Daughter charged with the murder of nonagenarian father claims he made sexual advances towards her

An Arizona woman has been charged with reckless manslaughter in connection with the death of her nonagenarian father who died last October after the two had a fight. Susan Dubois Marcinko, 61, has alleged that her dementia-ridden father would believe that she was his wife and would often make sexual advances toward her.

Marcinko contacted the authorities in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on 14 October and told them that she found her father dead inside the courtyard of his Sun City West home. A post-mortem showed that the man died from blunt force trauma and had more than 20 rib fractures, the court heard on Tuesday (23 January).

According to Marcinko, she had argued with her father and the two had physically fought on 4 and 13 October. Her father was even hospitalised after the first fight, according to AZ Central website.

Marcinko, however, says she never hit her father during the fights. Marcinko told investigators that according to her, the reason her father attacked her was that he had Alzheimer's and dementia. She said that her father did not remember that he had allowed Marcinko's boyfriend to live with her.

Marcinko told authorities that in order to restrain her father's advances and attacks, she should allegedly sit on her father's hip area and keep him held with his arms down.

Marcinko's boyfriend also agreed that she had sat on her father's lower sternum area during their fight, AZ Central website reported.

During her interview with the investigations on 22 January, Marcinko said she had tried to restrain her father for 15 minutes. And after he had calmed down she later dragged him by his ankles to the courtyard so that he could "get some fresh air".

The next day, the elderly man was found dead in the courtyard. Marcinko after dragging her father out came back in and cleaned up "multiple blood marks", the website reported.

Marcinko is due for a preliminary hearing on 2 February. Her bail has been set at $30,000 (£21146.40).