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The state is investigating a Tucson nursing home after authorities said this week that one of its elderly residents was the victim of a homicide.

Eighty-eight-year-old Orval Leland Lindell died June 24 after a fight with his roommate, another elderly man, at the Desert Life Rehabilitation and Care Center on the Northwest Side, sheriff's detectives say.

Lindell had been living at the nursing home for about a week when the fight occurred, one of his daughters said Friday.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department said Thursday that it was investigating the death as a homicide. No arrests have been made.

"This is a sad and unfortunate situation," reads a statement from Kindred Healthcare, the parent company of Desert Life. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family members of Mr. Lindell. The facility responded immediately to the incident and called emergency services. The incident was reported to the proper authorities and we are cooperating with the ongoing investigation. Due to resident confidentiality, we cannot comment further."

Desert Life did report the fight, confirmed Sylvia Balistreri, program manager for long-term-care licensing with the Arizona Department of Health Services. The state, which licenses the nursing home, did its own review.

Balistreri said Desert Life reported the fight as a first-time altercation between two residents who were "confused, with some kind of dementia." There was no history of the two having prior fights.

The report Balistreri received said one resident knocked the other one down and both had skin tears. Desert Life immediately sent Lindell to the hospital when he was complaining of pain, Balistreri said.

"There was no indication at the time that anything was willful or premeditated. It was simply an altercation between two residents with dementia. …

"From our perspective, we would not have had any reason to believe there was any deficient practice going on at the facility. We took their self-report and put it into our system. They appeared to do what was appropriate, and we closed it (the case)," Balistreri said.

Now the state has re-opened the case and will go out to the nursing home to conduct its own interviews and investigation. But the state doesn't do criminal investigations, stressed Alan Oppenheim, deputy assistant director for the Arizona Department of Health Services' division of licensing.

"We look at the facility, how they are or react," he said. "There are other agencies out there that look at things differently than we look at them."

On Thursday — the same day authorities announced his death was a homicide — Lindell was memorialized in a service at his church, St. James United Methodist, 3255 N. Campbell Ave. His ashes will be scattered in the church's rose garden along with his wife's ashes, his daughter Carol Lindell said Friday.

Orval Lindell had two daughters as well as four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

A World War II veteran, Lindell had been living on his own in an apartment and driving his car until a small series of strokes in May, his daughter said.

After the strokes, Lindell spent some time in the Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System hospital and in early June was transferred to Desert Life, his daughter said. Authorities say the fight happened June 12. Sheriff's detectives said he spent the next nine days back at the Veterans Affairs hospital.

When his condition continued to deteriorate, Lindell was transferred to a hospice, detectives said. He died June 24.

An autopsy was conducted June 25 — a month ago — and on Thursday sheriff's detectives issued a news release saying the death was ruled a homicide after the autopsy.

Carol Lindell said she didn't know detectives were calling it a homicide until her stepbrother sent her a link to an Arizona Daily Star article about it Friday morning.

"I'm still absorbing everything," said the daughter, who lives in North Carolina. "We had a good visit at the end of May, early June when I was out there."

Lindell said her father was a native of Nebraska who spent 17 years living in Minnesota where he was the executive director for the Rural Electric Cooperative Association of Minnesota.

He'd been living in Tucson for about 18 years when he died. His wife died six years ago.

A Pearl Harbor survivor, Orval Lindell was known for telling stories about his military days. His favorite was recalling the day he was on the USS California, a ship sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Lindell had been coming off morning watch when the ship was hit and was able to swim to shore, his daughter said.

"He had a license plate that said 'Pearl Harbor vet,' " said Guy Atchison, maintenance supervisor for the Western Winds Apartments where Lindell lived until May. "He was kind of quiet for the most part but he would tell a lot of war stories. He liked talking to the female seniors, that's mostly who he talked to."

Atchison characterized Lindell as a nice guy. "All the people liked him here," he said.