You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Decapitation Murder.
It’s murder with a twist of crazy.
It’s one thing to take a life. It’s another level of evil to take that extinguished corpse and sever the head.
Wow.
Its easily the weirdest story I’ve covered in a long while.
A 37 year old man gets into an argument with his 48 year old father. No he was not an 11 year old when he had a child. Apparently years ago, when the 48 year old was a young adult, he adopted the 37 year old from a woman who was reportedly abusive.
Fast forward a few decades and now the two men, father and son, if you will, live in a tiny house in Nashville.
At the heart of this relationship is the wife. She is married to the 48 year old and because of his relationship with the 37 year old, she is his adopted mother.
This spider web of crazy is more convoluted than this. According to the Metro Police department, the 37 year old confessed to the killing.
At the time of the confession, he stated that he was not only the adopted son of the victim, but he had also fathered a child with the victim’s wife.
Throw on the emergency brake right there.
Let’s get out our game program to see if we can figure out who the players are without a jersey.
The Victim is the father of the Killer. The Victim is married to the woman. The Killer is the adopted son of the woman. The killer is the lover of the woman. The victim and the killer both fathered children with the same woman. That means their children are cousins and siblings.
Got it?
Only in Tennessee.
And that’s the blue print for a combustible tale that goes horribly wrong.
According to the police, the time line goes something like this.
SUNDAY: Father and son get in a fight over the woman. The son grabs the father’s gun and shoots the father in the head. The woman will later say he shot him two times. The woman will later tell me that she was at church, but the 3 children, ages 2, 4, 6 were all home at the time. According to police, the killer stuffs the father’s body into a large trash receptacle behind the house. To explain where dad went, the killer will tell the woman, he simply left. Wearing a t shirt, moccasin slippers and blue jeans, he just left and said he is never coming back.
MONDAY: According to the police, the killer takes the body out of the trash can late at night. With a borrowed shovel he severs the head off of his daddy. If true, and remember the killer has confessed, imagine that moment. You are staring at the man you have called daddy most of your life. His lifeless head is there staring at you as you raise the shovel blade and begin hacking away. And this is not the movies where one swing will sever a human head. This is a dull ass shovel and it is late at night and this killer is probably crazed with fright. He probably has to whack that daddy head over and over and over to finally get every bone and piece of skin and cartilage to let go. Gruesome. He reportedly puts the body and head back in the trash.
TUESDAY: Late at night the Killer wheels the trash can two blocks down the street to a vacant lot. He reportedly dumps the headless body into the high grass. He keeps daddy’s head in the trash as a freakish memento and wheels it back behind the house.
WEDNESDAY: A mail carrier is having lunch and notices the awful stench of something. He does not report it.
THURSDAY: That same mail carrier is having lunch. He notices the stench and this time investigates. He finds the headless body and calls the police. Authorities initially believe it is a drug hit but without clear identification and no head, police release information to the media regarding tattoos on the body. The woman will later say she is watching TV and hears the description of the tattoos and she will fall to the floor in anguish. She says her friend calls police to say that they know the name of the headless man in the weeds.
FRIDAY: There is much activity over night. The police canvas the neighborhood looking for clues. And they reportedly find the tattoo artist who did the art on the victim. The tattoo artist confirms his work and the name of the victim. We will come to later learn that the tattoo artist is also the killer. I will check the killer’s record and it is minor, a few misdemeanors including one for tattooing someone without a license.
While police continue to hunt for clues, a citizen checks the trash can behind the house and makes the disturbing discovery.
There, after almost a full week of heat and deterioration is the severed head of Daddy.
By Friday morning, the entire heinous plot has unraveled. The body and the head are reunited in a police I.D. van.
The son confesses that he is the killer. He tells police that he and his dad were fighting about the woman they both reportedly fathered a child with. The killer’s mom. The Victim’s wife.
What a mess.
I will go to the death house later Friday morning. The crime tape is down and the neighborhood is quiet.
I bang on the door and it quickly opens. I don’t see anyone immediately. I look down and it is one of the children, perhaps a 4 year old girl.
I ask if her mommy is home.
“Yes,” she says in a friendly child way.
A man steps forward with a smaller child. I’m not sure who this man is. He seems a little off somehow. He is holding a plastic plate and standing by a toddler. He says the child is eating chicken livers.
I smile and say that’s nice.
The house looks like the inside of a dumpster. It is dark and it looks like a public works crime scene. I think about the murder that took place in a back bedroom only 20 feet from the front door.
A woman steps to the light.
Hi, I say. Are you the wife?
Yes she says. And I wish I wasn’t.
And from there she leans against a porch rail and answers almost every question we throw at her.
“tears, sadness, hurt, pain, loss. You name it. It is there ,” she says.
What happened?, I asked.
“He was murdered by his step son,” she says. “all I know he was shot twice in back of the head and decapitated. How could another person do this to someone else. I don’t understand, how could a human have the nerve to kill another human. They took my kids’ dad, they no longer have a father, how do you tell your own kids their own dad is not coming back.”
Good question lady. Good question.
I thank her for her time. I wish her condolences for her loss.
I walk away as she fires up a cigarette on the porch.
Decapitation. Multiple children from multiple fathers. What a mess.
I am happy I can drive away from this story.
This woman, and especially her kids will have to live with this nightmare the rest of their lives.
And that is crazy.™