# Flagstaff's Walkup Family Murders, the Book by Susan Johnson: Full Site Content for LLMs > Flagstaff's Walkup Family Murders: A Shocking 1937 Tragedy is Susan Johnson's sober, documented account of the July 1937 Walkup case in Flagstaff, Arizona. The History Press, September 27, 2021. Paperback ISBN 978-1467147156, 112 pages, $21.99. ======================================================= # Walkup Family Murders Book | The 1937 Flagstaff Tragedy URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/ Description: Flagstaff Coconino County, Arizona · July 1937 ## The case Flagstaff kept in the drawer In July 1937, one of Flagstaff’s most prominent families was lost in a single night, at the mother’s hand. Susan Johnson’s book is the first full account of the Walkup case: reconstructed from the record, told with care, and honest about what can never be known. Get the Book Read the Record The History Press · True Crime series, 2021 Reconstructed from the record · newspapers, court documents, interviews Arizona Daily Sun · the author writes the weekly Flagstaff History column About the Book ## History, not spectacle From the publisher: In the summer of 1937, the mountain town of Flagstaff emerged from the Great Depression with an eye toward the future. Few people were better positioned for success than JD Walkup, a handsome young mover and shaker who served as chairman of the board of supervisors and a happily married father of four. But JD’s life changed forever one cool summer evening when his wife, Marie, and their children were found dead. The murders shook the town to its core, along with the disturbing knowledge that Marie was the culprit. Readers consistently note the same two things about this book: how much Flagstaff context it carries, and how carefully it refuses to guess where the record is silent. That is by design. The family at its center deserves nothing less. The case, from the record Edition details Title Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders Subtitle A Shocking 1937 Tragedy Author Susan Johnson Publisher The History Press Series True Crime Published September 27, 2021 Pages 112 Paperback ISBN 978-1467147156 Paperback price $21.99 Also available Hardcover, Kindle, Google Play, library ebook On This Site ## The record, in the open The Case ## What happened in July 1937 The documented timeline, from the night of July 22 through the coroner’s finding, with every claim traced to its source. The Family ## Six names, remembered Marie, JD, Daniel, Rose Marie, John, and Elizabeth. A memorial register, kept plainly. The Town ## Flagstaff in 1937 The lumber town coming out of the Depression, and why this case shook it the way it did. The Research ## Sources and archives Where the 1937 record lives today, and how to read it yourself: newspapers, memorials, microfilm. Get the Book ## The full account ## Paperback The History Press Publisher direct, $21.99 Barnes & Noble ## Hardcover Amazon Print on demand ## E-book Amazon Kindle Google Play Books Your local library OverDrive and Libby; ask your library ## In Flagstaff Bright Side Bookshop 18 N San Francisco St, downtown Flagstaff As an Amazon Associate, walkupfamilymurders.com earns from qualifying purchases. Prices and availability belong to each retailer. About the Author Susan Johnson is a Flagstaff, Arizona author, historian, and paranormal researcher: author of Haunted Flagstaff, Wicked Flagstaff, and Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders from The History Press, curator of the weekly Flagstaff History column in the Arizona Daily Sun, and co-founder of Freaky Foot Tours. Flagstaff resident since 1989. She wrote this case with the town’s records open on the desk. Visit susanjohnson.org ======================================================= # The Case, From the Record | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/the-case Description: What happened to the Walkup family of Flagstaff in July 1937: the documented timeline, the coroner The Record · July 1937 ## The case, from the record This page keeps to what the documents support. It is a summary, not the story; the story, with its context and its care, is the book’s work. Summer 1937 Flagstaff comes out of the Depression years with momentum. James D. Walkup chairs the Coconino County Board of Supervisors; he and Marie are raising four children in a comfortable home on North Leroux Street. July 22, 1937 JD Walkup is away in Phoenix. At home, on a cool summer night, Marie Walkup takes the lives of the four children. She then drives north toward the old Flagstaff Country Club and dies by suicide. The next morning Acting on a request Marie had made, the family doctor comes to the house and discovers the children. Hikers find Marie near the golf course. Notes are found, including instructions for the milkman; their contents belong to the record, not to this page. July 24, 1937 The Arizona Republic carries the story on its front page, and papers across the country pick it up. The coroner’s jury finds that the children died at their mother’s hand and that Marie died by suicide. What the coverage said of why Contemporary reporting attributed her state of mind to despondency over a chronic illness and fear for her children. That is what 1937 wrote down. No fuller answer has ever been established, and this site does not invent one. Afterward Marie and the four children were buried in Citizens Cemetery in Flagstaff. The town largely stopped speaking of the case, and for decades the fullest account was a folded newspaper in an archive drawer. What this page leaves out, it leaves out on purpose. The book reconstructs the fuller sequence from the inquest record, the newspapers, and interviews, and it treats the details with the restraint they require. Get the Book ## Sources Arizona Republic, July 24, 1937, front page (volunteer transcription, Genealogy Trails Coconino County) Find a Grave, Marie Green Walkup (1905-1937), Citizens Cemetery, Flagstaff Find a Grave, Daniel Green Walkup (1927-1937) Find a Grave, John Samuel Walkup (1933-1937) Find a Grave, Elizabeth Walkup (1935-1937) City of Flagstaff, Citizens Cemetery Arizona Daily Sun, Flag Live: the book feature on the Walkup case (headline) Arizona Daily Sun, Flag Live: No milk today, the forgotten tragedy of Marie Walkup (headline) Cite this page Chicago “ The Walkup Case, From the Record .” Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/the-case . APA Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . ( 2026 ). The Walkup Case, From the Record . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/the-case Citing the book itself? Edition details and ISBNs are on the buy page . The Coconino County courthouse. JD Walkup chaired the county board of supervisors in 1937. ======================================================= # The Family | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/the-family Description: The Walkup family of Flagstaff, remembered: Marie Green Walkup, James D. Walkup, and the children Daniel, Rose Marie, John, and Elizabeth, buried at Citizens Cemetery. A Memorial Register ## The family Six people, kept as people. This page exists so their names are not only ever printed beside a headline. 1905 to 1937 Marie Green Walkup . Wife and mother, 32 years old. Buried at Citizens Cemetery, Flagstaff. survived the family James D. Walkup . Husband and father; chairman of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors in 1937. His later life is told in the book. 1927 to 1937 Daniel Green Walkup . The eldest child, ten years old. died 1937, age 8 Rose Marie Walkup . Eight years old, per the contemporary reporting. 1933 to 1937 John Samuel Walkup . Four years old. 1935 to 1937 Elizabeth Walkup . The youngest, twenty months old. Marie and the four children rest at Citizens Cemetery in Flagstaff, a city-kept ground open to respectful visitors. Their memorial pages on Find a Grave are linked from the sources page. Relatives of the Walkup and Green families: if anything on this site should be corrected, or if you would prefer something here be removed, the author will honor the request. Reach her through the contact page at susanjohnson.org. Cite this page Chicago “ The Walkup Family, Remembered .” Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/the-family . APA Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . ( 2026 ). The Walkup Family, Remembered . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/the-family Citing the book itself? Edition details and ISBNs are on the buy page . Citizens Cemetery, Flagstaff, where Marie and the children were laid to rest in 1937. ======================================================= # Marie Walkup | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/marie-walkup Description: Marie Green Walkup (1905-1937) of Flagstaff, Arizona: what the record documents about her life, her illness as 1937 reporting described it, and the questions the case never answered. From the book by Susan Johnson. Marie Green Walkup · 1905 to 1937 ## Marie Walkup Nearly everything the internet holds about Marie Walkup is a fragment: a memorial page, a genealogy index, a transcription of a wire story that ran two days after her death. She was thirty-two years old in the summer of 1937, the wife of the Coconino County board chairman, and the mother of Daniel, Rose Marie, John, and Elizabeth. She had married James D. Walkup after he came to Flagstaff following the First World War. The 1937 coverage explained the tragedy the only way its era knew how: a mother made desperate, the papers said, by a chronic illness and by fear for her children. That explanation is a document of its time, and the book treats it as one. It does not retro-diagnose her across ninety years, and neither does this site. What the record supports is grief, illness as 1937 understood and reported it, and an act that no explanation has ever made explicable. She died by suicide on the night the children died, near the old country club north of town, and she is buried with the children at Citizens Cemetery. Whatever else is said of her, she is part of Flagstaff’s story, and a town’s story is not served by forgetting its hardest chapter or by repeating it carelessly. Susan Johnson’s book gives Marie what the fragments cannot: her life before the headline, drawn from the record and told with restraint. Get the Book The Family Register ## Sources Find a Grave, Marie Green Walkup (1905-1937), Citizens Cemetery, Flagstaff Arizona Republic, July 24, 1937 (volunteer transcription, Genealogy Trails) NAU library obituary index, Mrs. James D. (Marie) Walkup record Arizona Daily Sun, Flag Live: No milk today, the forgotten tragedy of Marie Walkup (headline) Cite this page Chicago “ Marie Walkup .” Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/marie-walkup . APA Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . ( 2026 ). Marie Walkup . