Lisa Hyder telephoned her ex-husband from a bottle shop where she worked, asking for a lift home.
Her ex-husband Charles Hyder told her that he was out and when he got home he would call and come and get her, he told WAAY TV.
By that time Lisa Hyder, who has two young children, was probably dead, dismembered and partly eaten by her accused killer Gregory Scott Hale, who had met her at the bottle shop in Manchester, a city of about 10,000 people, in Tennessee.
Hyder, 36, of Pikeville, would not have known that, according to Hale’s Facebook page, she had met a described devil worshipper, The Christian Post reported.
The alleged killer’s Facebook page is filled with images and descriptions of blood, gore and killing. In a recent post, Hale shared a photo that read: “I hug the people I hate so I know how big to dig the hole in my backyard.”
In April, he wrote about being a cannibal and eating a vegetarian.
“would tha vegetarian taste like that fake soy meat like they got in sum fast food places???” he wrote, hopefully as a joke.
Captain Frank Watkins of the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department said that authorities had no reason to believe that Hale had done anything illegal before.
District Attorney General Mickey Layne told The Tullahoma News that the sheriff’s department was tipped off by a neighbour of Hale, who had allegedly asked him to help dispose of Hyder’s body parts.
An arrest warrant tendered to Coffee County General Sessions Court, stated that Hale allegedly confessed to killing the victim.
According to the arrest warrant, after killing Hyder, Hale allegedly beheaded her and cut off her hands and placed the body parts in a plastic bucket. He then allegedly cut off her feet and other body parts, placing them in another bucket. The warrant states that Hale buried the torso of the body in a burn pile at the residence, which is his parent’s home.
Hale also allegedly admitted to cannibalising part of the victim, according to the warrant.
Charles Hyder said they had tried to speak to her throughout the weekend as she spoke to her two young children — aged two and three — every day.
“I still blame myself because I didn’t go get her, but I was down in Huntsville unloading my truck, and I wished I could have been there a little bit faster, usually I rescue her every time something goes wrong,” he told WAAY-TV.
“It’s really hard. I really loved her. No matter what she’d done, I loved her. I wouldn’t want nobody to go through that.”
Her family said they will seek the death penalty for Gregory Hale.
The 37-year-old Hale was charged with murder and abusing a corpse, and held in custody in Coffee County jail pending a $1.5 million bond.
He is scheduled to face court again on June 23.
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.