Craig Allen Nichols Jr. was arrested on several charges related to a death in Yankton. (Yankton County Sheriff)

Man accused of beheading woman pleads not guilty

YANKTON, S.D. – The 32-year-old man accused of decapitating a woman in her Yankton apartment has pleaded not guilty in his first court appearance.

Craig Allen Nichols Jr. has been charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and two counts of contempt of court.

Nichols is accused of killing 41-year-old Heather Ann Bodden.

According to court documents, Yankton Police were called to Bodden’s apartment at 1001 Memory Lane around 3 p.m. on January 2nd for the report of a deceased person.

Three women informed police they had arrived at the apartment to check on Bodden. When they entered the apartment, they found the victim’s decapitated body.

One of the women at the scene told investigators that Bodden had messaged her the day prior stating that the victim’s boyfriend, identified as Nichols, threatened Bodden with a weapon.

During the investigation, Bodden’s head was located in a trash bag inside her apartment. Bloody clothes with Nichols’ name on the label and three weapons wrapped in a floor mat were also found in bags in the apartment.

Video surveillance allegedly shows Nichols exiting and entering the apartment multiple times that morning with trash bags.

Yankton Police say the footage also showed two other men entering the apartment at about 10 p.m. Wednesday and leaving an hour later. They later told police they’d been at Bodden’s apartment to use narcotics with Nichols and Bodden, stating she was alive when they left her apartment.

When officers went to execute a search warrant on Nichols’ residence, they found the door barricaded and made forced entry. Nichols was then taken into custody.

This wasn’t Nichols’s first run-in with South Dakota authorities. In December of 2021, he was charged with four counts of felony aggravated assault and four counts of simple assault in Minnehaha County. Court documents say Nichols reportedly used a taser to assault another man.

Nichols was found not guilty by reason of insanity in June of 2023 and then committed to the Human Services Center, located in Yankton for treatment. He was released from the center in August of 2024.

In December of 2024, Nichols was arrested and charged with driving while under the influence in Minnehaha County, and driving under suspension. This arrest came on Tuesday, Dec. 28 which is just five days before he was arrested and charged in connection with Bodden’s murder in Yankton.

If Nichols is found guilty of first-degree murder, he could receive the death penalty under South Dakota law.

Nichols’s next court appearance in Yankton is scheduled for May with a jury trial set for June 2025.

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