DAVIE, Fla. (WFOR ) — A Davie, Florida, woman called the police on her son after he reportedly beat her with a bat and tried to set her on fire.
Harolyn Monroe made the desperate call for help last Tuesday, asking that officers come to her apartment in the 7300 block of Stirling Road.
“My son, he tried to kill me, please hurry,” Harolyn Monroe told the 911 operator. “Oh he’s right behind me, please send somebody.”
“Why did you feel that you needed to hit me with a bat and try to set me on fire,” she asked her son while on the line with 911. “Why did you do what you did?”
Monroe told the police that she had been having ongoing disciplinary problems with her 17-year-old son James.
James, who attends Hollywood Hills High, told the police his mother has been angry with him due to his lack of maturity and his sneaking out at night, according to his arrest report.
“According to our police report, the mother had a problem with the son’s behavior and his use of social media and going out at night with friends,” Davie Police Sergeant Mark Leone told CBS4’s Peter D’Oench,
According to the police, sometime after midnight, James made an improvised Molotov Cocktail by filling a glass jar with alcohol and stuffing a rag on the top. He then reportedly walked into his mother’s bedroom, lit the rag and through the jar at the ceiling over his mother’s bed where she was sleeping.
The jar exploded, raining down shattered glass and flames.
James then grabbed a baseball bat and “intentionally hit his mother several times with the bat all over her body and head,” according to the arrest report.
He then allegedly grabbed a butcher-style knife from the kitchen and stabbed her in the stomach.
“This was gruesome. There was blood throughout the apartment and there was blood splatter on the walls and the ceiling. The son reportedly hit the mother in the head, face, back and legs multiple times. This was very violent. The mother was in the room and then suddenly a fireball came in,” Leone said,
She was able to make it out of the apartment and call the police.
During questioning, James reportedly told investigators that he did it because he was angry.
“He stated that he was not trying to kill his mother, he just wanted to hurt her,” according to the report.
Harolyn Monroe was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital where she underwent emergency surgery.
James Monroe was arrested and has been charged with attempted murder and making a destructive device with the intent to do harm.
He could eventually be charged as an adult and faces a hearing in Juvenile Court on Friday.
Students at Hollywood Hills High School said they were horrified by the attack.
“This is crazy. I would never do something like that to my mother. From what I heard he had been having problems but never like he was going to try to kill somebody,” said senior Jose Murphy.
Another senior, Jared Lucas, said, “It’s horrible. Who would stab their mom like that? And set her on fire. That is messed up. I do not even have the words for something like that.”
