Jennifer Edwards Baker

jbaker@enquirer.com

A southeastern Indiana woman is accused of shooting her ex-husband 10 times and then hiding his body in a box.

Danielle Marie Green, 42, gave Indiana State Police permission to search everything on the couple's Rising Sun farm - except the large, metal box secured with a padlock- when detectives arrived to investigate a suspicious missing person's complaint filed on Raymond Green on May 28, Ohio County court records show.

That immediately raised suspicions, ones that were heightened when Detective Peter Tressler saw flies gathered on and around the box. He also smelled decay, according to a sworn statement.

Danielle Green said the box belonged to her ex-husband and "she did not want to be responsible for the ramifications of what may be in the box," Tressler wrote.

Investigators got a search warrant and found the truck driver's body.

An autopsy at the Hamilton County Coroner's Office determined he was shot 10 times and killed May 26.

Green was arrested on a murder charge Tuesday and is held without bond at the Switzerland County Jail.

She initially told investigators she hadn't seen her ex-husband since he got into an altercation with her dog May 26, even though his over-the-road truck and personal white pickup truck were in the driveway near her mobile home.

Then investigators learned she had called her ex-husband's boss on May 27 and told him Raymond Green had died as a result of a fatal accident over the weekend. She called the boss back later that day and elaborated, claiming he was killed by her German shepherd.

Once detectives found her ex-husband's body in the box, Danielle Green said she shot him in self-defense.

According to the affidavit, she said she found a .38 caliber handgun on the nightstand and emptied its five rounds into her ex-husband's head when he told her: "I am going to kill you. You need to die" and lunged at her.

Green told investigators she went to the opposite end of the trailer and reloaded the handgun.

When she returned to the bedroom, Raymond Green was on the edge of the bed, telling her: "You need to die. Not me," the affidavit states.

She said that he lunged at her again, so she shot five more times. He fell to the floor.

Green said she put the body in the silver box and cut out the carpet where he fell.

Detectives noticed the smell of bleach in the trailer. The items used to clean were also placed in the box with the body.

"She stated that she locked the box because she was in fear for her life," Tressler wrote.

When authorities examined internet searches on her cell phone, they found ones conducted in March about bullets, head shots and the phrases "If you shot someone with a .38 caliber handgun in the head is it lights out or possibly survive" and ".38 gunshot going straight thru person's head," the sworn statement reads.