GRUESOME

Police Find Headless Torso in Search for Missing Woman

The remains have not yet been identified, but were found in the home where the 36-year-old mother was reported to be staying.

Police in New Orleans investigating the disappearance of a 36-year-old mother discovered a headless body in a home where she had previously been staying, Nola.com reports. Julia Dardar was reported missing by her estranged husband on Dec. 23, when he told investigators she had moved in with a man named Benjamin Beale. Officers followed up on that information days later and spoke with Beale, who speculated that Dardar had overdosed on drugs or committed suicide. But days later, suspicious of Beale’s explanations, police served a search warrant at the home Beale and Dardar briefly shared and discovered a deep freezer in an old blue school bus in the backyard. Inside, they found a decapitated body apparently belonging to a woman, while a saw with “bits of flesh and fluid” on the blade was found in a nearby ice chest. The remains have yet to be identified. Beale has been charged with obstruction of justice in a death investigation, operation of a clandestine lab illegally manufacturing meth, and illegal drug and gun possession.