TYLER — A man held on a capital murder charge in the death of his 21-year-old girlfriend tried to cook and eat her body before police arrived, authorities said today.

The woman's death and mutilation were apparently the beginning of a crime spree that included the murder suspect stabbing the boyfriend of his estranged wife and breaking into a business. The stabbing victim is in critical condition at an area hospital, officials said.

Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, of Tyler, is in the Smith County Jail on a $2 million bond today and did not have an attorney, officials said.

Sheriff officials were alerted Saturday morning after McCuin told his mother and her boyfriend to look in their garage. There, the couple saw the body of 21-year-old Jana Shearer, McCuin's girlfriend. McCuin's mother and her boyfriend fled the home and flagged down a police officer.

After they left, McCuin called 911 and told an emergency dispatcher he had killed his girlfriend and was boiling parts of her, said Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith.

When authorities arrived at the home, they found Shearer's mutilated body, one ear boiling in a pot of water on the stove and some human flesh sitting on a plate with a fork on the kitchen table.

"I'm never shocked anymore, but I am surprised that human beings can actually do this kind of stuff to each other," Smith told the Tyler Morning Telegraph in a story on its Web site today. "You ask yourself how anyone could do anything like this to someone else. I just don't have an answer."

Shearer appeared to die from blunt trauma to her head, Smith said. Sheriff deputies say they believe she was abducted by McCuin from her home Friday night.

"That's the last time anyone saw her, and we feel she was taken against her will because she was not wearing any shoes. She didn't have her purse or her cell phone," Smith said.

Smith said McCuin then drove to his estranged wife's home, where he stabbed William Veasley, 42. Veasley remains in intensive care at a Tyler hospital.

McCuin was still in that home when deputies arrived, but he jumped into his car and escaped after a short chase, Smith said.

McCuin wasn't seen again until Saturday morning, when he arrived at his mother's home and called her into the garage so she could "come see what he had done," Smith said.

When sheriff deputies arrived, McCuin barricaded himself in the home for a short time before coming out. After he emerged, a tactical team entered and found Shearer's body, Sgt. Gary Middleton said.

After McCuin was arrested and placed in the back of a patrol car, he kicked out the vehicle's side window before being put in additional restraints, Middleton said.

Detectives were trying to determine where the murder happened. They think McCuin drove to his mother's home with the dead woman in the back seat of his extended-cab pickup, said Sheriff's Lt. Larry Wiginton.

"He didn't just kill her and that was it," Wiginton said. "This murder went on for a while and it was pretty brutal and there was some evidence of some really weird stuff."

McCuin has a criminal record that includes driving while intoxicated and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charges, according to court records. When he was arrested, McCuin had an outstanding felony retaliation warrant.

Neighbors say they believed McCuin was on drugs and had acted strangely.

"He would stand in the roadway and wouldn't let people pass and he would talk to himself. He acted crazy," said next door neighbor Pam Hightower.