by Adeola Balogun

A self-acclaimed worshipper of Satan in Tennessee has allegedly killed a young woman and dismembered her body.

37-year-old Gregory Hale had just met Lisa Marie Hyder, his 36-year-old victim, when he ended her life in what was described as a ritualistic murder.

Hale’s crime was said to have been found out after he asked a friend for help in disposing a body.

NY Daily reports:

By that point, Hale had already allegedly killed and beheaded, 36, then cut off her hands and placed them in a plastic bucket. He also allegedly cut of her feet and other body parts and placed them in another bucket before burying the woman’s torso under a burn pile behind his home.

When cops caught up to and arrested Hale on Sunday, he admitted to the gruesome crime, cops said. Hale also told cops he ate part of the woman, whom he had met the day she died, which prosecutors believe was on Friday, WSMV-TV reported.

The alleged killer’s Facebook page is filled with images and descriptions of blood, gore and killing. In one recent post, Hale shared a photo that read, “I hug the people I hate so I know how big to dig the hole in my backyard.”

In another, in just April, he wrote about being a cannibal and eating a vegetarian.

“would tha vegetarian taste like that fake soy meat like they got in sum fast food places???” he wrote, perhaps as a joke.

 

Hale at one point worked at a slaughterhouse in rural Coffee County, WSMV reported. Former co-workers recalled him as bizarre, and said he’d bring home animal body parts such as bones, blood and eyeballs, the news station reported.

One neighbor told the station the alleged cannibal was a devil worshipper.

Hale and the victim met for the first time at a liquor store Friday night, distraught family members told WAAY-TV. Hyder battled alcohol addiction and was a “lost soul” who’d had a “rocky life,” a cousin told the news station.

“It’s so gruesome and devastating to see someone, to see a family member or anybody, to lose their life in such a horrible way,” Amanda Paas told WAAY.

Hale is charged with murder and abusing a corpse, and held in lieu of $1.5 million bond. He’s due in court next week.