Richard RuelasArizona Republic
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Jana Bommersbach, a longtime journalist for the Phoenix New Times weekly who wrote the definitive book on one of Arizona’s most infamous suspects, has died at the age of 78.
Bommersbach, who started her Arizona journalism career at The Arizona Republic in the 1970s, was the author of seven books, including true-crime, novels and a children’s book.
Her debut, “The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd,” made the biggest mark.
Judd was convicted of killing two women in a Phoenix home in the 1930s, a sensational crime that rocked the then-small city. Judd was sentenced to die by hanging. She was later judged insane and eventually released.
Bommersbach interviewed Judd for her book and pored through case records. The resulting account cast doubt on what had been the accepted and sensationalized version of the tale.
Judd died in 1993 at age 96. Bommersbach, in an interview with the Republic in 2006, said she hoped her book had helped people, including Judd, look at the crime differently.
Winnie Ruth Judd's 1931 crimes: An affair gone wrong? The truth about 'Trunk Murderess'
“I know at the end she had found some peace,” Bommersbach said of Judd. “I only hope I helped.”
Bommersbach's death was confirmed Wednesday by Athia Hardt, a family representative and former Republic reporter.
Hardt remembered Bommersbach's boisterous personality. "Jana was always bigger than life," she said. "She had a good time wherever she went and lived life to the fullest."
She also was tenacious about her journalism. Former Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard credited Bommersbach's work with helping torpedo a planned freeway through central Phoenix in the 1970s. The design, Goddard said, would have created 100-foot high coiled ramps above Central Avenue, destroying the feel of the urban core. Voters shot down the plan based on her reporting, Goddard said.
The freeway also was opposed by Eugene Pulliam, then the Arizona Republic publisher, who ordered editorials against it. But, Goddard said, the news stories provided "the muscle" behind the issue.
"It was Jana's work that brought it to a screeching halt," Goddard said.
Goddard, who was a fellow downtown Phoenix resident and friend of Bommersbach, recalled her as a "brilliant woman and a joyful presence. Anywhere she went she lightened up the room."
It was the personality that viewers of her commentaries on KTVK-TV, Channel 3, saw when Bommersbach appeared on its highly-rated morning show. Even as she threw verbal barbs at politicians, it was always with a smile.
Phil Alvidrez, who was news director at KTVK-TV, said he unsuccessfully tried in the late 1980s to lure Bommersbach away from New Times and have her work as the station's investigative reporter. But he was able to bring her on "Good Morning Arizona" in the 1990s.
"Jana had this unique ability to make people think," he said Wednesday. "She was able to provoke people whether they agreed with her or not, and maybe take a moment and actually consider something."
Bommersbach grew up in Gwinner, North Dakota, the oldest of four children.
She moved to Phoenix in 1972 and worked as a reporter at the Republic, one of six women in the newsroom, Hardt said. Among her beats was Phoenix City Hall.
Hardt said she became the president of the Arizona Press Club in 1973, shortly after women were admitted into what had been a literal boys' club. During her tenure, she ended what had been a bawdy annual revue and replaced it with an educational seminar.
In 1978, she moved to the Phoenix New Times, where she became known for hard-hitting investigative work. She was named journalist of the year by the Arizona Press Club in 1983.
In 1988, she won the organization’s top investigative reporting award, named for her former Republic colleague Don Bolles, for a series on Arizona’s medical malpractice insurance. Bolles was killed in 1976 when a bomb was set off under his Datsun.
Through the 1980s, she made regular appearances on KAET-TV, Channel 8, the Phoenix area's public television station, winning awards for her commentaries.
Critically acclaimed book explored a grisly crime
Bommersbach had attempted since 1987 to secure an interview with Judd, who by then had been released from prison and living under an assumed name in an assisted living facility in California. By 1990, Judd agreed to meet, and the two sat for long interviews.
Bommersbach wrote stories for the New Times about Judd that won her the Bolles Award for investigative reporting in 1991. She then left New Times to focus on writing the book on Judd, which was published by Simon and Schuster and met with critical acclaim.
The 1931 crime took place in a central Phoenix home that was, as it happened, not far from where Bommersbach would later live.
Judd was at the home with two other women. There was an argument. Prosecutors would say it was over a man all three women knew and with whom Judd was having an affair. The two women were shot. Police said Judd shot both.
The bodies were placed in trunks, with one dismembered. Judd then boarded a train to Los Angeles. A baggage handler became suspicious of the smell coming from the luggage. Police opened them when the train arrived at its destination, discovering the grisly crime.
By then, Judd had vanished into the city. She would be arrested five days later.
Judd was sentenced to death, but that was commuted after a finding of mental incompetence. She was held at the Arizona State Hospital, though she escaped several times. She was finally paroled in 1971.
Bommersbach did not believe Judd was a murderer. In her account, one of the two women came at Judd with a gun. The two struggled over it, and Judd ended up shooting her in self-defense.
The other woman, according to Bommersbach, hit Judd with an ironing board, knocking her out. Judd woke up next to two dead bodies but wasn’t quite sure how the second woman was shot.
Bommersbach believed that the man the women were fighting over came across the scene and shot the second woman. He then helped Judd pack up the bodies. Bommersbach maintained that Judd was not skilled enough nor strong enough to dismember and pack the bodies on her own.
There were detractors to the theory laid out on Bommersbach's book, especially after a letter Judd wrote in 1933 that offered a detailed confession of the crime was discovered in state archives in 2014.
Judd moved back to Phoenix in 1992. Bommersbach told the Republic in 2006 that Judd often would be a guest at her well-attended Christmas parties.
“No one knew whom she really was,” Bommersbach said. “I wouldn’t tell.”
Career as author, commentator, columnist
In the 1990s, Bommersbach co-hosted “Books & Co.” on KAET-TV and gave frequent commentaries on “Good Morning Arizona.”
Bommersbach also was a columnist for Phoenix magazine and, through the 2000s, a frequent contributor to the Republic and azcentral.com’s opinion sections.
Bommersbach’s final book was a collaboration with Bob Boze Bell, who had been a cartoonist at the Phoenix New Times while Bommersbach worked there. It was called “Hellraisers and Trailblazers: The Real Women of the Wild West” and published by True West. The pair aimed to tell the stories of women who had been overlooked in history.
Jana is survived by her sister, Judy, of Fargo; two brothers, Gary (Susan) of Phoenix and Duane (Jeanette) of Texas.
The family asked for donations in Jana’s name be made to the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library.
