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PD Releases Details of Gruesome Slaying

Jose Corona [Police Handout]

Warning: This article contains explicit descriptions of violence.

FORT WORTH, TX – The scene that greeted Lewisville police officers on Shadow Wood Lane was something out of a horror movie.

A woman’s decapitated body lay in the street.

Two bloody chain saws rested on the tailgate of a white pickup, one idling in the late morning sun.

The saga had begun around 11 a.m. Monday, when a mail carrier making the rounds on the tree-lined street discovered the mutilated body of Maria Corona.

Corona, 44, was a mother of six who shared the Lewisville home with her husband and family.

Police are looking for her husband, Jose Fernando Corona, 49, who reportedly told a relative that he killed her.

Late Tuesday, the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office reported that a woman died from multiple chainsaw injuries about 11:15 a.m. Monday in the 1000 block of Shadow Wood Lane in Lewisville, the address of the incident. The remains, however, were listed as unidentified.

Police are sure of one thing: “A chain saw was used in the offense,” said Capt. Kevin Deaver, a Lewisville police spokesman.

The details of the killing were set out in a search warrant affidavit released Tuesday.

Maria Corona’s son-in-law said Jose Corona had admitted during a brief telephone conversation that he killed his wife, the affidavit says.

Corona told the son-in-law that he “had done it, he had killed her and was going to drag her body next door.”

After that call, the son-in-law tried to call Maria Corona “but was unsuccessful,” the affidavit stated.

When police arrived at the home, the front door was open and “blood could be seen in the doorway,” according to the affidavit.

“Jose was no longer at the scene, and a gold-colored 2005 Toyota Sequoia (Texas license plate 247 DVH) was missing,” the affidavit says.

Police believe that Jose Corona, who reportedly has relatives in Oklahoma and Mexico, may be driving the Toyota.

Investigators have learned that the couple apparently had marital problems, Deaver said.

He said that he was unaware of any calls about domestic disturbances at the home and that Jose Corona did not appear to have any previous arrests.