DEKALB COUNTY, GA (WGCL/CNN) – Police said a father beat his 5-year-old son to death with a shovel Wednesday, and then buried him in a backyard.
Neighbors in the Atlanta suburb where it happened are shaken.
"Something horrible happened here last night and it just broke my heart. It just destroyed me," said neighbor Hoke Johnson.
Johnson knows only what he saw happening in front of his Rocky Pine Drive home near Lithonia.
"The little baby is gone now," Johnson said.
In frustration, Johnson recalled the chaotic scene Wednesday night, when police said a father killed his 5-year-old son.
"I didn't even really want to know how he died,” Johnson said.
The details of what happened are so gruesome that it was difficult even for first responders.
"They located the mother, who was attempting to leave to take the child to an area hospital. But the child was already deceased," said Shiera Campbell of the DeKalb County Police Department.
WGCL was told the 5-year-old’s mother and grandmother went to run errands. The father – 25-year-old Montrais Boyd – was with the children at home.
The house belongs to the boy’s grandmother. The other children are Boyd’s younger siblings.
"When they arrived home from running errands, the grandmother entered the house and was told by the younger siblings that the father had killed the five-year-old," Campbell said.
According to police, the mother went to look for the child and found him buried in the backyard by his father.
"The father had bludgeoned the child with a shovel to the point where the child was partially decapitated," Campbell said.
Police said the boy was living with his grandmother, and that his parents are visiting from California.
Police also said nobody else in the home was hurt and are calling the killing an isolated incident.
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