The four people slain at a southside club Thursday apparently offered no resistance, but that didn't stop whoever shot them from using "extreme violence," police said yesterday.
Police who rushed to the scene shortly after 9:30 p.m. were struck by the severity of what they encountered.
"It was a very brutal scene," said Lt. Thomas McNally, of the Tucson Police Department's violent crimes section.
"The people who did this were able to go in there and be ruthless, callous, and very indifferent to human life.
"It didn't appear from the positions of the bodies that they put up any resistance. It appears they were complying with the demands of the robbers."
Police say they have no suspects in the case.
"There is the possibility they may strike again. It should have everybody worried," McNally said.
The four victims were found in the bar section of the Tucson Firefighters Association union hall, 2264 E. Benson Highway, one behind the bar and three lying by the bar stools where they had been sitting, McNally said.
The killing was the worst mass murder in Tucson since five men were found stabbed to death in March 1989 in a shed behind a tiny house in the 3300 block of South Mission Road. The slayings, believed to be drug-related, have never been solved.
McNally said the bodies at the union hall weren't tied up, but he refused to say if they had been shot at close range. A source close to the investigation, however, said at least one of the victims had been shot in the head.
Homicide detectives sifting through evidence at the scene suspect more than two weapons were used in the shooting deaths, said Sgt. Eugene Mejia, spokesman for the Police Department.
Different shell casings from the scene suggest the involvement of two persons, Mejia said.
McNally agreed that two persons could have been involved but added that "we're not ruling out the possibility that one person had two weapons."
Robbery appears to be the motive, he said.
About $850 was missing from a bar cash drawer and a reserve bank in the back, said Marty Mitchell, a bartender. There was no indication the victims were robbed, McNally said.
Police identified the victims as bartender Carol Lynn Noel, 50; Maribeth Munn, 53; Arthur "Taco" Bell, 54; and his wife, Judy Bell, 46.
The killings are believed to have occurred between 7:45 p.m., when one of the union hall's bartenders left, and 9:36, when Ned Alicata, Munn's husband, discovered the bodies and called 911.
Detectives are now checking to see if the slayings Thursday are connected to the May 30 robbery of the Moon Smoke Shop, 120 W. Grant Road, in the Grantstone Shopping Center. Two men were killed and a third was wounded.
In that incident, two men came into the store in the afternoon and opened fire without provocation, Mejia said.
"Normally you don't have such extreme violence in robbery situations," McNally said.
McNally also said a weapon used in the shooting Thursday may be similar to one used in the Moon Smoke Shop killings. He declined to say what type of gun that might be, but agreed that a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol "is one that is commonly owned, pretty available."
In the smoke shop killings, one suspect was described as Anglo, 6 feet tall, between 25 and 30 years old, wearing a cowboy hat and a black shirt with yellow writing. The second suspect is described as Anglo or Hispanic, 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing 150 pounds and wearing dark clothing.
The two men were seen leaving the area in a light blue, older-looking pickup truck with possibly a step-side short bed.
The union hall slayings bring the 1996 homicide count for Pima County to 44. By June 14 last year - when 95 killings set a homicide record for Pima County - 39 had been slain.
Of the 44 slayings in Pima County this year, 21 were in Tucson. Of the 39 people slain in Pima County as of June 14 last year, 24 were in Tucson.
To conform with records kept by the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the FBI, The Arizona Daily Star's figures do not include suicides, traffic fatalities, accidental deaths or killings classified as justifiable.
