Citizen Staff Writer
Law and Order Report
DAVID L. TEIBEL
dteibel@tucsoncitizen.com
South Tucson police are following up on a number of investigative leads in the slaying of a woman whose decomposing body was found last week in a South Tucson apartment, a police spokesman said.
But Sgt. Richard Muñoz said there have been no arrests and no clear suspect has emerged in the investigation. The cause of death has not been released, he said.
Detectives will continue following up on leads this week into the killing of Maria Kyles, 39, who lived in the Midvale Park area, Muñoz said,
Her husband, Mike Kyles reported her missing Feb. 23, the day her body was found in an apartment at the Borden’s Court Apartments in the 200 block of East 33rd Street, Muñoz said.
When he reported her missing to Tucson police, Muñoz said, Mike Kyles told officers he last heard from his wife when she called him Feb. 17.
She did not tell her husband where she was going or when she might return, Muñoz said.
Her husband told police she had been “going on drinking binges” from which she occasionally returned showing signs of being beaten.
Kyles’ body was found shortly after 10 p.m. Feb. 23 after a woman called South Tucson police telling them she had heard a rumor about a body in an apartment at Borden’s Court, Muñoz said.
When officers went to the apartment they found a bed-ridden, terminally ill woman in one room, a decomposing body in another room and a female visitor in the apartment, Muñoz said.
No one in the apartment called police to tell them about the dead woman, Muñoz said.
Muñoz said Kyles’ body appeared to have been in the apartment for two to four days.
Muñoz asked anyone knowing anything about her death to call South Tucson police at 622-3307 or the county attorney’s anonymous tipster line at 88-CRIME.