New Year’s Eve Decapitation: 23-Year-Old Beheads His Mother With Axe Because She Nagged Him To Do Chores

For Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the beheading of a 48-year-old woman at the hands of her mentally ill 23-year-old son was one of the grisliest crime scenes the police officer had ever encountered.

The Guardian reports that the suspect, Christian Gomez, became upset when his mother asked him to do some chores, and move a few boxes into the attic of the family’s house.

So, as the rest of us ushered in the new year, Gomez took an axe to his mother, Maria Suarez Cassagne, and hacked at her neck till he decapitated her.

As Sheriff Gualtieri told reporters, “I don’t think it gets much worse than that. This whole circumstance is probably one of the worst, certainly, that we’ve ever seen, with a decapitation and the head stuck in a garbage can. It’s terrible.”

The suspect was found soon after the incident by police, taken to the Pinellas County Jail, and held without bail on a charge of first-degree murder.

The authorities knew Gomez well, having arrested him a number of times for minor charges such as disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in 2009, and loitering and prowling in March 2014, which he was not prosecuted for.

Sadly, as reported by the Mirror, Gomez has a history of mental problems, including a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In 2013, he was held for a mandatory mental evaluation under the law known as the Baker Act. In that case, Gomez started waving a skateboard at a passer-by and making incoherent comments, Gualtieri said.

The victim lived along with her son Christian, an older son named Mario, and a 16-year-old daughter at the Sheffield Court property. Gomez was allegedly very jealous of his older brother, believing his mother gave him more attention.

According to Sheriff Gualtieri, Gomez spent two days planning the killing, and after cutting off his mother’s head, he carried it out of the garage and put it in a trash can outside the house, before dragging her body outside, but was unable to hoist it into the trash can.

Pinellas deputies were alerted in the early evening on New Year’s Eve and found Christian Gomez in a nearby neighborhood. They noted blood on his socks and reported that he admitted to the killing, acknowledging it was wrong and against the law.