A Minnesota man has been charged with murder after allegedly decapitating a man he suspected of raping his girlfriend.
Joseph Christen Thoresen, 35, allegedly drove David Alexander Haiman to a wooded area before beating him with a baseball bat, stabbing him with a machete and then, as Haiman groaned on the ground, finally slicing off his head, the AP reports.
The motivation for the grisly murder was apparently that 20-year-old Haiman had previously raped Thoresen’s girlfriend, who in a criminal complaint was identified only as “K.D.G.”
K.D.G told investigators she was upset that Haiman had made plans to visit the Grand Rapids apartment she shares with Thoreson on June 20—understandable, considering her allegation that he’d sexually assaulted her in the past. Via the Duluth News Tribune:
When Haiman arrived that day, she confronted him, punching him in the face. She said Haiman agreed to be tied up in the apartment with a rope, and that she and Thoresen both repeatedly punched him.
The girlfriend said she and the two men then left the apartment to look for some drugs. She said they smoked marijuana and meth and went for a drive in the woods in Haiman’s car, with Thoresen driving.
The last straw for K.D.G came during the drive, when Haiman called her “several derogatory terms.” That was enough for Thoresen, too, who stopped the car under the guise of “mechanical issues.”
She said the men went to look under the hood when Thoresen struck Haiman with a baseball bat and stabbed him multiple times with what she described as a “large black knife.” She said Thoresen then grabbed a knife from Haiman’s belt loop and cut off his head.
A different account holds that the two were arguing over car trouble, which prompted the assault. In either case, the result was that Thoresen flung both Haiman’s head and his torso into the woods.
The account is corroborated by a different man, who police caught driving Haiman’s car Friday night as Thoresen rode in the passenger seat. Cops initially signaled the unnamed driver to pull over after noticing the car had an obstructed license plate, and that the passenger wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
Instead, the driver tried to flee, eventually plunging the car into a ditch. He later told police that Thoresen had been holding him at knifepoint, and had issued an order to “keep going and not stop.”
Haiman was reported missing on Saturday after he’d failed to show up to work for five days. His torso and head were found within an hour of each other on Sunday morning.
Thoresen was arraigned Wednesday on charges of intentional second-degree murder, and if convicted, he faces up to 40 years in jail.
Image via handout