ZEBULON, N.C. (WNCN) – A judge signed an order that dropped charges against a Franklin County teen accused of cutting his mother’s head off on March 6, according to county authorities.
Oliver Mauricio Funes-Machado, 18, accused of beheading his 35-year-old mother, then walking out of their home with her head in one hand and a butcher knife in the other to wait for deputies to respond to the 911 call he made.
He told dispatchers he killed Yesenia Funes Beatriz Machada “because I felt like it,” according to court documents.
The first deputy on scene “observed a male exit the house carrying a knife in one hand and a severed human head in the other,” an affidavit states.
The home where the 35-year-old woman was killed was called a “gruesome scene” by Franklin County Sheriff Kent Winstead.
The judge’s order says Funes-Machado will be involuntarily committed to a facility in Butner. He is currently being housed in Central Prison.
Machado’s attorney Boyd Sturges said the judge ruled his client isn’t mentally competent to stand trial.
That ruling was based on the medical evaluations by a team of doctors at Central Regional Hospital, Sturges said.
If at any point in the future he’s deemed competent, he’ll be re-charged, Sturges said.
In the days following the killing, ICE confirmed Funes-Machado is in the U.S. illegally from Honduras.
Wake County Public Schools confirmed Funes-Machado was a student at Rolesville High School but stopped attending in 2016.
According to Franklin County Schools officials, the teen was enrolled in the school system from Sept. 1, 2016 until Nov. 14, 2016. The official said he was unsure of what grade Funes-Machado was in when he enrolled.
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