A California man was arraigned earlier this week on charges of murder and desecration of human remains after allegedly detailing to investigators how he killed his mother and how “good” he felt after the brutal slaying, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Omar Mark Pettigen of Fremont was arraigned Tuesday at the Fremont Hall of Justice. Court documents detailed the gruesome killing, providing a timeline for when Pettigen’s father, Saladen Pettigen, called the police from New Mexico after not hearing from his ex-wife.
According to the Chronicle, Saladen Pettigen on Sept. 29 requested a welfare check at the apartment where Omar Pettigen lived with his mother because the elder Pettigen could not get in touch with them to pray over the phone as they normally did. Officers arrived and knocked on the door, then walked in, since the door was unlocked, only to find Nailah Pettigen, 64, dead on the floor of her bedroom.
Officers described Nailah Pettigen’s body as having a long incision on the chest. Coroners concluded at the scene that she had been shot in the head and torso. There were no signs of forced entry or any valuables taken from the house, the news site notes.
Authorities caught up with Omar Pettigen in Kensington, Calif., Sunday, following a call reporting a suspicious man with a duffel bag on the porch of a home. Pettigen was arrested and, while being interviewed by investigators, reportedly described how he had killed his mother because “she was killing herself with oxycodone she had become addicted to” from knee problems and hip surgeries, the Chronicle reports.
Omar Pettigen reportedly told investigators that his mother had been yelling at him Sept. 28 and pointing a gun at him as she sat on her bed. Omar Pettigen said that he took a hammer hanging from the wall in the bedroom and hit the gun out of his mother’s hand. He then told investigators he left the bedroom and came back with a tomahawk and hit her in the head, the Chronicle reports, before taking a revolver from the closet and shooting her in the back four times.
It is then, police say, that Pettigen disemboweled his mother, the Chronicle reports.
A court affidavit by Fremont Police Detective Craig Gaches indicated that Omar Pettigen stopped to see a friend in San Francisco after the slaying, grabbing a few beers and seemingly unbothered by his alleged actions.
“I asked how he felt about his actions and he said, ‘Good,’” Gaches stated in the affidavit, according to the Chronicle. “During the interview, Omar did not show signs of remorse by crying or being upset in any way.”
Family members told detectives that Omar Pettigen and his mother had not been getting along, with his behavior noticeably changing since he had returned from a trip to Morocco months earlier, court documents said.
Omar Pettigen is currently being held in a Dublin, Calif., jail without bail.
Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.