Writing them down is a kind of exorcism.
The short phrase is so gravid with meaning that it seems to me that the only way to deal with it is to treat it like a poem.
A poem something like a haiku or 4 line Malay pantun.
killed
with wooden elephant
Killed. Following the previous noun the word becomes a question. How, why, with what? It is disturbing, with more of a suggestion of violence than 'died' or 'dead'.
Woman killed.
With wooden elephant.
A sudden incongruity. The leap to contrasting image and thought that is the essence of haiku - Forget counting syllables. That is for the pedants. - There is something almost humourous in the absurdity, yet at the same time something unpleasant. The first association is somehow violated by such a trivail detail. We cannot help but imagine the 'how'. Almost certainly the death was a crude and brutal bludgeoning with the nearest heavy object, yet the mind wants to make it something more.
A gigantic life size wooden elephant, perhaps a symbolic Holmesian ritual killing, or a tiny wooden elephant conceled in a fortune cookie.
It will remain a mystery, but in our imagination we can reconstruct a tragic comedy.
It seems to me that there is only one thing lacking from the poem, and that is context. Like a haiku it should start from a particular context.
The context for me was the sign board for the local paper outside a newsagents. Is there a name for these signs?
No matter, it is the sign that gives it context and another level of meaning, and a new direction of thought.
woman
killed
with wooden elephant