An Arivaca woman was sentenced Wednesday to three years' probation for helping her sister dump a body down a mine shaft.
Stacey Leigh Sharp, Tommie Joe Holliday and Stephanie Lynn Bartlett, 41, were arrested last summer after detectives found Bobby Lee Gatlin's body in the shaft.
Pima County sheriff's deputies began hearing rumors in October 2006 that Gatlin had been murdered in November 2005 and thrown down a mine shaft, according to court documents.
On June 1, 2007, detectives found Gatlin's body 15 feet underground, wrapped in a tarp, blankets and sleeping bag. An autopsy showed he'd been shot several times.
Bartlett and Sharp made incriminating statements when interviewed by detectives, and they were arrested along with Holliday.
Court documents indicate Bartlett was involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with Gatlin. For several years, they had been living in makeshift camps outside Arivaca with Bartlett's three teenage sons and other homeless people.
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Bartlett told authorities she shot Gatlin with an AK-47 after he came after her with an ax and threatened to kill her and her children. She said she'd found the weapon in the desert.
Holliday and Sharp helped dump Gatlin's body in the mine shaft the next day.
Bartlett was sentenced to five years' probation and 365 days in jail in February after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Holliday and Sharp both pleaded guilty to attempted concealment or abandonment of a human body.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Hector Campoy sentenced Holliday to three years' probation last month and he sentenced Sharp Wednesday.
