Two families devastated by homicide, crash
Nampa man charged after head is found at accident scene where mother and child died in head-on crash

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Brad Talbutt / Idaho Statesman

Officials cover the bodies of a woman and child who died in a traffic accident Thursday morning on Franklin Road near Cloverdale Road. Police arrested the driver of the other vehicle involved after it was discovered he had been carrying a woman's severed head in the truck he was driving when the crash occurred.



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Alofa Time

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Theresa Time

Courtesy photo

Samantha Murphy

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By Patrick Orr, Heath Druzin, Sandra Forester and Emily Simnitt
Idaho Statesman
The Idaho Statesman | Edition Date: 06-16-2006
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Alofa Time's violence tore two families apart Thursday, police say. The 50-year-old Nampan is accused of beheading his estranged wife and hours later killing a mother and daughter in a horrific early morning car crash.

Time is in jail, charged with first-degree murder in the beheading and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Samantha Murphy and her 4-year-old daughter Jaelynne Grimes, whose car Alofa Time slammed into on Franklin Road in West Boise. The severed head of Time's estranged wife, Theresa, was found at the crash scene; her body was later found at the couple's Nampa home.

The crash

Samantha Murphy was driving her children to day care Thursday morning, and then heading to work — just like any other day. But shortly before 6:30 a.m., a man driving a pickup truck east on Franklin Road swerved into the young family's westbound Nissan Sentra and hit them straight on.

A Boise police officer on his way to investigate another accident saw the truck driving erratically on Franklin Road, then witnessed the crash.

First responders tried to save Murphy, 36, and Jaelynne, 4, but it was too late. The mother and her daughter died at the scene, just a mile from their West Boise home on N. Sampson Lane. Another daughter, Syndee Murphy, 8, was taken to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center.

Officers then turned their attention to a disoriented Alofa Time and his severely damaged truck. One wheel was off the pickup's front, and broken beer bottles littered the road, along with a radio, some tools and other debris.

Then officers made a grisly discovery: A severed female head lay on Franklin Road about 30 feet from the truck.

The head had apparently been thrown from the truck, and the passenger side of the truck bed was spattered with blood.

Police knew the head didn't come from a body at the scene.

Once he was in custody, Time told Boise police that he was involved in a murder in Nampa.

A horrific piece of evidence

"It's as bad as you can imagine," said Michael Webb, a deputy chief with the Boise Police Department, at a news conference three hours after the accident. "We have a horrific piece of evidence."

As Webb spoke, the bodies of the Samantha Murphy and her daughter had yet to be removed from the wreckage, and the head had just been removed from Franklin Road, which was closed to traffic for more than six hours.

The severed head, coupled with Time's statement to police, set off an investigation that led to the discovery of Time's estranged wife's headless body hours later in the couple's home on Lotus Ponds Court.

By midday, police confirmed that they had found the body of 47-year-old Theresa N. Time sitting up in the driver's seat of a white passenger car parked in the garage.

Theresa Time's sister and niece went into the house while police were searching, and were escorted out a short time later, screaming and crying.

"In my 22 years (in the coroner's office), this is the most brutal I've seen," Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris said.

About 3:50 p.m., a tow truck removed the four-door white Hyundai Sonata from Time's garage. As the car was pulled away, two streaks of blood were visible on the driver's door.

Officials don't know if Theresa died before being decapitated. DeGeus-Morris said she didn't see any other wounds on the body, but the cause and time of death won't be determined until an autopsy, scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday. The coroner said it appears Theresa Time died Wednesday night.

Nampa police Lt. Leroy Forsman said late Thursday that Boise police found what might have been the murder weapon in the wreckage of the pickup on Franklin Road, but he didn't say what it was.

The series of events leading up to Theresa Time's death and the subsequent tragic accident on Franklin Road began months before.

A troubled relationship

Theresa Time told police this spring that she and Alofa had been together for 41/2 years and married last fall. She told police they divorced in January, but a Statesman search of public records found no report of their divorce.

In December, the couple bought the light tan, white-trimmed house in the 1800 block of Lotus Ponds Court. The sidewalk leading to their front door is lined with dark orange and yellow marigolds and decorative rocks.

Cecilie Santini, who lives a few doors down, said she thought that police had been to the home before to investigate domestic violence and that Alofa Time had a restraining order against him.

Court documents show Alofa Time was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery on March 19. Five days later, Theresa Time asked the judge to terminate a no-contact order that prohibited Alofa from talking to or meeting with her.

"We need to work things out and it's hard to do that with a no-contact order," she said in her request to the judge.

The judge required Theresa Time to attend domestic violence and safety planning courses at the Valley Crisis Center in Nampa before he would lift the no-contact order. According to police records, Theresa took five classes, and on May 30 the judge approved her request.

Canyon County prosecutor Dave Young said Alofa Time apparently works as a laborer for a concrete company, but further information was not available Thursday.

Theresa Time was a support worker for a self-reliance team at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare's Westgate office on Fairview Avenue, department spokesman Tom Shanahan said. She had worked in the office for 21/2 years and was valued by her co-workers, he said.

"Some of them took it pretty hard," Shanahan said. "Our hearts and prayers are with her family and the families of the other victims.

A family torn apart

At Samantha Murphy's modest tan and white home in the Woodland Park mobile home park Thursday, a pink bicycle with training wheels was in the carport and an inflatable pool in the back yard.

Murphy lived with her boyfriend and had worked for about a year at Baird's Dry Cleaners in Boise's North End. She was driving her children to day care before work when she was killed, friend and co-worker Marcie Hammer said.

Hammer, whose family owns Baird's, said Murphy was a hard worker who loved her kids and was recently promoted to office manager.

"She was always happy, always smiling," Hammer said, tears streaming down her face.

A picture of Murphy was on the counter at Baird's Thursday next to a donation box set up to help the family with funeral and medical costs.

Murphy lived in Boise for much of her life and had three daughters, including one who lives in Spokane, Hammer said.

"I just talked to her last night and she was excited about having a new outfit to wear to work," Hammer said.

A fund has been established for Samantha Murphy's family at Farmers & Merchants State Bank. The fund number is 7400100.