Caretaker Larry Mallory notices something unusual while on his way to work. Lying in the middle of the highway is a leg from a department store dummy. When he gets closer, Mallory sees two crows feeding on it. The leg is not plastic, it is flesh, and it has been severed from a female human body with surgical precision. The discovery of four more body parts in the area touch off a murder manhunt.

A homicide in Decatur, Illinois in 1996 involves a young woman, her ex-husband and her in-laws.