LYNDON, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man is scheduled to be sentenced March 30 for the 2011 beheading of another man with a guitar string.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the date was set after 30-year-old James Paul Harris pleaded no contest last month in Osage County District Court to involuntary manslaughter in the death of 49-year-old James Gerety. Harris had been scheduled to go on trial Monday on a charge of first-degree murder.

A former girlfriend testified Harris told her he shot the victim in the stomach, tortured him for two days and then cut off his head. Prosecutors allege Harris kept Gerety’s head for months for some type of religious practice. Part of the skull was found in March 2012 in rural Osage County on land where Harris’ father lived.