By Mark Price
The Charlotte Observer
CHAROLOTTE, N.C. — The Eastern North Carolina teenager accused of beheading his mother on Monday told a 911 dispatcher that he killed her “because I felt like it,” according to sworn statements cited by TV station WNCN.
Oliver Mauricio Funes-Machado, 18, told dispatchers that he stabbed her “like eight times” and left the knife in her mouth, according to the news report.
The suspected killer is now in jail, charged with first-degree murder in the killing of his 35-year-old mother, Yesenia Funes Beatriz Machado. He is also wanted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for being in the country illegally. Funes-Machada is originally from Honduras, ICE officials said Tuesday.
Two of Funes-Machado’s siblings, a 4-year-old sister and 2-year-old brother, were in the house at the time.
Funes-Machado is the one who called 911, about 12:47 p.m. Monday. Officials say the first deputy on scene observed Funes-Machada walking out of his family’s home “carrying a knife in one hand and a severed human head in the other,” the affidavit states.
WNCN reports deputies found “a decapitated body” on the floor between the kitchen and the living room. Deputies also found a “large kitchen knife with apparent blood,” it was reported.
Deputies seized medication, labeled as being for Funes-Machado, that could be used to treat psychosis and schizophrenia, WNCN reported.
The killing happened about 190 miles east of Charlotte in the small Pilot community of Franklin County. The closest town is Zebulon, an eastern Wake County town of 4,400 people.
Coverage of the shocking murder has gone international, with headlines in Europe playing up the sight of Funes-Machado greeting a sheriff’s deputy with a severed head in one hand. The Sun in the United Kingdom referred to the event as a “Beheading Horror” and claimed Funes-Machado “decapitated his own mum in front of her kids then confronted cops carrying her head.”
Media in the Raleigh area are reporting the crime scene was traumatic for the responding deputies.
Station WTVD says the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office is bringing in a team of independent counselors to help deputies emotionally cope with what they saw. The “critical incident stress debriefing” will focus on all 20 first responders who were there.
Copyright 2017 The Charlotte Observer