A man accused of severing another man’s head with a guitar string has pleaded not guilty to premeditated first-degree murder.
According to police, 29-year-old James Paul Harris practised voodoo and kept the head of 49-year-old James Gerety to talk to after the killing in March or April 2011.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Gerety’s partial remains were found a year later in Carbondale, 29 kilometres south of Topeka, Kansas.
Harris’ ex-girlfriend testified in March saying that he told her he used a guitar string to behead Gerety. She said he disposed of the body but kept the head in a bag. A Topeka police officer said the ex-girlfriend told him Harris practised voodoo and that he enjoyed talking to the head. She also said that Harris told he had shot the victim in the stomach, tortured him for two days at the house the couple shared before beheading him.
A part of Gerety’s skull was found on March 24th, 2012, at a house in rural Carbondale in Osage County. Shirley Johnson who lives with Jeff Harris, the defendant’s father, testified she was searching for mushrooms when she discovered a “ball” — the top of the victim’s skull — and took it inside to show Jeff Harris.
District Court Judge Phillip Fromme noted prosecutors have listed 30 names of potential witnesses to testify during the trial. Harris is believed to have buried the rest of the victim’s body on land owned by his father but those body parts are yet to be recovered.
He also allegedly had voodoo dolls made of cloth, which were named “Jimbo,” “Bob on the Hill” and “Poor Jimbo Bolinsky” and hung from a ceiling in his apartment.
A judge on Monday set Harris’ trial for June 2nd.
