Questions
Asked often, answered plainly
What were the Walkup family murders?
On the night of July 22, 1937, in Flagstaff, Arizona, Marie Walkup took the lives of her four children at the family home and then died by suicide. Her husband, James D. Walkup, chairman of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors, was away in Phoenix. It remains one of the hardest chapters in Flagstaff’s history, and Susan Johnson’s book is its only full-length account.
Who was Marie Walkup?
Marie Green Walkup, 1905 to 1937, was a Flagstaff wife and mother, married to county board chairman James D. Walkup. She was 32 in the summer of 1937. She and the four children are buried at Citizens Cemetery in Flagstaff.
Why did Marie Walkup do it?
No one knows in full. Contemporary reporting attributed her despair to a chronic illness and fear for her children, and that explanation is presented in the book as what 1937 wrote down, not as a settled answer. The book declines to guess further, and so does this site.
Who were the Walkup children?
Daniel Green Walkup, ten. Rose Marie Walkup, eight. John Samuel Walkup, four. Elizabeth Walkup, twenty months. The family page here keeps their register.
Is the Walkup house still standing?
Yes. It is a private family home today, and out of respect for its residents neither this site nor the book publishes the address. Please do not seek it out.
Where are the Walkups buried, and can I visit?
Marie and the children rest at Citizens Cemetery, a city-maintained cemetery in Flagstaff that welcomes respectful visitors. Their Find a Grave memorials are linked from the sources page.
What happened to JD Walkup afterward?
The public record online says almost nothing about his later life, which is exactly the kind of gap the book was written to close. His story after 1937 is told there.
Is the NAU Walkup Skydome named after this family?
No. The Skydome honors J. Lawrence Walkup, a later president of Northern Arizona University, and no connection to the 1937 family has been established. Search engines mix the two names; they are different people.
Was this case on television?
Susan Johnson shared the case history with Travel Channel’s The Dead Files for its 2022 Flagstaff special. The episode drew on her research; the book is that research in full.
Is the case connected to ghost stories?
Flagstaff lore sometimes attaches hauntings to the case, and the author has heard those accounts in her work. This site keeps history and lore separate: the record lives here, and the town’s lore belongs to her other book, Haunted Flagstaff.
Is there an audiobook edition?
No. The book is available in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, Google Play, and as a library ebook through OverDrive and Libby. No recorded edition exists.