City editor Poli Corella and I used to laugh occasionally about the time back in 1999 when the Hells Angels opened a storefront in downtown Tucson, called Loco 81. Predictably, it closed in a few months, after being raided by the ATF, but not before Poli had an uncomfortable time inside, interviewing the "Angels" for a story.
The leader of that group was William "Tramp" Potter, who was arrested last week for murder. Poli's then-barber, the late Johnny Gibson, had his shop nearby and used to greet Potter with a jaunty "Good morning, Trash!" (Poli didn't know if the mistaken nickname was intentional).
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Maybe nine months ago, Poli handed me a note, said Tramp had called and said he thought I might be interested in what he had to say.
So I called Potter, who lives in Tucson, and he told me a long, seemingly rational, but ultimately paranoid-sounding tale of surveillance. Back at work today, after two weeks of vacation, I rooted around and found one notebook page of notes from our three or four conversations. They occurred late last year, but I can remember much of the story.
For some weeks Tramp had been noticing signs that someone was watching him, he said.
"Somebody is absolutely looking at me, going into my house, breaking into my car," he said.
Over the course of the conversations, he told me he had left an audio recorder running while his midtown apartment was empty. He said he had recorded conversations by people who at first were outside his apartment and later were inside. He also had set up a video security system in which he said he had captured vague images of somebody coming into his apartment. He called the people "amateurs" but was bothered by their apparent harassment.
Potter also said he had contacted law-enforcement agencies to tell them that if they were involved, they could just come talk to him and he'd give them what they want. He said he'd been clean since leaving prison (in 2002) and had been out of the "club" for 10 years.
His story sounded rational, and we tried to set up a time to meet, but I was too busy on other things. Gradually I wondered if any of this was true or if it was all a paranoid delusion. So I called Tramp's wife, Karen, and asked her. As I recall that conversation, she thought there was some evidence of tampering at the apartment, but she also didn't rule out paranoia.
Karen Potter is a co-defendant in the murder case, accused of hindering prosecution, but she's out of jail for now. I called her today and asked if there was any connection between what Tramp and I discussed months ago, and the recent events that landed him in jail. She said she couldn't talk about the case, but told me that in the last week or so "I did think of you."
I was pleased to hear that, in a way.
