A Picture Rocks man was sentenced Friday to a maximum of 15 years in prison for crimes related to the 2024 death of his 9-year-old son.
Joseph Gregory Antonsen, who pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse, was also sentenced to 20 years of probation after his release.
Authorities said Antonsen left the home he shared with the son for two days, despite witnessing the boy “shuddering and going limp” and then being unable to find a pulse on the child, a court document says. He would not tell investigators where he went.
Deputies found the boy’s body on a couch inside the home, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release. The boy was in a “sitting” position and appeared to have been dead long enough for decomposition to begin, the court document says.
Antonsen told investigators his son was ill about two days and that he had planned to take him to get medical attention, according to an interim complaint filed in Pima County Justice Court.
He told investigators he started the car to take the boy to get medical treatment, but when he went back into the house to put on a shirt he noticed his son “going limp,” the complaint says. At that point, he said, the child wasn’t breathing and he was unable to find a pulse.
Deputies described the home, in the 6000 block of North Pelto Path near West Picture Rocks and North Sandario roads, as “cluttered” with “piles of garbage around and near the couch.” The home had no running water or working toilets. The home was filled with “lots of empty beer cans, large piles of soiled diapers, rotten foods, large amounts of one gallon bottles full of what appeared to be urine,” the court filing says.
