27/08/2022
Jody Marquess, 43, looks at the recliner where his stepfather John Ramer died in Goodyear, Ariz., on June 17. It was Marquess’s birthday, but he was concerned about the 69-year-old, who eschewed air-conditioning. “He had tough-guy syndrome,” Marquess told TIME six days later, recalling a “stubborn” and “very frugal” but also “honest and simple” man. When Marquess stopped by on June 17—the high reached 118°F—he installed a portable AC unit for Ramer, who was sleeping. Two hours later, when he returned to drop off ice cream, Ramer was dead. From April through July, Maricopa County confirmed 47 heat-associated deaths, more than triple the figure confirmed by the end of the same period last year. Marquess had long wondered if this was how Ramer might die in Arizona: “I just didn’t think it was going to be this soon.”
