An Arizona man who pleaded guilty to killing and dismembering his roommate was sentenced Friday to 31 1/2 years in prison.
Timothy Sullivan, 66, apologized in court but attributed his actions to a “traumatic brain injury,” KPNX reported.
“I take full responsibility for my actions,” said Sullivan, who described Amy “Ruby” Leagans as a good person.
But Judge Justin Beresky dismissed Sullivan’s excuses, calling him a “danger to society” who “treated (Leagans) like trash” when he distributed the dismembered parts of her body throughout the Phoenix area.
Beresky echoed Leagans’ family members.
“He deemed her trash to be dumped in the Arizona desert,” the victim’s sister, Lori Leagans Porth, told the judge at the sentencing hearing.
Sullivan pleaded guilty in September rather than face a trial at which other women were willing to testify that they were victimized by the defendant.
Leagans was reported missing by her family in October 2020 and found some of her remains three weeks later, as CrimeOnline previously reported. Sullivan was arrested and reportedly detailed being at Leagans’ apartment when an argument broke out. The argument made him “snap,” he said, and he strangled her. Two days later, he decided to begin the process of disposing of the body.
He was charged with second degree murder.
