Bob Crane was bludgeoned to death in 1978, left everything to his estranged second wife, and the 1994 acquittal and 2016 DNA retest never named a killer

Bob Crane was found beaten to death in a Scottsdale apartment on 29 June 1978 while touring in the play Beginner's Luck. An electrical cord was tied around his neck. No forced entry was found and nothing of value was missing. Police were led to his friend John Henry Carpenter through Crane's videotaped sexual encounters. A blood smear matching Crane's type was found in Carpenter's rental car, but prosecutors declined to charge without DNA testing. The case was reopened in 1990 and Carpenter was charged in June 1992. He was acquitted in 1994 and died in 1998. Crane's will left his whole estate to his second wife, Patricia Olson (Sigrid Valdis), although the two had separated in 1977 and were weeks from a divorce. It excluded his son Robert David, his siblings and his mother. Robert has speculated publicly that Olson may have played a role; the Maricopa County attorney said in response, "We never characterized Patty as a suspect." Olson died in 2007 and is buried beside Crane. In November 2016 the Maricopa County Attorney's Office let reporter John Hook retest the 1978 blood evidence. One DNA sequence belonged to an unknown male and the other was too degraded to use. The retest used up the remaining DNA. The case is officially unsolved in 2026.