On the evening of Dec. 7, deputies from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the 11000 block of East Clatterbuck Drive in Cornville, responding to an assault.
One victim, 22-year-old Cornville native Jesse Rayfield, lay on the ground in a trailer in a pool of blood, with a blood-covered hammer nearby. YCSO arrested 23-year-old David Shultz, who remains in police custody.
Rayfield was rushed to Verde Valley Medical Center, and then to Flagstaff Medical Center, where he was put on life-support. On Wednesday, Dec. 11, Rayfield’s family chose to take him off life support, leading shortly to his death. Shultz has now been charged with second-degree murder.
“When I first got there the doctor said that nobody would be able to survive this kind of injury,” said Rayfield’s father, Lee Rayfield. Rayfield was in the hospital when his son died. “It destroyed the right side of his head, with injuries to his brain, all that kind of stuff.”
Rayfield’s family and friends remembered him as a kind and giving man, who had been trying to get his life together and do right by his family.
Rayfield grew up in Cottonwood and Cornville, living mostly with his mother, Lisa Fletcher. In March, Rayfield became a father to Paige, his daughter with then-girlfriend Miranda Hall.
“He was a guy who loved his little family and would do just about anything for Paige and I,” Hall said of Rayfield.
Rayfield had had minor run-ins with the law from 2015 through 2018, mostly for small offenses such as possession of drug paraphernalia and disorderly conduct, leading to him having been on probation at the time of his death.
According to his father, Rayfield had been making an effort to turn his life around in order to take care of his infant daughter.
“He was having his struggles like young adults and teenagers do, but when Paige came along he really started to straighten up and fly right,” Lee Rayfield said. “That little girl was his whole world. He went out and got a great job and started buying tools — he was a carpenter. His whole world was that little girl.”
Rayfield’s father spoke with pride of how his son had been an organ donor who saved three lives after his death through his donated liver and two kidneys.
“He had a huge heart and he would go out of his way to make sure you were OK,” Rayfield said. “He would do anything for anybody if he could help them.”
Lisa Fletcher did not respond to request for comment for this story.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 282-7795 or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
