A Jackson man suspected of beating his mother to death with a hammer was arrested in Carroll County on Wednesday following a dangerous high-speed chase, according to authorities.
Dekarius Funches, 21, was caught Wednesday after 8 p.m. by officers from the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department and the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
Jackson media outlets report that he is accused of killing his 42-year-old mother, Latasha Funches, with a hammer at a home on Lakewood Drive.
According to the Jackson Police Department, Dekarius Funches has been charged with murder. Bond had not been set as of Thursday afternoon, and he is scheduled to appear in court on Friday morning.
A release from the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department said Funches had recently been released from prison.
The Sheriff’s Department had been called Wednesday evening to assist in catching Funches, who was traveling north on I-55 at a high rate of speed. The release said Clint Walker, the Carroll County sheriff, was soon alerted by the Madison County Sheriff’s Department that it was ceasing its pursuit because the suspect “had become so reckless that he was endangering other motorists.”
Carroll County deputies and state troopers then pursued Funches, who was “clocked during the chase at 140 miles per hour and consistently maintained speeds in excess of 120 mph,” the release said. It was later determined that the vehicle Funches was driving, a 2015 Honda accord, allegedly had been stolen from a teenage girl by him after the deadly assault on his mother. The girl was not harmed, the release said.
After authorities were successful in forcing Funches to stop the vehicle near the interstate’s Duck Hill exit, they noticed as he got out that “he was covered in blood and that blood was also present in the vehicle,” the release said.
Funches was transported by Carroll County deputies back to Jackson, and he was turned over to authorities there.
In addition to the murder charge, Funches has been charged with auto theft, television station WAPT reported.
