The story in that appeared in the Arizona Gazette that evening of April 5^th, 1909 was not some sort of routine "National Inquirer" sensationalism as has been suggested by many "debunkers" in discussions on the Internet. A tedious and thorough search of the microfilm Gazette newspapers surrounding the story for several months, has turned up nothing of the sort. In fact the search has demonstrated clearly to me that quite the opposite was true. The Arizona Gazette was the evening edition of the daytime Phoenix Gazette and both editions were the forerunner of the Arizona Republic. The two editions were a mainstream Phoenix paper as is the Republic. It would be hard for a serious researcher to come up with an example of sensational "made up" stories in the Gazette.

The most sensational stories I could find (and I was searching with a skeptical bias that the story might be "made up") were extremely boring articles on the price of sugar beets and the prospects for a bright financial future for both the farmers and the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) and the occasional story of a local citizen shot in an argument. Most of the rest of the articles were politics as usual, and small announcements of "ladies sewing circles", church meetings and outings, reviews and announcements of local touring performing troupes such as "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show". While all of this certainly makes for interesting historical reading, none of it even remotely suggests the practice of the editors routinely inserting "Inquirer" type stories.