'Let me get my heads!': Woman indicted for beheading her boyfriend
It's a case that shocked the nation and got the printing presses hot for more details. The headline itself was fairly straightforward - "A West Virginia woman is accused of beheading her boyfriend" - but the details underneath it made everyone's spines tingle with dread. At the time of her arrest on April 1, 2018, 41-year-old Roena Cheryl Mills was described as "combative" by law enforcement officials.
However, the most insane part happened when Mills was being put into the deputies' car to be taken to jail, when she told them they had to "take me back and let me get my heads".
The arresting officers also mentioned that she looked to be drunk or high at the time of the arrest that took place on Easter Sunday at a home in Eden Valley Road, Lerona. According to the West Virginia Metro News, the body of her boyfriend, Bo White, was discovered later on that same day in his Clover Lane home with a key part missing - his head.
In June, Mills was indicted on the charge of first-degree murder. The indictment was returned by a Mercer County Grand Jury. In a Magistrate Court that took place in May, Deputy J. A. Conner of the Mercer County Sheriff's Department testified that he was the one who had found Mills after receiving a call about an unwanted person.
When he found her, she had been covered in blood, had a leather glove on her left hand and a pocket knife that was clipped to the right side of her pants. Conner said that she looked like she was inebriated. He also testified that Mills, who had a cut on one of her hands, allegedly told him that she had been attacked and thrown through a glass door.
According to Conner's testimony and report from the time of the incident, Mills' eyes had appeared to be "heavily glazed" as she had allegedly had a conversation with an unseen person she kept referring to as "Daddy". The deputies had called the Princeton Rescue Squad to treat her injuries but she refused and became combative when she was told to leave the area. She told the deputies that she wanted to "finish what she had started". Mills was subsequently charged with second-degree murder but that charge was later changed to first-degree murder.
Detective L. L. Addair from the Mercer County Sheriff's Department had testified in court that Mills had approached a man she knew, Joe Fleming, and had allegedly asked him for cans of gasoline. She had also asked Fleming if she could borrow his chainsaw and said that "she had to do this, she needed to do this". Fleming, however, did not loan out the requested items to Mills. Addair testified that the motive behind the horrifying murder was robbery. The victim's wallet had been found empty except for his driver's license and the money that had been inside it was found stained with blood on Mills' person.
The criminal complaint had stated that Mills had been asked a series of questions. When she was asked what day it was, she had responded "Easter". When the deputies asked her who the president was she said "Donald Trump", and when they asked her again what day it was she said: "Really. F****** really." The complaint continued: "During the conversation, she continued to appear to speak to someone while looking away from us. She also became very irritated and began to scream at the squad workers on the scene. I continued to inform the subject that she must go with the rescue squad or leave the property…"
After she had given a false identity to Conner and refused to leave the property when asked to, Mills was detained by the deputies and was being taken to the station. She told the deputy while walking to the cruiser: "Come on, let’s be partners. Let’s take the ambulance and have some fun." During the entire ride to the station, Mills kept kicking the dividing wall and the window of the vehicle multiple times. The criminal complaint states that she then told the deputy: "You have to take me back and let me get my heads".
When a search was conducted at the sheriff's office, Mills was found to have narcotics in her possession and she was initially charged with obstructing, battery on an officer and simple possession. She was then taken to the Southern Regional Jail. In the criminal complaint, Addair wrote that White had been murdered and then decapitated. The missing head was eventually found in the spot, where Mills was seen coming out of the woods that morning.
Addair's complaint states that both of the gloves had been covered in blood and it also stated: "The investigation also revealed that the matching glove for the one that the accused was wearing when initially arrested was located in the victim’s bedroom."
The complaint also said that Mills was the girlfriend of White's father but on the night before the gruesome murder, she had gone back home with him instead.
Mercer County Prosecuting Attorney George Sitler had said that it was still not clear at the time of the indictment how White had been killed. He said: "We do not know if he was killed by the beheading or if he expired before that. That determination will have to be made by the medical examiner." Addair had said previously that the state medical examiner had told him that in this particular case, it may take up to six months to answer the baffling question.
Mills is currently incarcerated at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver on a $200,000 cash only bond.