The mother of a young man charged with murdering his stepfather told Eyewitness News she still loves her son, but is thankful he's behind bars.

Jennifer Cloninger was also beaten in the head with the gun and stabbed in the forearm by her son, 21-year-old Matthew Safrit.

"I have a knot behind my ear, my ear was cut open. I have a stab wound here, it went straight down my arm" Cloninger said. "And he hit me with the gun; he hit me twice with the gun."

Jennifer still has visible wounds from the attack; she has a black eye, several stitches in her ear, cuts on her arm, and a big bruise on her head.

Matthew Safrit drove his grandmother's car to visit his girlfriend in Shelby Friday night.

Jennifer and her husband Nathan went to pick it up. They didn't tell Matthew they were coming to get the car back.

 Clonginger said her son was drunk and angry when he answered the door, threw the car keys at her, and then slammed the door in her face.

Nathan yelled at Matthew to treat his mother with more respect.

"Nathan came up and came to the door and banged on the door and said, 'Matt your stuff is going out of the house tonight,'" she recalled.

The couple was walking back to the car and was getting ready to leave when Matthew opened the door and came running at them.

"When I turned around and looked, Matthew had come charging, just charging, out the door with the gun; with his arm straight out. And just unloaded point black inside the door, at [Nathan's] legs," Cloninger said.

"He held the gun over the door and just, ‘Pow!, Pow!, Pow!’" she continued.

 Cloninger said her son wasn't saying anything during the shooting. His face was pale white, she said, but he had no emotion on his face.

She said Safrit then went back inside to grab a knife, before rushing back outside again. He started stabbing Nathan's body.

"He was stabbing Nathan in the chest, in the stomach. And I got Matthew pulled back and pushed off of him. And I held my arm up to try and grab his hand. And he came and stabbed me," Cloninger said.

Jennifer and Nathan had been married for seven months. They met in high school, but they didn't start dating until two years ago.

"I'll never be able to see him again. We waited 23 years to be together. And now, I'll have to deal with never being able to see him again," she said.

Cloninger shared with Eyewitness News the last photos taken of Nathan from a vacation last weekend in Myrtle Beach. The couple went parasailing.

"He loved life. He enjoyed life, he enjoyed being with his family. He was surrounded by people all the time," she said.

Cloninger said Nathan was the love of her life. "He would do anything for anybody," she said. "He was just a fun loving guy, and that will be missed. So much."

She told Eyewitness News her feelings about her son change every day.

"Yesterday I thought I’d never want to lay eyes on him again. Today, I feel like he's actually probably better off where he is," she said.

Cloninger is still grieving for her husband, and she isn't sure if she'll have the strength to face her son in court Monday.

 Still, she wants to look him in the eyes and ask him a question.

"That's what I want to know. If he realizes what he's done," she said. "There's a black hole in my heart right now, and Matthew put it there."

Matthew Safrit is charged with murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault on a Sheriff K-9. Officers said he repeatedly punched the police dog who tracked him down.

Jennifer Cloninger has several stitches in her ear and forearm. She will go back to the doctor on Friday.