Actual Headline: Man in Fatal Crash Had Wife's Severed Head

By JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN, AP

BOISE, Idaho (June 16) - A man transporting his wife's severed head in a pickup truck crashed into an oncoming car, killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter, police said. The impact sent the head flying onto the road.

Members of the Boise Police Department investigate the scene of a fatal accident.
Greg Kreller, Idaho Press-Tribune / AP
A police spokeswoman called the accident and subsequent discovery "one of the more horrific and complex crime scenes on memory."

A police officer was driving behind Alofa Time's truck on a busy road when he noticed the man's erratic driving and then watched him slam into the car, Boise police spokeswoman Lynn Hightower said.

Time, 51, who was not injured, told officers he was involved in his wife's death, investigators said.

After searching Time's house in Nampa, police found the decapitated body of 47-year-old Theresa N. Time in a car inside the garage, authorities said. She likely had been dead for several hours, Nampa Police Lt. LeRoy Forsman said.

An autopsy was scheduled next week to determine Theresa Time's cause of death, Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris said.

Authorities on Friday issued a first-degree murder warrant for Time.

He also was being held on two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Samantha Nina Murphy, 36, of Boise, and her daughter Jae Lynne Grimes, and was to be arraigned Friday.

Murphy's other daughter was injured and was in stable condition at a Boise hospital.

"It was one of the more horrific and complex crime scenes on memory," Hightower said. "A woman and her child killed in a crash, and a severed head from an earlier homicide: It's nothing short of bizarre and tragic."

Time faced domestic battery charges for an allegedly choking his wife in March, according to court records. A trial already was set for July 25. A judge issued a no-contact order, which barred Time from seeing his wife.

Theresa Time filed paperwork asking that the order be withdrawn. Last month, after she completed "safety planning classes" at a local crisis center, the no-contact order was lifted.

06-16-06 15:06 EDT

This situation reminds me of that Jack Nicholson movie "The Vow" where he's an ex-cop trying to stop a serial killer who kills kids. He ends up moving in with this single mom and her kid after he retires. When he suspects that a serial killer is stalking the little girl, even though he's become a father figure to her, he tries to use her as bait to catch the guy. He calls in all these favors with his cop friends who already think he's crazy...basically the serial killer dies in a car accident on the way there. Jack Nicholson's cop friends wash their hands of him, the kid's mom finds out he was using her as bait and hates him and he can never get any physical evidence that the guy was the killer. Rough. I guess they're not especially similar, but I find it interesting that in this case, the crazy person did get caught because of a car accident instead of getting away (but dying) in one.