A US man has been accused of using a samurai sword to cut off his landlord's head following a rental dispute.
Jerry David Thompson, 42, has been charged with murder after the death of talented bridge player Victor King, 64, which is alleged to have occurred after an argument over unpaid rent on Saturday.
King had contacted police on the day of the argument - just 24 hours prior to his death - alleging that he had been threatened by Thompson with a samurai sword, the New Haven Register reports.
After King's friends requested a welfare check on Sunday, Kiro 7 News reports he was found by police brutally slashed, decapitated and covered in bedding.
Thompson had been living in a vacant bedroom in King's Connecticut home.
He is now being held in a cell after police tracked him down. He refused to respond to investigators or a lawyer, and also declined to speak at a court appearance on Tuesday (local time).
Thompson did write a note to police which read "paper in glove compart in Jeep is all you need", the Hartford Courant reports. The paper police found suggested Thompson believed himself to be a sovereign citizen.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre in the US, sovereign citizens "believe that they - not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials - get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they don't think they should have to pay taxes".
The organisation considers the sovereign citizen movement an extremist group.
Speaking to the Hartford Courant after King's death, Jim Banks described his cousin as "one of the good guys".
"One that would never hurt a soul, one that would always reach out and help others. He was pleasant as can be [and] always seemed to be happy. He was just a joy to be around.
"I can't imagine him doing anything that would provoke somebody,” Banks said. “That just wasn’t in his personality."
A police investigation into King's death is ongoing.
