JACKSONVILLE, FL – Police have arrested 14-year-old Mitchell Daughtry after they say he stabbed his mother to death before stealing the family car and trying to commit suicide.
On the day she was murdered, 52-year-old Pamela Daughtry sent texts to her older daughter asking her to come home and talk to her brother because he was angry.
She did not see the text until an hour later and by time she got home, it was too late. She walked into the home to find her mother had been stabbed to death and that her brother had taken items from a safe before leaving in their mother’s 2007 Volvo.
That night, Daughtry started sending out texts to friends and family, admitting what he’d done. Police would locate him five miles away in South Florida after he had taken pills in a botched suicide attempt.
Daughtry was initially taken into custody under a state law allowing for the detainment of those suspected to be mentally ill. After a short stay in a mental health facility, Daughtry was transferred to Duval County jail on second-degree murder charges.
“It is my understanding that the State Attorney’s Office is going to seek to charge him as an adult,” said Lt. Steve Gallaher of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators say Daughtry was depressed and suicidal because, in part, his father has been in jail since February for alleged sex crimes involving an unrelated child. Police said his family was so concerned about the teen that they kept kitchen knives locked in a safe.
This article was written by Morbid for The Dreamin Demon - the Internet's self-appointed buzzkill.