John Jefferson
Inset: Joseph Daniel Hill Jr. (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Hill’s father’s house (Google Maps).
An Arizona man wanted to keep living in his house, so he kept his dead father in a freezer in the backyard, police in the Grand Canyon State say.
Joseph Daniel Hill Jr., 51, stands accused of one count each of failure to report a death, a misdemeanor, and one count of concealing a dead body, a felony, according to the Tempe Police Department.
More charges could be in the offing, police say.
Last week, officers allegedly received a tip about someone’s body being stored at the residence on Dorsey Lane in Tempe’s Optimist Park neighborhood. The large city is one of many distinct municipalities located in the broader Phoenix metro area.
On Oct. 22, the same day they received the tip, officers made contact with the defendant and requested permission to enter and search the premises, according to law enforcement sources cited by Phoenix-based CBS affiliate KPHO. The defendant declined — but allegedly mentioned something about his father dying several years prior.
Later that same day, detectives returned armed with a probable cause warrant to search the house. Police say the man’s demeanor changed upon the second visit. The defendant allegedly told investigators: “There was going to be something in the freezer.”
There, inside the unplugged device, investigators found skeletal remains of a man the defendant would allegedly identify as his father.
Notably, the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner has yet to confirm if the body is, indeed, Hill Sr. — or how the man died.
Hill would recount quite the ordeal regarding the retention of the human remains, according to court documents obtained by KPHO.
After being Mirandized, the defendant allegedly said he was with his father at the house when he “took his last breath” over four years ago. The son, however, allegedly said he realized his name was not on the deed and might lose the property — so he never reported the death.
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The day after his father died, Hill bought a freezer to keep the body from decomposing, police say. The defendant had initially planned to bury the body on a plot of land he owned in the tiny community of Strawberry — a census-designated place near the Mogollon Rim, located roughly 100 miles northeast of Tempe. That plan fell through after a fire on the second property led to the loss of power, Hill allegedly told detectives. So, the freezer and its contents made their way back into the backyard of the house on Dorsey Lane.
Then there was another fire.
This time, Hill allegedly said, the blaze occurred at his father’s house — in June 2023. Again, the freezer lost power. So, the defendant allegedly said, he repeatedly began loading the freezer into the back of his truck to bury his father somewhere out in the desert. This plan was foiled over and over, the younger Hill allegedly told investigators, because there were “always people out there.”
At some point, the defendant appears to have given up the idea of burying or even keeping his old man on ice. Police allege the freezer sat in the backyard, without power, for the last four to six months.
Inside the consumer appliance, investigators allegedly found a tarp, moving blankets, large quantities of plastic wrap and duct tape, ratchet straps, bed sheets, a skeleton, and an “extensive amount of biological matter.”
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Despite marshaling “extensive resources” to look into what happened to Joseph Hill Sr., law enforcement says they found very little, according to court documents. Along with the absence of a death record, investigators discovered the elder Hill was still listed as the owner of the house and had received Social Security benefits until March 2023.
Neighbors who spoke with KPHO and Phoenix-based Fox affiliate KSAZ relayed some details that aligned with the law enforcement narrative of the case.
The defendant is said to have grown up in the house with his mother and father, some neighbors said. Other neighbors recalled a fire there sometime in the recent past.
At the present time, the house remains under construction and has been for some time, according to KPHO. On the day of the arrest, construction crews reportedly filtered in and out of the residence.
The defendant’s case is not docketed on the Maricopa County court system’s public system as of this writing.
Law&Crime reached out to the Tempe Police Department for additional details on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.
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