YCSO investigating suspicious death at a 'spiritual retreat' in Congress, Arizona

On July 21, Yavapai County Sheriff’s deputies found the body of 24-year-old Joe Fitzpatrick on the floor of a house in Congress, Ariz. Now, the strange circumstances surrounding his death have the victim’s family asking if he had to die and law enforcement investigating what could have caused it.

Around 7 p.m. that day, deputies said they got a call from Fitzpatrick’s brother. His family had just talked to a woman who said his brother had died earlier that day at a home in the small town, about an hour-and-a-half drive from his home in Phoenix. She refused to identify herself and hung up before he could get an address.

The day before, Fitzpatrick had left a note saying that he was going with a friend to a spiritual retreat in Congress that weekend.

More than an hour later, the sheriff’s office got a call from a woman who asked the dispatcher, “Am I speaking with a living human being?”

“We have a friend who came over to visit us and he passed on while he was here,” she told the dispatcher, “so we’d like to have someone come and pick up the body.”

When the dispatcher asked the woman if she would like to talk to medical personnel for CPR or anything, the woman chuckled. “No. I really – I think it’s unnecessary,” she said.

When deputies got to the home, they found Fitzpatrick’s body on the floor -- he was dead.

Fitzpatrick’s family told the ABC15 Investigators that he had been trying to find a cure for his Type 1 diabetes, and that he had been in the care of someone who claimed to be a spiritual healer.

Sheriff’s deputies say no one in the house at the time – one man and three women – called medical personnel for help.

Deputies extensively interviewed all of the people in the house, but said that none of them would identify themselves with a full name. They all referred to themselves only as “living beings.”

The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating the death but said that “deputies found no initial indications that actions of the ‘living beings’ were a factor in Joseph’s death,” in a media release.

The autopsy and toxicology results that will determine the cause of death are still pending.