Police officials said the 34-year-old man, Eric M. was taken into custody and charged with a murder after he called 911 and told the dispatcher that he drowned his own mother in a park river earlier this week. Per reports, the suspect also told the dispatcher that he sacrificed his mother in a bid to ‘keep the demons away.’ Eric reportedly drowned his 56-year-old mother Victoria, police said in a press release.

‘My mom’s dead. I killed her, I had to keep the demons away. Yeah, I had to. I had to do it to keep the demons away.’ Eric purportedly told the dispatcher in the 911 call. The son claimed dragging his mother into the river on Monday morning and holding her underwater for roughly 10 minutes until she stopped moving. About 30 minutes later, the 34-year-old man called 911 to calmly report his alleged crime.

Asked if he was still hearing the demons, Eric told the dispatcher: ‘I was feeling them. I’m not feeling them now that she’s dead,’ the son added. ‘The demons have been constantly plaguing me.’ Victoria’s body was pulled from the water and rushed to the nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead. During an interview with investigators, the 34-year-old man reportedly admitted that he had invited his mother to go for a walk in the park with him, something they reportedly did regularly, knowing that he planned on ‘hurting’ her.

The son later told cops he had been having a ‘hard time for the past couple of weeks’ and that he had sought help for mental health issues. At the time of the mother’s drowning, Meagan had not been taking his anti anxiety medication, court documents stated. Court officials noted Meagan having been in treatment, having no previous record and living at the same home for the past 10 years, CT Insider reported. A previous attempt to quell the demons by strangling one of the family’s cats failed according to the man’s attorney.