Man Who Beheaded Partner to Appear in Court Today

Silas France, the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of Paulette Edwards, is set to appear in court today. France, 29, has reportedly confessed to using a knife to decapitate Edwards and has been advised to face charges.

The Port Kaituma resident allegedly attacked Edwards, his partner, while she was intoxicated after spending several hours at a bar. He claimed to have discarded the knife in the Port Kaituma River.

A postmortem examination confirmed that Edwards, a mother of three, was still alive when her head was being severed.

Evidence indicates that Edwards was killed in the same area where her body was discovered. Her partly nude and decomposing remains were found in a clump of bushes in a swamped area near Cat Walk, Port Kaituma, on Friday, June 7. Police located her head the following day.

France, who is the father of the couple’s one-year-old daughter, was apprehended on Monday, June 10, at the Baramita Police Station following a manhunt.

Edwards, a sales representative at a Chinese supermarket, had traveled from Matthew’s Ridge, North West District, to Port Kaituma in May and was staying with a female relative of France. She was last seen alive on June 4.