In the late hours of May 19, 2002, a tragedy unfolded at a Jack in the Box restaurant on Main Street and Lindsay Road in Mesa, Arizona, forever altering the lives of three families. Among the victims was Beatriz Alvarado, a 31-year-old woman, who was working her shift alongside her colleagues, Kenneth Brown, 27, and Fausto Jimenez, 30. The perpetrators, driven by the false expectation of a large sum of money, orchestrated a robbery that ended in a brutal triple homicide for a meager sum of
around $280.
The plan was set in motion by Christopher Hargrave, a former employee of the restaurant who had been fired just days earlier for stealing. Familiar with the restaurant's late-night procedures, Hargrave, accompanied by his associate Steve Alan Boggs, used his old uniform to gain entry into the locked establishment under the pretense of being called in to work. Once inside, Hargrave distracted his former coworkers while Boggs entered through a back door. The two men, associated with a white supremacist group, then forced Alvarado, Brown, and Jimenez into the restaurant's freezer.
Inside the cold confines of the freezer, the three employees were shot multiple times. After the initial shots were fired and the assailants had left the freezer, Boggs reportedly returned upon hearing screams and fired more rounds. Despite her severe injuries, Alvarado managed to make her way out the back door of the restaurant to seek help before succumbing to two gunshot wounds to her back. Jimenez was able to dial 911 before he also died from his injuries. Brown died almost instantly inside the freezer.
The investigation into the horrific crime led police to Boggs and Hargrave. A critical piece of evidence emerged when Boggs traded the murder weapon at a pawn shop two days after the killings. The pawn shop owners contacted the police, and the gun was confirmed to be the one used in the murders, leading to Boggs' arrest on June 5, 2002. His accomplice, Hargrave, was also taken into custody. Steve Alan Boggs was subsequently convicted on three counts of first-degree murder and, in February 2006, was sentenced to death for his role in the slayings.
