DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area man was so determined to
get to Michigan from Arizona that he refused to stop and contact
authorities after one of his passengers died, police said Wednesday.
The
man, a 62-year-old Clinton Township resident, has not been charged and
authorities were awaiting toxicology results from an autopsy performed
on the body of the 31-year-old woman who died.
Police said the man
and his 92-year-old mother spend their winters in Arizona and were
returning to Michigan with a 31-year-old woman with whom the man said he
had had a romantic relationship. When officers arrived Tuesday at his
son’s home in Warren, just north of Detroit, the man was weeping on the
curb and his mother was in her wheelchair in the back of the van. The
dead woman’s corpse was in the front passenger seat wearing a seatbelt
and sunglasses.
"She obviously had been dead for at least 24 hours in screeching heat," said Warren Police
Commissioner Jere Green.
Police did not release the names of the man or the dead woman.
Their
1,700 mile journey began Sunday in the Phoenix area after the woman
checked herself out of a mental health facility there. At some point the
woman, who had a history of substance abuse problems, may have taken
oxycodone, Green said.
"They stopped in Flagstaff and she went in to use the bathroom," Green said. "We’re
guessing she might have overdosed."
Green
said the driver later tried to wake her but discovered her body was
cold and presumed that she had died. He did an Internet search on his
cellphone and later told police he read something about having 48 hours
to take a corpse to a medical examiner or morgue.
As their macabre
journey continued, someone at the mental health facility in Arizona
called the woman’s cellphone to check on her.
"It’s a courtesy call," Green said. "He answers and said, ‘She can’t talk. … She’s
dead.’"
The
caller told him to immediately contact police. The driver didn’t and
later told investigators he was afraid police would arrest them and
seize his van.
The facility filed a missing persons report and
police contacted the driver, who met them Tuesday. The man has not been
arrested and the case is under investigation.
The man gave police
explanations for his actions, "which made sense to him," Green said. But
"was he committing a crime or was it stupidity?"
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