HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Police said they have charged the daughter of a woman found dead in her home Tuesday with murder.
According to Hollywood police, Martha Walker used an ax to kill her mother. She was arrested Tuesday night and charged with premeditated murder.
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Police said Walker, 38, was arguing with her mother, Carmen Santiago, Monday night about moving her from the Hollywood home she had recently sold on Funston Street to Fayetteville, N.C., where Walker lives. According to police, Santiago, 76, didn't want to leave.
According to the police report, Walker told police that during the scuffle with her mother, Santiago pulled a revolver and threatened to shoot her, at which time Walker picked up an ax, but the report made no mention of officers finding a gun in the house. Police said Walker told them the two fell on a piece of furniture when she accidentally slit her mother's throat.
Police said they received a tip from an anonymous caller Tuesday that Walker was staying at a Dania Beach motel and Santiago was dead in the home.
According to police, when officers first arrived at the house, they found blood-stained sheets in the washing machine, a bloody ax in the bedroom and Santiago's body in a bathroom with her head wrapped in a towel and duct-taped. Police said Walker told them she wrapped her mother's head in the towel because she couldn't stand to look at her.
Police said Walker told them she was planning to clean her mother's body and purchase wood to build a box that she would use to bring the body to North Carolina.
"How can a daughter kill the person that brought her to life?" Hollywood police spokesman Carlos Negron said. "It's something that's unspeakable."
Walker was being held without bond at a Broward County jail awaiting her first appearance in court.