Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017 | 12:23 p.m.
ELKO — A former Idaho ranch hand who is not a United States citizen faces up to life in state prison without parole, and deportation, after pleading no contest to killing and decapitating a northeast Nevada woman in 2016.
The Elko Daily Free Press reports that 47-year-old Jose de Jesus Segundo-Huizar entered his plea Monday in Elko District Court in the slaying of Carmen Magallanes-Sanchez.
Authorities have said a motive for the slaying was unclear, but that Segundo-Huizar said he knew Magalanes-Sanchez.
Segundo-Huizar lived in Jerome, Idaho. He remains jailed in Elko pending sentencing.
Magalanes-Sanchez lived with her boyfriend in the small town of Ryndon, Nevada.
Judge Al Kacin says she was struck with a hammer or similar object before she died.
Her severed head was later found buried about a mile from her body in northeast of Elko.
