. He is a suspect, though he was never charged, in the murder of another wealthy Phoenix socialite, fifty-eight-year-old Angelo Desideri.

James Majors

Angelo disappeared in June 1988, three months after Jeanne’s Tovrea’s murder. His remains were found ten months later.

Click on the link to read to read my write-up on his case.

https://mysterydelver.com/angelos-ashes/