Police say Texan decapitated wife with chain saw

[April 29, 2010]  DALLAS (AP) -- Police searched Wednesday for a Texas man authorities say used two chain saws to decapitate his wife before leaving her body in the street near their suburban Dallas home.

Maria Corona's body was found around 11 a.m. Monday by a postal worker outside the family's one-story brick home in Lewisville, located about 25 miles outside Dallas, authorities said.

Police arrived at the home, shortly after the mail carrier called 911, and found a trail of blood from the body to the home, according to a search warrant affidavit. Two chain saws with blades covered in blood were on the tailgate of a pickup truck in the driveway. One of the chain saws was still running, the affidavit said.

Police said an arrest warrant had been issued for 49-year-old Jose Fernando Corona, charging him with the murder of his wife.

"Witnesses in the neighborhood did hear a chain saw running, but that was all they heard," Lewisville police Capt. Kevin Deaver said. "It was an extremely gruesome scene. The method of death was brutal."

The couple's daughter Carla Corona, 23, and her husband, Freddie Arellano, who also lived at the home, showed up after police were at the scene. Arellano told police he and his wife were picking up their daughter from school when Jose Corona called them and said he "had done it, he had killed her and was going to drag her body next door," according to the affidavit.

Carla Corona and Arellano did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner released autopsy results Wednesday that said Maria Corona was alive when she was decapitated. The cause of death was multiple chain saw injuries "due to assault by another person."

Jose Corona has no prior criminal history, Deaver said. Police, who declined to release the postal worker's 911 call, had never responded before to the home for any type of disturbance.

Police, noting that Jose Corona had friends and family across the state and Mexico, have asked state and federal authorities for help locating him.

He was last seen driving a gold-colored 1991 Ford Ranger pickup truck, which police said he stole from a car dealership after taking it for a test drive about three hours after the killing.

The Toyota SUV police believe Corona left his home in was found Wednesday abandoned in a parking lot in Bedford, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb. Police said they were getting a search warrant for the vehicle.

[Associated Press; By JEFF CARLTON]

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