A tragic incident has unfolded in Kentucky, where a man stands accused of murdering his wife, leaving her body at their residence for several days, and subsequently setting her car ablaze with her remains inside.

The Bowling Green Daily News reports that 31-year-old Salko Husejnovic faces charges of murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with physical evidence. Allegations suggest that Husejnovic kept the body of his wife, Jasmina Aljic, on their kitchen floor for three days, misleading their three children by claiming she was asleep.

Compounding the situation, 44-year-old Shelly Boyd, who is the girlfriend of Husejnovic’s brother, has also been charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence related to this grim case.

During a preliminary hearing held on Friday, Detective Tim Robinson from the Warren County Sheriff’s Office recounted the events leading to the discovery. Authorities were alerted to a car fire in the early hours of January 19, where deputies and firefighters arrived to find human remains on the passenger side floorboard of the vehicle.

At a preliminary hearing on Friday, Warren County Sheriff’s Office Detective Tim Robinson testified that the sheriff’s office was called for a car fire early in the morning of January 19. Deputies and fire personnel found human remains on the floorboard of the passenger side.

Robinson said the medical examiner found no soot in Aljic’s airway, suggesting she was already dead when the fire started.

When investigators first spoke with Husejnovic, he initially denied any knowledge of what happened to his wife — who had a restraining order against him from when they lived in Missouri — telling them he hadn’t seen her since November.

After detectives executed a search warrant and found clothing that matched what Boyd was seen wearing in surveillance footage just before the car was found burning — and three pillows that appeared to be bloodstained — she admitted that she was the home and “heard Salko beating Jasmina,” Robinson testified.

She told detectives that they left Aljic’s body on the floor for three days, telling the kids their mother was sleeping and without “any attempts to summon help.”

Boyd said she had been staying at the home after a domestic dispute with Husejnovic’s brother.

Then, she said, Boyd got a can of gasoline and she and Husejnovic drove the body to Threlkel Ferry Road, court documents said. Robinson testified on Friday that Husejnovic first tried to push the car over a cliff before pouring the gasoline everywhere and using a rag to set it alight.

Detectives brought Husejnovic in for an interview.

“(Husejnovic) states that he and Jasmina got into an argument, he states that he struck her and she stopped breathing,” Robinson said. “He states that it was (Boyd’s) idea not to call 911, that it was her idea to leave the body in the kitchen, that it was her idea to buy the gasoline and light the fire.”

Husejnovic also claimed that Aljic was alive when they set the car on fire.

Robinson said the children had been placed with Aljic’s family members in Missouri.

Husejnovic is being held on a $1 million bond, while Boyd was given a $50,000 bond.