TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD/Gray News) - An Arizona man has been arrested after his young son’s body was found decomposing on a couch inside the family’s home.
According to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, Joseph Gregory Antonsen, 38, is facing charges of negligent homicide and child abuse.
Deputies said their investigation started when they went to a Tucson-area home for a welfare check.
A 9-year-old boy was found dead sitting up on a couch in the home.
Investigators said the boy had been dead “for an extended period of time.”
Antonsen told investigators his son became ill on July 12, and he was going to take him to see a doctor, but instead of doing so, he left the home for two days with the body inside.
According to police, the 38-year-old told deputies his son was “shuttering and going limp” and claimed that his son did not have a pulse and was not breathing.
Antonsen also admitted that he should have called someone, police said.
The department said the home was cluttered with piles of garbage around and near the couch with empty beer cans, soiled diapers, rotten food, bottles of urine, and lots of insect activity, including spiders.”
According to the interim complaint, the home also had no running water or working toilets.
A neighbor told KOLD that she had not seen the young boy in about a month. She said Antonsen and his son kept a garden on the side of their home, but their time outside became less and less frequent over the last few months.
“His son was really cute. He was a really friendly kid,” the neighbor said. “He was very polite. He was a lot friendlier than his dad.”
The news of the boy’s death came as a shock to the neighbor, who said she had to break the news to her daughter, who used to play with him.
“She would always be so excited to run across and go hang out,” the woman said.
A different neighbor told KOLD she thought the home was abandoned because she never saw anyone coming or going.
The boy’s body was already decomposing when it was found, court documents said.
