Clues surface in 1978 slaying of Scottsdale teen

An underground fort once in the backyard of a Scottsdale home where police ended a search on Friday for more clues in a 30-year-old unsolved homicide case was more than a hole with planks of plywood over it.

VIDEO: Police dig for clues in 30-year-old case

SLIDESHOW: Cold case excavation

Cops seek clues in Scottsdale cold case death

In the late 1970s, that fort was where teenager Jon Benson used to live and lure other kids to drink alcohol and smoke pot in a "den of terror," according to past published reports in the Scottsdale Progress newspaper.

Benson's fort - which had been filled in by his father with a backhoe behind the family's former residence at 8650 E. Joshua Tree Lane in the early 1980s - was where a gruesome discovery was made on Dec. 22, 1992:

Partial human skeletal remains were unearthed and later identified as those of 14-year-old Greg Holman - missing since Oct. 8, 1978. Police said they had received a tip from Holman's sister about the fort's existence a month earlier, and officers searched the Benson home.

Benson, also 14 at the time of Holman's disappearance, was the last one to be seen with the Saguaro High School freshman as they left nearby Agua Linda Park that evening. He is the lone suspect in Holman's death and has been since his disappeared, according to Scottsdale police detectives.

The case went cold, but has been a priority with the Scottsdale Police Department's cold case unit since it formed in 2006.

According to detectives, new information has come to light after reinterviewing many past players in the case and obtaining information from others who were not interviewed previously.

Benson had been accused of molesting other kids in the fort, according to retired Scottsdale detective Frank Hylton, who works part time for the cold case unit.

Police also are uncovering crimes previously unreported involving allegations that Benson assaulted other kids in other places, according to Hylton and detective Hugh Lockerby, also of the cold case unit.

Benson, now 44, is serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence for luring a minor for sexual exploitation at a Phoenix park in 2006.

Although Benson was questioned at least three times during the course of the Holman investigation - in 1978, 1981 and in 1992, he was never arrested in Holman's death and never admitted to any wrongdoing.

"Jon Benson has been doing this sort of thing his whole life, and after I questioned him in the 1980s about Holman's disappearance I could tell he wasn't being truthful about it," Hylton said. "He took a lie detector test then, and it showed that he was deceptive. We need to make sure he doesn't get out of prison so he can hurt another child."

Police executed a search warrant on Benson to obtain his DNA in March 2007, according to Maricopa County Superior Court documents.

However, none of his DNA has been compared to evidence collected in the case, according to Lockerby.

When Holman disappeared, the case was initially reported as a runaway. Detectives were busy pushing to solve the high-profile killing of former "Hogan's Heroes" television star Bob Crane, who was found slain in a Scottsdale apartment earlier that year. Many say Holman's case took a back seat to the Crane case because no foul play was suspected in his disappearance.

Benson was described as a "dysfunctional child" by a former neighbor in an article published in the Progress in 1992 two days after human bones were found in his backyard. Benson looked older than the other kids, was bigger than most of them and was known to terrorize other kids in the neighborhood, according to one of Holman's friends.

"All the kids in the neighborhood had a saying," said Richard Fabrizio, 44, of Scottsdale, who grew up in Benson's neighborhood off Pima Road between Indian Bend Road and McDonald Drive and knew Benson and Holman. "Everyone always said, 'Don't ever walk off with Jon Benson alone.' He was a scary guy. He bragged about bad things he would do to people and other things."

Benson declined a Tribune interview request, said an Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman.

Benson's father, Arnold Benson of Chandler, told the Tribune on Friday, "We don't have anything to do with this," and would not comment further.

Detectives say they now have enough evidence to charge Jon Benson in Holman's slaying and had submitted the case to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in early 2007, Lockerby said.

The case is under review, according to the county attorney's office.

Lockerby said "a few" items of evidentiary value that will assist in the case were recovered Wednesday during the second day of a three-day dig in the backyard of Benson's former residence.

Police also plan to submit those items to the county attorney's office after they are processed through the department's crime lab, Lockerby said.

Of items recovered from an area where another portion of the fort had been, one could have been used as a weapon, according to Lockerby, but he didn't specifically say what the items were.

Police also were hoping to find more of Holman's remains in the portion of the backyard to help his remaining family members get closure.

"We're done," Lockerby said Friday as he was spraying water from a hose over dirt that was being returned to a 9-foot-deep hole. "We've looked at everything we could've looked at. It didn't matter if we found anything or not, we still have enough to charge him. All of the information and tips we received since we reopened the case in 2006 led us back here to the point where we saw the need to search the area again. We hope to get the family some closure."

Holman's mother died before his remains were found, and she spent her last looking for her son or wondering where he was, according to Edward Alongi, Holman's childhood friend.

When Alongi and his younger brother, Joseph - and other kids in the neighborhood learned that Benson was the last one to be seen with Holman, Alongi said they got suspicious.

"We confronted him about it," said Alongi, 45. "We said, 'What did you do with Greg?' He denied having anything to do with Greg disappearing, and said he didn't take him to the fort, but that he went to meet someone to drink in an alley somewhere. We figured he wasn't telling us the truth because he could always go the fort to drink. Joseph punched him in the face."