Police: Man charged with murder in 10-year-old's death

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — A man is accused of killing a 10-year-old boy and seriously injuring his mother.

Officers discovered the boy and woman inside their Kannapolis home Sunday night.

Kannapolis police got a call to check on the house and the family that lived there. Inside, they found the 10-year-old boy dead, and his mother severely injured.

On Monday, it was all customers were talking about in the convenience store across the street.

“There's really nothing. Never no crimes like that in this area. Really, there's not,” neighbor Juanita Norris said.

Police haven’t said how the boy was killed.

Detectives said his mom's boyfriend, who also lived there, was missing when they arrived.

Early Monday morning, police arrested Eugene Mays in Gastonia. He's now charged with first-degree murder.

All of it is still a shock to Adam Roesler, who can see the crime scene from his video store.

“I came in this morning and just had a really bad feeling that something bad had happened, obviously,” he said.

Roesler said Mays and the woman he's accused of injuring were regular customers.

“I mean, everything seemed fine between the two of them,” he said.

Neighbor Marti Fredell still can't make sense of what police say happened within a family she remembers seeing in a much different light.

“They had a little kid that would be out playing on the front porch.  You would see the man, he'd be tinkering with a car, and there would be a lady sitting on the front porch,” she said.

WSOC