By admin 
EL MIRAGE, AZ (AZFamily) — An El Mirage man is accused of killing his father and hiding his body inside a concrete-lined vehicle repair pit in a carport before it was discovered Wednesday.
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Michael Rodriguez, 48, was arrested Thursday and booked into jail on charges of second-degree murder, abandonment or concealment of a dead body, and a probation violation.
The investigation began Wednesday morning when a state trooper at a QuikTrip in Youngtown received a tip about a dead body at a carport on Luna Street, north of Thunderbird Road, near Grand Avenue.
According to court documents, the man told the trooper that Rodriguez had asked him the night before to get a wallet from his father’s body because there was $5,000 on a bank card, but the person said he could not do it.
The man led the trooper and El Mirage police to the concrete pit, where they found Rodriguez’s father’s decomposing body hidden underneath a plywood cover, investigators said.
The tipster told officers he last saw Rodriguez’s father alive on Saturday or Sunday.
Police soon spoke with Rodriguez at his home a few blocks away. When asked, officers said Rodriguez admitted to having issues with his father.
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According to court paperwork, Rodriguez said his father drank all the time and told officers, “we got into it,” before saying he “lost it” and blacked out during a fight.
Investigators said Rodriguez told police he snapped after his father called him crazy. He said when he came to, he left and returned the next day to move the body into the pit, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said Rodriguez admitted that investigators would find fingerprints around the victim’s neck. They also said Rodriguez told investigators he got rid of the shoes he was wearing and the metal bar suspected of being the murder weapon.
Rodriguez remains in custody on a $2 million bond, according to court records.
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