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The Tombstone man arrested last week after revealing to police that he knew his mother’s dead body had been sitting in her house for more than a year won’t be charged with a crime, authorities in Cochise County announced yesterday.
Timothy Fattig was arrested last week on suspicion of negligent homicide after authorities found his mother’s skeleton in her home. He was booked into the Cochise County Jail on a $40,000 bond. However, charges were dropped when the local medical examiner’s report determined the woman, Jill Fattig, died of natural causes.
The Tombstone Marshal’s Office received a call last week asking what to do with welfare checks for the 68-year-old woman. The marshal went to Fattig’s home, but nobody answered the door.
The marshal decided to check in with the woman’s son to see if he knew anything about his mother’s whereabouts. Timothy Fattig told the marshal his mother was in a Tucson hospital.
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When the marshal found that to not be the case, he went back to Fattig, who told him his mother had been dead for about a year.
The marshal got a search warrant for Jill Fattig’s home, where they found her skeleton.
Timothy Fattig told the marshal that when he found his mother dead, he was so overcome with grief that he didn’t report it. As her body decomposed — for a year — Fattig told people she was in the hospital.
Fattig is an author and historian who wrote a biography of Wyatt Earp. According to his Facebook page, he works for Desert Screams Productions, a company that — ironically — focuses on making horror films.
