Man 'decapitates his mother and carries her severed head into the street'

A man is accused of decapitating his mother before carrying her severed head out of the house.

During the grisly scene, 18-year-old Oliver Funes Machada allegedly killed his mother and then walked out the front door of her house holding the woman’s head, authorities said.

Oliver Funes Machada was charged Monday with first-degree murder after he called emergency services to say he had killed his mother, according to a Franklin County Sheriff’s Office statement.

He did not resist arrest and the body of his 35-year-old mother, Yesenia Funez Beatriz Machado, was found inside the home.

Machada’s attorney C. Boyd Sturges III, said: ‘It does appear there’s some substantial mental health issues involved in this case.

‘I’m not a doctor, so I can’t really elaborate. He’s a pretty profoundly disturbed young man in a mental health kind of way.’

District Attorney Mike Waters said officials were seeking a mental evaluation of the suspect. Due to the suspect’s apparent mental state, Waters said, ‘this is something that’s going to take weeks and months for us to get some answers as to why this happened.’

The district attorney said the suspect was being transferred to Central Prison in Raleigh and his next court appearance was set for March 14.

Two young girls in the home were not hurt. A fourth child was in school when the attack occurred.

Neighbor Randy Mullins said he believes the other children were the suspect’s siblings.

Mullins was leaving his house minutes after the first deputy arrived and he said he saw the woman’s head lying in the front yard about five feet from the porch.

The deputy appeared to have just handcuffed the suspect and seemed rattled when Mullins approached to ask if he needed help.

‘You could see in his face he had a lot of concern. I’m not saying he was scared, but you could tell he was concerned,’ Mullins said of the deputy.

Mullins then went back to his house across the street and told his 91-year-old mother to stay inside.

He said a half-dozen more law enforcement vehicles arrived within minutes and a deputy covered the woman’s head.

‘I couldn’t believe it. Things like that don’t happen,’ said Mullins, 59, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years.

‘You can’t believe somebody would do that. You hear about that, but it never happens across the street from you.’

On Tuesday, a group of friends or relatives went to the house where the woman was killed, loading belongings including a stroller into two mini-vans.

The exact names of the suspect and his mother were unclear. Local court records list the suspect’s name as Oliver Funes Machada, Sturges said, while Federal records list his name as Oliver Funes Machado, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Bryan Cox.

In a statement, Cox said the suspect was from Honduras and is believed to be in the country illegally.

Franklin County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Terry Wright gave the mother’s name as Yesenia Beatriz Funez Machado, citing the spelling provided to authorities by her 14-year-old son.