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/marie-walkup Citing the book itself? Edition details and ISBNs are on the buy page . ======================================================= # Flagstaff in 1937 | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/flagstaff-1937 Description: Flagstaff, Arizona in 1937: a lumber and railroad town of a few thousand people coming out of the Depression. The era context of the Walkup case, from the book by Susan Johnson. The Era ## Flagstaff in 1937 The Flagstaff of 1937 was a lumber and railroad town of a few thousand people, catching its breath after the Depression. Route 66 ran through its downtown, the Monte Vista and Weatherford hotels anchored its social calendar, and its civic life was small enough that everyone knew the men on the county board by their first names. That smallness is what made July 1937 so shattering. This was not an anonymous city tragedy; it happened to one of the most visible families in town, in a neighborhood where the houses knew each other. The Coconino Sun and the Arizona Republic wrote it down in the plain, unflinching newspaper voice of the era, and then the town, by something like collective agreement, went quiet about it for eighty years. Understanding the case means understanding that town: its medicine, its expectations of mothers, its distances (a county chairman doing business a half day away in Phoenix), and its silences. That is the work the book does. The book’s reviewers note how much town history it carries, and that is the point: the case only makes sense inside the Flagstaff that lived through it. Get the Book Cite this page Chicago “ Flagstaff in 1937 .” Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/flagstaff-1937 . APA Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book . ( 2026 ). Flagstaff in 1937 . https://walkupfamilymurders.com/flagstaff-1937 Citing the book itself? Edition details and ISBNs are on the buy page . The county courthouse anchored the civic Flagstaff of 1937. ======================================================= # Sources and Archives | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/sources Description: Where the 1937 Walkup case record lives: the Arizona Republic coverage, the Coconino Sun microfilm at NAU Cline Library, Find a Grave memorials at Citizens Cemetery, and how to read the original coverage yourself. The Research Trail ## Sources and archives The most common question serious readers ask is where the original record lives. Here is the honest map. The newspapers. The Arizona Republic carried the story on its front page on July 24, 1937, and a volunteer transcription of that story is freely readable at Genealogy Trails. The Coconino Sun’s local coverage from July 1937 is not online: it lives on microfilm at Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library, which fills scan requests. Subscription services hold clippings of the Republic coverage. The graves. Marie and the four children rest at Citizens Cemetery, maintained by the City of Flagstaff. Their Find a Grave memorial pages, linked below, carry dates and community-contributed histories; we link them rather than reproduce them, since memorial photographs belong to the people who took them. The television record. Susan Johnson brought the case to the producers of Travel Channel’s The Dead Files for the 2022 special about Flagstaff. Her involvement is documented on the Freaky Foot Tours blog; the case history in that episode is the book’s research. The book. Everything above is fragments. The book is the only full-length account, built additionally on court documents and interviews with descendants of the era’s families. ## The case record Arizona Republic, July 24, 1937, front page (volunteer transcription, Genealogy Trails Coconino County) Find a Grave, Marie Green Walkup (1905-1937), Citizens Cemetery, Flagstaff Find a Grave, Daniel Green Walkup (1927-1937) Find a Grave, John Samuel Walkup (1933-1937) Find a Grave, Elizabeth Walkup (1935-1937) City of Flagstaff, Citizens Cemetery Arizona Daily Sun, Flag Live: the book feature on the Walkup case (headline) Arizona Daily Sun, Flag Live: No milk today, the forgotten tragedy of Marie Walkup (headline) ## Archives and further trails Newspapers.com, Arizona Republic clipping of the original coverage (subscription) NAU Cline Library, Special Collections and Archives (Coconino Sun microfilm) NAU library obituary index (Coconino Sun citations) Travel Channel, The Dead Files: Special Investigation, The Haunting of Flagstaff (2022) Corrections are welcome and family requests are honored; reach the author through susanjohnson.org. If you visit Citizens Cemetery, please treat it, and the family plots, with care. ======================================================= # Where to Buy | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/buy Description: Where to buy Flagstaff Get the Book ## Where to find it Paperback, hardcover, or ebook, from the publisher, a national retailer, your library, or a Flagstaff shelf. ## Paperback The History Press Publisher direct, $21.99 Barnes & Noble ## Hardcover Amazon Print on demand ## E-book Amazon Kindle Google Play Books Your local library OverDrive and Libby; ask your library ## In Flagstaff Bright Side Bookshop 18 N San Francisco St, downtown Flagstaff As an Amazon Associate, walkupfamilymurders.com earns from qualifying purchases. Prices and availability belong to each retailer. Edition details Paperback ISBN 978-1467147156 Hardcover ISBN 978-1540249685 (print on demand) Publisher The History Press Published September 27, 2021 Pages 112 List price $21.99 paperback Libraries carry it through OverDrive and Libby. If yours does not, an acquisition request with the paperback ISBN usually does the trick. ## Also from the author Haunted Flagstaff The documented hauntings of the hotels, the depot, and the downtown blocks. Wicked