CHANDLER, Ariz. — We’re continuing our investigation into the death of Amy Leagans and how the alleged killer, Timothy Sullivan, had a long history of domestic violence before he met her.
Timothy Sullivan is no stranger to the criminal justice system. In 2009, he was charged with assaulting Kimberly Houston.
“He just threw me down the stairs grabbed my hair and started punching me. The assault charge was dropped in a plea deal,” says Houston.
Then in 2014, he did this to Susan Davidson. He was charged with kidnapping, attempted sexual assault, and aggravated assault. After a plea deal, he was convicted of aggravated assault.
Now he is charged with killing Amy Leagans.
“I’m disappointed because they could’ve prevented that where she wouldn’t have had to die,” says Davidson
Ben McJunkin, a law professor at Arizona State University, says, unfortunately, this isn’t a unique scenario.
“The problem that we have with criminal law is that the law itself is very incapable of punishing serious attempts at crimes unless they result in completed crimes,” says McJunkin.
In 2014, prosecutors pointed at “factual weaknesses” in Davidson’s case.
McJunkin says that weakness is the burden of proving intent when it comes to attempted crimes.
“This is one of the reasons we often see prosecutors plea these cases out to a lower and easier to prove charge like aggravated assault,” says McJunkin.
Court records show Sullivan choked Davidson until she couldn’t breathe. Police say Sullivan admitted he did the same thing to Leagans, except she wasn’t able to escape.
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McJunkin says domestic violence needs to be prevented before it happens.
“The reason that some people who commit domestic violence are inclined to commit domestic violence again is some structural factors that are behind domestic violence… Domestic violence is strongly correlated with poverty. In fact, people that are most likely to commit domestic violence are underemployed or unemployed men,” says McJunkin.
Court records show Sullivan had money problems. McJunkin says there could be many factors that contribute to Sullivan’s behavior, but in the end, the last line of defense, the criminal justice system failed.
“Some substantial portion of what is happening here the failure of the criminal justice system to take seriously the magnitude of the violence in this case,” says McJunkin.