SAVANNAH, GA — A man who was allegedly angered by his daughter's thousands of dollars worth of calls to psychic hotlines is charged with hacking her to death and dismembering her body with a chain saw.

Edward Wright, 54, admitted he killed 28-year-old Francesca Regina Wright on Nov. 25 with a hatchet, police said.

His daughter made $20,000 in calls on his business phone, mostly to psychic hotlines.

"In my 33 years of law enforcement, this is one of the most cold-blooded crimes I have ever dealt with," Chatham County police Maj. Billy Freeman said. "How do you kill your own daughter and dismember her?"

Freeman said Wright told police after his arrest Friday that he killed his daughter partly out of concern that she was planning to take his 7-year-old granddaughter out of the country.

"He told us his daughter was taking his granddaughter to Holland," Freeman said.

Wright, who employed his daughter to handle clerical and payroll work at his construction company, also had been angered because she made $20,000 worth of calls on his business phone, mostly to psychic hotlines, said Joe Aeger, a former employee who helped dispose of Ms. Wright's remains.

Aeger had quit his job a week ago. After talking to his minister, he went to police Friday and led them to his own back yard where Ms. Wright's body was buried in seven garbage bags.

Aeger admitted burying the bags, saying he had been afraid to refuse his boss' request to conceal them, authorities said. He said he never looked in the bags. Aeger said he had also repainted and recarpeted Wright's home bathroom, where the dismembering had taken place, police said.

"He was the ideal grand- father, as far as I'm concerned," said a former neighbor.


"When he told me about it, I thought, 'If he just did this to his daughter, what was I to him?'" Aeger said. "I was afraid."

Police said Aeger will not be charged as an accomplice because he is cooperating as a witness.

Before Ms. Wright's death, her daughter had spent most weekends with Wright and his wife, Linda. The girl had been staying with them since her mother disappeared and after her grandfather's arrest, she was left in her grandmother's custody.

"He was the ideal grandfather, as far as I'm concerned," said former neighbor Rick King.