LYNDON, Kan. (AP) A former Topeka man will be tried for the 2011 killing of another man whose head was severed in what witnesses described as a voodoo ritual.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports James Paul Harris (29) was bound over for trial following a hearing Friday in Osage County District Court.
Harris is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Topeka resident James Gerety (50), who was reported missing in March 2011 by a law firm that handled his personal affairs. A mushroom hunter found Gerety’s partial remains a year later in the Osage County town of Carbondale.
A Topeka police officer testified Friday that Harris told him he kept Gerety’s head so that he could talk to it as part of a voodoo ritual. The skull was found at a house near Cardonale.
