A minister who recently had been released from a mental hospital was arrested on charges of killing another minister at a funeral home and cutting off his head.

The Rev. Freddie R. Armstrong was charged with second-degree murder and jailed on $500,000 bond after his arrest Friday at the funeral home in this small northern Louisiana town.The decapitated body of retired minister Fred L. Neal, 81, was found at Loche's Mortuary after police received a report of a man with a knife, Police Chief Alan Freeman said.

Armstrong, 45, had recently been released from a private mental hospital, Freeman said.

"It's a horrible thing," said Lee Loche, a Morehouse Parish government official and owner of the funeral home. "All of these people are our friends. The Armstrong family, the Neal family. It's a small community."

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Neal was a retired Methodist minister.

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