Charges: Rochester man hid body of woman who died after he gave her fentanyl
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A Rochester man has been charged with murder after allegedly hiding the body of a woman who died after he provided her with heroin and fentanyl.
Charging documents say that 41-year-old Timothy Daniel Loftus provided 28-year-old Tia Arleth with the controlled substances on May 29.
On June 9, Loftus allegedly told a witness that Arleth died from ingesting heroin and fentanyl, and that her body was in a trailer near his home. The witness saw that there was a blue tarp in the trailer, documents say.
Surveillance videos from a nearby area on June 9 showed Loftus leaving his home in a car hooked up to the trailer. He returned 90 minutes later without the tarp.
Arleth's body was found underneath a tarp on June 17 by a man who was mowing the fence line of his property on the 1200 block of 70th Avenue Northeast, about 7 miles away from Loftus' address. Postmortem tests showed there was fentanyl in her system.
Location data on Loftus' phone also revealed he stopped in the area where Arleth's body was found for roughly 10 minutes.
Loftus was charged with third-degree murder and interfering with a dead body.