June Robles

June Robles came from a prominent Tucson family. was the daughter of Fernando Robles, owner of the Robles Electric Company. Her grandfather, Bernabe Robles, was one of Tucson's wealthiest citizens. Her mother was Helen Robles, and she had one other sister, Sylvia Ann,[2] who was not named in press reports. She was also the niece of Carlos Robles who, at the time of her abduction, was the Assistant County Attorney for Pima County, Arizona,[3] and also a distant relative of U.S. Olympic weightlifter, Sarah Robles.[4]

On May 14, after much searching and scant communication from the abductors, Arizona governor B.B. Moeur received a postcard at his office describing June Robles' location in the desert outside Tucson. The postcard bore a Chicago postmark. A team that included Carlos Robles, Pima County Attorney Clarence Houston, and several highway patrolmen searched the area for two hours before discovering a small metal box, sunk three feet into the ground and disguised with some shrubbery.[11] June was inside, alive and in surprisingly good health, although filthy, blistered by prickly heat and bitten by ants, and her ankles chafed by chains attached to an iron stake after having been chained in the iron box in the desert for 19 days. She said she had subsisted on fruit, bread and jam, potato chips and graham crackers that the kidnappers had left. She had made do with a ceramic pot for a toilet.[1]

As she was escorted away, all she seemed concerned about was her report card, which she had left behind in her underground cell. "I went back and got it," she told The Tucson Daily Citizen. "I wanted my mama to see it."[1]

The kidnapper, or several, responsible for the abduction was never established. Two suspects were brought in for questioning and shown to June, but she was unable to identify either of them.[12] A dance hall proprietor named Oscar 'Buster' Robson was initially charged because of similarities between his handwriting and the "Z" ransom notes. The charges were eventually dismissed.[3] There were allegations that the kidnapping had been an inside job masterminded by a disgruntled relative in Mexico,[6] or by an immediate member of the Robles family,[3] but no evidence could be found to support either of these theories.

June Robles retreated from the media spotlight at the behest of her parents,[6] though Fernando Robles at one point announced that he had accepted an offer to exhibit his daughter in a vaudeville show.[13] Bryan Foy and Sid Grauman both approached Robles, hoping to sign her for personal appearances.[14]

A year and five days after June was recovered, an unnamed dying man came forward with more evidence, implicating three people, and J. Edgar Hoover announced that the case had been solved.[15] However, the deathbed confession did not result in any convictions.

Two and a half years later, the investigation was reopened due to "sensational discoveries."[16][17] However, no charges were brought against anybody.

For nearly the next 80 years, Robles led a fairly anonymous and routine life, and remained in Tucson. Although the kidnapping was discussed in newspapers and on television on occasion, she never gave any subsequent interviews or wrote any memoirs. A wedding announcement in 1950 did not mention her ordeal. She died of complications of Parkinson's disease at age 87 in Tucson on September 2, 2014. Her family placed a paid death notice in The Arizona Daily Star under her married name, June Birt,[18] but apparently no news obituary was written until The New York Times learned of her death three years later, as the result of an e-mailed inquiry from a writer who was researching another child abduction for a book.[1]

A play, June In A Box by Octavio Solis, was based on the Robles kidnapping. It premiered at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco on March 6, 2008.[19]

• List of kidnappings
• List of solved missing persons cases

• The Girl Locked in the Desert Cage
• British Pathe: Newsreel interview with June Robles