Left inset: Amy “Ruby” Leagans (KNXV). Right inset: Timothy Sullivan (Chandler Police Department). Background: The location where Leagans’ remains were found (KNXV).
An Arizona man will spend decades in prison for choking to death an ex-roommate, using an ax to dismember her remains and ditching body parts around the Phoenix area.
Timothy Sullivan, 66, was sentenced to over 31 ½ years in prison on Friday for the murder of Amy “Ruby” Leagans, 49. He pleaded guilty in September to charges of second-degree murder and concealing a body.
Leagans’ family reacted in court, describing the mutilation as how a butcher cuts up a cow, local NBC affiliate KPNX reported.
“He deemed her trash to be dumped in the Arizona desert,” the victim’s sister told the judge, the outlet reported. “What that man did to my sister, what he did on this judicial system, his manipulations, his lies, is excruciating.”
Sullivan apologized, blaming a traumatic brain injury.
“I take full responsibility for my actions,” said Sullivan, the news station reported.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Justin Beresky called the defendant a “danger to society” who “treated (Amy) like trash.”
The case came to light after her family reported her missing on Oct. 27, 2020.
Police found her remains near a river bottom on Nov. 17. Police quickly linked Sullivan to the killing. The two had lived together after she moved from Illinois to Arizona earlier that year. She had reported him previously for trying to beat her in a case where the police found no evidence of a crime and “no enforcement was taken,” according to independent Phoenix-based TV station KTVK and local CBS affiliate KPHO, which collectively broadcast together as “Arizona’s Family.”
Sullivan had been on probation for aggravated assault before Leagans’ death, KPNX reported.
He told the police how it all happened. He was at Leagans’ apartment. She yelled at him. He “snapped” and choked her to death.
The defendant kept the victim’s body in the apartment for two days before burying the remains in the backyard.
“He then became worried and exhumed her body. He then dismembered her body,” investigators wrote in court documents.
He used an ax and put limbs in trash receptacles around the Phoenix area, Arizona’s Family reported.
On Nov. 17, officers found remains later identified as belonging to Leagans in the Salt River in Phoenix. Her torso was found in the desert.
“The body was that of a nearly skeletonized female that was inside a black plastic bag and covered with mulch. The body showed signs of trauma and was dismembered,” local Fox affiliate KSAZ reported, citing court documents about one of the discoveries.
Sullivan was arrested on Nov. 25, 2020.
Prosecutors said that other victims of Sullivan had been willing to travel from out of state to testify against him in his murder trial.
