Charges: Itasca County homicide victim was beheaded, stabbed

A sexual assault allegation led to the beheading of a 20-year-old Hibbing man last week in rural Itasca County, according to murder charges filed Wednesday.

Authorities said David Alexander Haiman also was beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed with a machete after being lured to a wooded area in the Ball Club community by the boyfriend of the alleged sexual assault victim.

The suspect, 35-year-old Joseph Christen Thoresen of Grand Rapids, was arraigned Wednesday in State District Court on an intentional second-degree murder charge.

Judge Korey Wahwassuck set his bail at $1 million with conditions or $2 million without.

Thoresen’s girlfriend, a 22-year-old Grand Rapids woman, allegedly told police that Thoresen ambushed Haiman along a rural road after faking mechanical issues with their vehicle. She led investigators to the scene, where Haiman’s remains were found Sunday, according to a criminal complaint.

The woman also stated that she had taken part in an assault of Haiman in a Grand Rapids apartment earlier that night in retaliation for the alleged sexual assault, according to the complaint.

The woman was being held Wednesday in the Itasca County Jail on a preliminary fifth-degree assault charge. She had not been formally charged, and Itasca County Sheriff’s Office officials would not say if she would face additional charges in Haiman’s death.

Thoresen is due back in court on Tuesday.

According to the complaint:

Thoresen’s girlfriend told investigators that she was upset because Haiman made plans on June 20 to visit the Grand Rapids apartment that she shares with Thoresen. She said she had previously been sexually assaulted by Haiman.

When Haiman arrived that day, she confronted him, punching him in the face. She said Haiman agreed to be tied up in the apartment with a rope and beaten, and that she and Thoresen both repeatedly punched him.

The girlfriend said she and the two men then left the apartment to look for some drugs. She said they smoked marijuana and meth and went for a drive in the woods in Haiman’s car, with Thoresen driving.

The woman told police that Haiman later called her several derogatory terms and Thoresen stopped the car, saying it was having mechanical issues.

She said the men went to look under the hood when Thoresen struck Haiman with a baseball bat and stabbed him multiple times with what she described as a “large black knife.” She said Thoresen then grabbed a knife from Haiman’s belt loop and cut off his head.

The girlfriend said Thoresen disposed of Haiman’s body in the woods, and drove home to clean up.

Investigators said the girlfriend’s account was corroborated by another acquaintance, identified in the complaint only by initials T.M.C.

The Deer River man was pursued by police while driving Haiman’s car late Friday, with Thoresen in the passenger seat.

A Deer River police officer attempted to stop the car for a traffic violation and initiated a pursuit, which ended when the vehicle crashed into a ditch.

T.M.C. told police that Thoresen had held him at knifepoint and told him to “keep going and not stop.” He said Thoresen had admitted to him that he had killed the vehicle’s owner several days earlier.

Thoresen was briefly detained by police, but they did not find a knife on his person or in the vehicle, and he was released at that time.

T.M.C. was re-interviewed by investigators on Sunday after they learned that Haiman and his vehicle had been reported missing and had not been seen since June 20.

T.M.C. said Thoresen stopped by his residence on June 21 or 22. He said the defendant told him that he was driving with Haiman and his girlfriend when he stopped and said he needed to check the oil. Thoresen said he then hit Haiman in the head with a bat, stabbed him in the chest with a machete and beheaded him, according to T.M.C.

The man said he initially did not believe Thoresen’s story until he stopped by a few days later with a blood-covered bat. T.M.C. stated that he “got scared” and burned the bat in a pit.

Thoresen and his girlfriend later brought a bag of Haiman’s personal belongings, including a laptop, cellphone and wallet, to the Deer River residence, T.M.C. told investigators.

Officers later executed a search warrant at T.M.C.’s residence, seizing a knife, bags containing men’s clothing and multiple identification cards belonging to Haiman.

Investigators spoke with Thoresen at his Grand Rapids apartment on Sunday. The defendant stated that he had last spoken with Haiman about two or three weeks earlier, but investigators said they found text messages between the two men on June 20.

Thoresen was arrested at that time and brought to the Itasca County Jail. His girlfriend was arrested on Tuesday.

Thoresen’s Facebook page indicates that he is from Bagley, Minn., and went to high school in Benton City, Wash. Haiman’s Facebook page says he attended Cherry High School and Northern Lights Community School.

Haiman is the second 20-year-old Hibbing man to be killed in a violent homicide in as many months.

Jaysen Greenwood was found dead May 19 near an old iron ore mine pit in Mountain Iron. Authorities said he had been beaten and stabbed to death in Hibbing before his body was moved and set on fire.

His roommate, Dylan Bernard Gilbertson, 19, faces an intentional second-degree murder charge in that case. Authorities also have charged two additional suspects with aiding an offender in the crime.