When police responded to the 5400 block of California Boulevard for a report of an unresponsive person last October, they found the body of 57-year-old Janie McCray, and massive trauma to the body suggested she had been struck and killed by a car.
RELATED: Son charged months after mother's murder
But Baltimore City Police Chief T.J. Smith says they soon discovered they weren't looking for a hit-and-run driver.
They were looking for a killer.
"Once we got the autopsy results, we found out that she was also shot and that she was run over, it looks like, more than one time," said Smith.
Attention turned to 37-year-old Michael Singleton of Havre de Grace---the victim's son.
Police had responded to a domestic call the night before McCray's death at her apartment on Greenspring Avenue in North Baltimore where tempers flared between her and her son.
"The motive behind this? (We) don't really know, but it appears to be some argument that continued to escalate and it escalated into the death of his mother," said Smith.
Singleton would later tell police that he had headed home from the squabble, but returned when his mother called asking him to take her to buy marijuana near Forest Park Golf Course.
Evidence suggests Singleton shot his mother in the back with a shotgun and then ran over her body with his car, not once, but twice, backing over her with the vehicle as he left the scene.
"Domestic situations sometimes are just someone snapping or it's something that builds up over time and people know about it, but don't pay much attention to it,” said Smith, “We need people to pay attention to domestic violence."
Singleton now faces a series of charges including first-degree murder after allegedly taking the life of the woman who gave him life in the first place.
