When he picked up the phone at his Scottsdale, Ariz., home last month, James Joseph Minder realized it was the call he'd been dreading for the past 20 years.

A reporter with the Arizona Republic had an urgent question for the 74-year-old chairman of Smith & Wesson Holding Corp.: Was he the notorious felon known as the "Shotgun Bandit" in Michigan decades ago?

Mr....