Arizona law enforcement alleges that an 18-year-old killed his mother and tried to report her as kidnapped to cover up her death.
A jogger called police Wednesday morning after finding a woman’s dead body in a farm field in San Tan Valley, according to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office. Less than 10 minutes later, the son of Mary Collier, 38, called 911 to report her supposed kidnapping.
The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office said its deputies quickly confirmed that the body was Collier’s.
Her son who made the call was identified as the suspect in her death, the sheriff’s office said. When deputies arrived at the family’s home, the teenager was “suffering from self-inflicted wounds” and taken to a hospital for treatment.
Authorities did not name the teenager, who was booked on a charge of first-degree murder on Thursday.
His name did not appear on a public record search for Collier, and NBC News was unable to find court records to determine if he obtained an attorney.
Collier’s body was found by a man named James Richey, who told NBC affiliate KPNX that he lived nearby. He runs daily near the field where the body was discovered.
“Even when I saw her I was like, ‘No, this is like a Halloween prop or prank or something,’” Richey said. “‘There’s no way — like, this isn’t happening.’”
Richey noticed a broken knife with blood on it and said it then “clicked” that he had encountered a crime scene, and he called 911.
Lt. Ross Teeple of the sheriff’s office told KPNX that the cause of death appears to be “edge weapons” and blunt-force trauma.
“We don’t have any evidence to show that there was an actual kidnapping,” Teeple said. “It indicates they walked out together, both of consent, and then once out there she was attacked and then just left in the desert.”
A GoFundMe was started by Collier’s niece, Zel Harwell, to help pay for Collier’s funeral expenses, with extra funds to go to her husband and her two youngest children.
Harwell described Collier, a mother of four, as loving woman who would call if she knew you were having a bad day.
“She would give when she had nothing, and would try her best to uplift others with kind words, and truth,” Harwell wrote.
CORRECTION (Nov. 3, 2024, 3:02 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misnamed the community where this crime took place. It is San Tan Valley, Arizona, not Sun Tan Valley.