2 Phoenix men sentenced to 16 years in prison for leaving body in desert
Two men will serve 16 years in prison for the death of a man tied and then dumped in the desert.
William Coble, 53, and Mark Martinez, 57, pled guilty in January to the second-degree charges in the death of Scott Thomas.
Police found Thomas’ body with bullet holes six days after being left in a scarp of desert 20 minutes west of Buckeye.
On March 9, Maricopa Superior Court Judge Suzanne Cohen sentenced Coble to 16 years in prison, the same time she gave Martinez on Feb. 15.
What happened to Scott Thomas
On June 8, 2012, Phoenix police found Thomas dead and decomposing in the desert off of Old U.S. 80 in Arlington.
Thomas went missing on June 2. His girlfriend reported him missing and told police he’d gone out to wash his car but never returned.
Police contacted Coble after finding phone records that showed he had been the last person to call Thomas.
Using Coble’s phone to track his movements that day, investigators found that he traveled all around Phoenix before driving to the desert where Thomas’s body was found.
Mark Martinez was among some of the other calls Coble made that night.
How Thomas died
According to statements by Martinez and Coble that were included in the court record, they had tied Thomas up, drugged him and then dropped him unconscious in the desert.
Coble told police that Thomas came over to his house to get high on June 2.
He claimed that Thomas had stolen some money and a gun from him while he was sleeping.
When Coble woke up, he pistol-whipped Thomas and chained him to a chair, according to witnesses.
Coble told police that he and Martinez injected Thomas with heroin throughout the day, but Martinez claimed he did it because Thomas asked him to since his arms were tied down.
Thomas died from a heroin overdose, according to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner report.
Martinez took Thomas’s car from Coble’s house and left it with a "for sale" sign at a parking lot.
Martinez and Coble cuffed Thomas to a child safety anchor in the back seat of Coble's car and drove around for hours.
Martinez and Coble drove to a casino to gamble, gave Thomas more heroin and left him to roast in the summer heat for hours, according to court records.
When Coble and Martinez returned to the car, Thomas was unconscious, according to Martinez in court records.
Martinez and Coble drove towards Arlington and tossed Thomas' body into the desert, Martinez told police.
Court decision, Coble and Martinez plea
According to a court memo filed by Deputy County Attorney Mary Redwing, Coble and Marinez faced life sentences before a plea offer was reached.
Coble already had ten other felony convictions and Martinez had five when they were convicted, according to Arizona Probation Officer Sierra Flores’ report.
She recommended that both be given more than 16 years in prison.
The ex-wife of Thomas wrote to the court explaining that his death tore their eldest son apart, leading to two hospitalizations for depression and suicide.
“Not only did I lose an ex-husband, but I also lost a son,” she wrote.
Both sentencing hearings were short and to the point, lasting less than six minutes each.
No one spoke for the victim or the victim’s family at either hearing, and Judge Cohen did not make any comments about the case.
During Coble’s hearing, she asked him if he had anything to say.
“No, I mean, there’s not a lot I can say really,” Coble said.
Cohen replied, “Fair enough.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 2 Phoenix men sent to prison for 16 years for death of Scott Thomas
