ELKO, Nev. (AP) — 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.

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