Man ‘hid father’s body in a freezer for four years so he wouldn’t lose his home’

A man is accused of hiding his father’s corpse in a backyard freezer for years while he continued to claim his Social Security cheques.

The Arizona Police Department responded to a tip on October 22 that Joseph Hill Jr, 51, could be hiding a body in his garden.

Hill refused to let cops get close to the freezer, but when they finally gained access they found human remains believed to belong to his father, ABC 15 Arizona reports.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for the Tempe home and several days later broke through duct tape, Saran wrap, blankets and tarps sealing the appliance.

Hill told detectives his dad had died at home four years ago, and he’d bought the freezer to store his remains.

He didn’t report his father’s death because he was not named on the deed for his home and he did not want to become homeless, he said.

Skeletal remains were found inside the freezer which had been unplugged for a few months, police said.

Cops say Hill then claimed he moved the freezer on various occasions over the past few years and had intended to bury his dad on a land plot or in the desert.

His dad had lived in the home near McClintock Drive and Baseline Road since it was constructed in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, Hill continued to cash his dad’s Social Security cheques until last year.

Hill was arrested last Tuesday and has been charged with concealing a body and failing to report a death, according to court documents.

He was booked into Maricopa County Jail with a cash bail set at $25,000. He did not appear to be in custody on Tuesday.

An autopsy is being conducted on the remains, which have not yet been formally identified, police told The Arizona Republic on Monday. A cause of death has not been determined.

A neighbor named Penny called the freezer incident ‘wild’ and ‘shocking’.

‘That’s nuts. You just never know,’ she told FOX 10 Phoenix. ‘That’s why you should always know who your neighbors are.’

Hill’s preliminary hearing has been scheduled for November 4.

Anyone with information on the crime is urged to contact the Tempe Police Department.

Hill was arrested a couple weeks after human body parts discovered in a freezer at a home in Grand Junction, Colorado, were identified as belonging to a teenage girl who went missing 19 years ago.

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