Decapitation case: Suspect says he ‘felt like’ killing

The first deputy on the scene saw the suspect leave the house “carrying a knife in one hand and a severed human head in the other,” the court documents state. The warrants say a large, bloody kitchen knife and the mother’s head were collected from the front yard by investigators.

The exact spelling of the suspect’s name was unclear. Local court records list him as Oliver Funes Machada; federal records as Oliver Funes Machado. The mother’s name, according to local authorities who received the information from a 14-year-old son, is Yesenia Beatriz Funez Machado, 35. The suspect was from Honduras and in the U.S. illegally, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Bryan Cox.

He was charged Monday with first-degree murder, according to the arrest warrant. A search warrant indicates the deputies found his mother’s body between the kitchen and living room, and that two younger siblings were in the house as well.

District Attorney Mike Waters said officials were seeking a mental evaluation of the suspect, and that his apparent mental issues could delay uncovering a motive for weeks or months. The warrants say he was on four medications for a psychiatric condition, but don’t elaborate.

“He’s a pretty profoundly disturbed young man,” his public defender, attorney C. Boyd Sturges III, said Tuesday after speaking with him in the jail.

The suspect was being transferred to a prison in Raleigh, and his next court appearance was set for next Tuesday, Waters said.

Neighbour Randy Mullins was leaving his house minutes after the first deputy arrived and he said he saw the woman’s head in the front yard. Mullins said the family, who had lived in the home since around June 2016, seemed nice but that he didn’t know them well.

“I couldn’t believe it. Things like that don’t happen,” said Mullins, 59, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 25 years. “You can’t believe somebody would do that. You hear about that, but it never happens across the street from you.”

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Associated Press writer Tom Foreman Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

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Follow Drew at www.twitter.com/jonldrew .

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This story has been corrected to reflect that the two youngest siblings of the suspect were a boy and a girl, based on new information from authorities.

Jonathan Drew, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Decapitation case: Suspect says he ‘felt like’ killing

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