Teen arrested after greeting police with butcher's knife and mother's severed head

An 18-year-old teenager in North Carolina was arrested on Monday after decapitating his mother and then calling police, authorities say. Oliver Funez walked out of the house carrying a butcher's knife in one hand and his mother's severed head in the other as police arrived, reports said.

Police said that Funez called police to the house just east of Zebulon, North Carolina around 1pm on Monday. When police arrived, officers said he placed the head on the ground and was arrested.

A sherriff said it was "a gruesome scene" to local news site, WRAL.com. Two children were thought to be in the home at the time of the incident but neither was injured, another son was at school at the time.

A neighbour told the news site that he passed by the scene later and could not forget the look he saw on one police officer's face: "He just looked like he was just blown away. I mean, he was just in terror, he was so upset."

Funez has been charged with first-degree murder and could appear in court as quickly as Tuesday, ABC 11 reported. Officers told reporters that they could not say how many times Funez's mother, 35-year-old Yesenia Funez Beatriz Machado, had been stabbed.

Another neighbour said that they saw Machado's husband arrive at the scene, saying "we just heard him crying and you could hear him all over the place."