BRADENTON, Fla. A Florida funeral home owner severed the left hand from a corpse and inserted small dolls into the body as part of a voodoo ritual, Bradenton police said on Monday. Paula Green-Albritton, owner of Green's Funeral Home in Bradenton for six years, told investigators she had placed the dolls into the body before burying it for her own personal practices and spiritual beliefs, which she claimed was voodoo, Police Capt. Jeff Lewis said.

Green-Albritton, and her son, Jimmy Lee Clark, were arrested and charged late on Monday with dismembering a corpse, local media reported. Willie Suttle, 70, a garbage collector from Palmetto, Florida, died in June 1997 of natural causes. Suttle's body was taken to the funeral home where it was tampered with, Lewis said. Police began the investigation after a severed hand was found along the shores of the Manatee River in November 1997.

It was taken to the Bradenton Police Department but the poor quality of the fingerprints prevented an immediate identification. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement Crime Laboratory in Tampa ultimately identified the prints, leading investigators to Suttle's grave. When the body was exhumed last week police found that Suttle's left hand had been cut off and small, handmade fabric dolls stuffed into his body.

How the hand ended up in the river was not clear, police said. Bradenton police asked for assistance from a voodoo expert from the medical examiner's office in Miami. (Reuters)