Son allegedly kept long-dead father in unplugged freezer as every time he went to discard him in desert, there were always people out there

Police in Arizona say a man kept his dead father in a freezer in the backyard so he could stay in his home.

Tempe Police say that 51-year-old Joseph Daniel Hill Jr. is charged with one count of failing to report a death, which is a misdemeanor, and one count of hiding a dead body, which is a felony.

Police say that more charges may be coming.

Police say they got a tip last week that someone’s body was being kept at the house on Dorsey Lane in Tempe’s Optimist Park neighborhood. In the greater Phoenix metro area, the big city is one of many separate towns and cities.

Law enforcement sources told the Phoenix-based CBS affiliate KPHO that on Oct. 22, the same day they got the tip, officers called the defendant and asked for permission to enter and search the property.

The defendant said no, but he is said to have said something about his father dying many years before.

Later that same day, detectives came back to the house with a warrant for a probable cause search. Police say the man behaved differently on the second visit.

Investigators say the defendant told them, “There was going to be something in the freezer.”

Investigators found the bones of a man inside the unplugged device that the defendant would allegedly say was his father.

It’s important to note that the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner has not yet confirmed whether or not the body is that of Hill Sr. or how the man died.

According to court documents obtained by KPHO, Hill would talk about quite the ordeal regarding the storage of the bodies.

The defendant is said to have told the police that he was at the house with his father when his father “took his last breath” more than four years ago.

But the son is said to have said that he didn’t report the death because he knew his name wasn’t on the deed and that he might lose the property if he did.

Police say Hill bought a freezer the day after his father died so that the body wouldn’t break down. At first, the defendant planned to bury the body on land he owned in Strawberry, a small town near the Mogollon Rim about 100 miles northeast of Tempe.

Police say Hill told them that the plan didn’t work out because the power went out because of a fire on the second property.

The freezer and its contents then went back into the Dorsey Lane home’s backyard.

After that, there was another fire.

Hill is said to have said that this time the fire happened at his dad’s house in June 2023. Once more, the freezer lost its power.

He allegedly said this over and over as he loaded the freezer into the back of his truck so he could bury his father in the desert.

The younger Hill is said to have told police that this plan was turned down many times because there were “always people out there.”

At some point, the defendant seems to have given up on burying his old man or even putting him on ice. It is said that the freezer has been sitting in the backyard for four to six months without power.

Police allegedly found a tarp, moving blankets, a skeleton, ratchet straps, bed sheets, a large amount of plastic wrap and duct tape, and “extensive amounts of biological matter” inside the home appliance.

According to court documents, police say they used “extensive resources” to look into what happened to Joseph Hill Sr. but didn’t find much.

Investigators found that the older Hill was still listed as the owner of the house and was getting Social Security benefits until March 2023, even though there was no record of his death.

When neighbors talked to KPHO and KSAZ, a Fox affiliate in Phoenix, they told the news station some details that matched what the police said about the case.

Some neighbors say the defendant grew up in the house with his parents. Other people who lived nearby remembered a fire that happened there not long ago.

KPHO says that the house is still being built and has been for a while. On the day of the arrest, construction workers were seen coming and going from the house.

As of this writing, the defendant’s case is not on the public system of the Maricopa County court system.

The Tempe Police Department for more information about this story, but at the time of publication, they had not responded.

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