*Here’s another story of domestic violence that doesn’t make sense.
The Washington Post is reporting that a young Ashville, North Carolina mother who was found shot to death in a park alongside her severely-wounded son, was killed by her boyfriend because she refused his demands to have an abortion.
Candace Pickens, 23, was found by a jogger May 12. She had been shot in the head and her three-year-old son, Zachaeus, was found next to her, clinging to life.
Zachaeus is reportedly in critical but stable condition and has lost his left eye.
Nathaniel Elijah Dixon, 24, was arrested in Ohio and was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and first-degree murder of an unborn child. He’s awaiting extradition back to North Carolina.
Dixon has a long criminal history and suspected ties to a Crips street gang in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, on a GoFundMe page set up for the family, a friend of Pickens writes:
Candace was an amazing mother, friend and person. She was always smiling and made the best out of life. She had recently found out she was pregnant and was murdered because she refused an abortion. So many loved ones have lost such an amazing person and more importantly an innocent child has not only witnessed his mothers murder the day after his third birthday.
As far as Pickens’s friends and relatives are concerned, the motive was clear.
“He found out she was pregnant and he wanted her to abort the baby,” Irene Jenny Pickens told The Post. “She would never do that. It wasn’t an option for her, and that’s what sparked the violence.”
She added: “You could tell things were going on between them based on what she was posting on Facebook — but I don’t think anyone expected anything like this.”
Christina Hallingse, a spokeswoman for the Asheville Police Department, told The Post that authorities can’t confirm whether Pickens’s apparent refusal to undergo an abortion was a motive in her killing, citing the ongoing investigation.
“The Asheville Police Department does not provide comment on an offender’s motive because that information is sensitive to the case itself,” Hallingse said. “Our responsibility at this point in the investigation is to present the best case possible to the District Attorney’s Office for prosecution of the suspected offender.”
Read/learn MORE at the Washington Post.
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