Man admits murdering roommate who had just moved cross-country to start a new life

Timothy J. Sullivan (Chandler Police Department).

An Arizona man has pleaded guilty to murdering and dismembering his roommate and scattering her remains in trash bags, a desert area, and even a river bottom.

Timothy J. Sullivan, 66, is scheduled for sentencing to occur Oct. 7, online records show. Trial was set to begin Wednesday for the killing of Amy “Ruby” Leagans, 49. Sullivan ultimately copped to charges of second-degree murder and concealing a body.

Leagans had moved from Illinois to the city of Chandler, Arizona, in April 2020 for a new start on life.

“Her comment was on Christmas she’d be in a bathing suit, while we’re all hunkered down in our winter clothes,” her sister, Christa Holton, said, according to Mesa NBC affiliate KPNX in a November 2020 report.

But Sullivan, Leagans’ roommate and erstwhile lover, stole her life in brutal fashion in October of that year.

As previously reported , cops said he admitted to killing her. Sullivan, whose criminal history included beating another woman, said that Leagans yelled at him. He said he “snapped,” and choked her to death.

He said that he had her body in the apartment for two days before he finally buried her in the backyard. The defendant, however, became worried, so he cut up her remains and discarded the body parts in various trash cans.

Leagans was last seen Oct. 21, 2020, and she was reported missing on Oct. 27.

Her torso was reportedly found in a desert area , and remains were also discovered near the Salt River bottom in the city of Phoenix. Sullivan last year shifted to an insanity defense — or guilty except insane — by arguing that he had a traumatic brain injury that resulted in him not knowing what he was doing when he killed Leagans. Prosecutors cast doubt on this, saying this condition did not come up before.

“To lose her is definitely tough … I will never be the same,” Holton, the victim’s sister, said in the November 2020 report.

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