Overview
- Authorities arrested 79-year-old Carol Ann Beall on Thursday, May 28, and charged her with first-degree murder in the 1975 death of her stepfather; she is held on $500,000 bond and is due for arraignment on June 4.
- Human remains found at a Pima County landfill in October 1975 were positively identified as William Reginald Sipfle after a 2025 investigative genetic genealogy effort linked DNA to his granddaughter.
- Pima County prosecutors say Sipfle was killed between October 9 and October 15, 1975, and allege Beall later lived in his home and collected between $250,000 and $600,000 in his pension and Social Security benefits.
- Beall’s defense told the court she is a retired U.S. Postal Service worker who has lived in Tucson for more than 50 years and has no prior criminal history, and a public defender was appointed to represent her.
- Sipfle’s family said they feel relief at having identification and thanked the sheriff’s cold-case unit and partner labs Resolve Forensics and Intermountain Forensics for donated testing that made the genetic link possible, and investigators say the probe remains ongoing.