Flagstaff The saloons, the district, and the rogues of the town’s early decades. All four books, including the young readers edition, live on susanjohnson.org . ======================================================= # About Susan Johnson | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/about-the-author Description: Susan Johnson is a Flagstaff, Arizona author, historian, and paranormal researcher: three books with The History Press, the weekly Flagstaff History column in the Arizona Daily Sun, and co-founder of Freaky Foot Tours. The Author ## The historian who opened the drawer About the Author Susan Johnson is a Flagstaff, Arizona author, historian, and paranormal researcher: author of Haunted Flagstaff, Wicked Flagstaff, and Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders from The History Press, curator of the weekly Flagstaff History column in the Arizona Daily Sun, and co-founder of Freaky Foot Tours. Flagstaff resident since 1989. She wrote this case with the town’s records open on the desk. Visit susanjohnson.org Susan Johnson has lived in Flagstaff since 1989. Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders was her first book for The History Press, and it set the pattern for the two that followed: the town’s records first, the telling second, and no invention anywhere. Her other books are Haunted Flagstaff and Wicked Flagstaff. Her full biography, the weekly Flagstaff History column archive, the press kit, and booking for interviews and appearances live on her author site. susanjohnson.org ======================================================= # Press | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/press Description: Press for Flagstaff The Record ## Press and the publication record Arizona Daily Sun, 2021 ## The Hometown Feature Flag Live covered the book’s release under a headline that named the stakes plainly: the forgotten story of a Flagstaff mother. An earlier Flag Live retrospective, No Milk Today, had already begun returning the case to public memory. The History Press, 2021 ## The True Crime Series Published September 27, 2021 in The History Press’s True Crime line: local historians treating local tragedies with documentary care. Travel Channel, 2022 ## The Dead Files Special When the series filmed its two-hour Flagstaff special, Susan Johnson supplied the town’s dark history, including this case, the one she literally wrote the book on. ## Citations Arizona Daily Sun, Flag Live: Walkup Family Murders recounts forgotten story of Flagstaff mother (headline) Arcadia Publishing, Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders (The History Press, 2021) Travel Channel, The Dead Files: Special Investigation, The Haunting of Flagstaff (2022) Discover Flagstaff, the official destination page crediting Susan Johnson as author of all three books ======================================================= # Questions and Answers | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/faq Description: Common questions about the 1937 Walkup case and the book: what happened, why, the family, the house, the graves at Citizens Cemetery, and the Walkup Skydome confusion. 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. The fuller answers are in the book . For corrections or family requests, reach the author through susanjohnson.org . ======================================================= # Privacy Policy | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/privacy-policy Description: Privacy policy for walkupfamilymurders.com. This site collects no personal information, sets no cookies, and runs no analytics. Legal ## Privacy Policy walkupfamilymurders.com is a static informational website for the book Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders by Susan Johnson. It collects no personal information, sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and hosts no forms or accounts. Outbound links lead to retailers, libraries, and archives, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, OverDrive, Arcadia Publishing, Bright Side Bookshop, Find a Grave, and Northern Arizona University. Once you leave this site, those parties’ own policies apply. Some Amazon links are affiliate links, which means the retailer may pay this site a commission on qualifying purchases; that happens on the retailer’s side and involves no data collection here. Questions about this site can be directed through the contact page at susanjohnson.org. Last updated July 15, 2026. ======================================================= # Terms and Conditions | Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders, the Book URL: https://walkupfamilymurders.com/terms-and-conditions Description: Terms of use for walkupfamilymurders.com, the official website of Flagstaff Legal ## Terms and Conditions This website presents the book Flagstaff’s Walkup Family Murders by Susan Johnson. Site text is copyright Susan Johnson; the book, its cover, and its publisher blurb are used with the rights of the author and The History Press. Historic claims on this site cite their sources on each page. This site documents a real family’s tragedy and is maintained in a spirit of respect: the family home’s address is not published here, memorial photographs are linked rather than copied, and corrections or removal requests from family members are honored through the contact page at susanjohnson.org. Purchases happen on retailer websites under those retailers’ terms. Some Amazon links are affiliate links; as an Amazon Associate, walkupfamilymurders.com earns from qualifying purchases. Last updated July 15, 2026.