On the Fourth of July in 1995, a day meant for celebration, tragedy struck in Yuma, Arizona, with the death of 42-year-old White male, Danny Elkins, a Lieutenant with the Yuma Police Department. Elkins, along with Sergeant Michael Crowe of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, had gone to their headquarters that day to investigate some missing evidence.
Both men were unarmed as they entered the building to look into paperwork related to the missing items.
While inside, they were confronted by one of their own, Yuma County Sheriff's Deputy Jack Ray Hudson Jr. Hudson was a part of the same multi-agency narcotics task force, the Southwest Border Alliance, where Elkins and Crowe were his immediate supervisors. Unbeknownst to his colleagues, Hudson had developed a methamphetamine addiction and had been stealing guns and narcotics from the task force to support his habit. On that fateful day, he was at the headquarters attempting to steal informant and buy money from the safes. When Elkins and Crowe, along with a third officer, realized a burglary was in progress and that Hudson was the perpetrator, Hudson opened fire with a Cobray 9mm automatic weapon.
Sergeant Crowe was hit in the initial volley of gunfire before the weapon jammed. While the third officer managed to escape and call for backup, Lieutenant Elkins was trapped in a side office. From there, he managed to make a desperate call for help to the Yuma Police Department before Hudson shot him multiple times. Hudson then pursued Crowe outside the building, shooting him several more times. Responding officers arrived to a horrific scene, with both Elkins and Crowe fatally wounded.
Jack Ray Hudson Jr. was arrested in the parking lot. A subsequent search of his home uncovered 40 weapons, 25 of which were stolen from the Southwest Border Alliance. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. On April 30, 1997, Hudson was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 40 years. He would later die in prison in 2017. For years, Hudson claimed to have no memory of the killings, attributing it to being high on drugs at the time. However, in a series of interviews conducted while he was incarcerated, he eventually revealed more details about the events of that day on his deathbed.
