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Eric R. Meagan and the river where he allegedly drowned his mother (New Milton Police Department and WVIT screenshot)
A 34-year-old man in Connecticut was arrested this week for allegedly drowning his mother in a public park, calling the police to report the murder, and then telling officers that he was “sacrificing” his mom to “make the demons stop.”
Eric R. Meagan was taken into custody on Monday and charged with one count of murder in the death of 56-year-old Victoria Palmer, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to a press release from the New Milford Police Department, officers responded to a 911 call at 8:25 a.m. on Monday from a man — later identified as Meagan — saying he had just killed his mother in the Still River near Harrybrooke Park, about 35 miles northwest of New Haven, Connecticut.
Police say Meagan remained on the line with the emergency dispatcher for several minutes and “described the events that led to the incident and his location along the river.”
Once there, first responders took Meagan into custody without incident. His mother was pulled from the river and taken to New Milford Hospital, where she died.
Further details about the tragic slaying were revealed during Meagan’s Tuesday arraignment in Torrington before Superior Court Judge Chris Pelosi, The News-Times reported.
According to the report, police say that when they located Meagan by the riverside, he told the officers that he had not slept at all the previous night because he had been “tormented by demons.” He also allegedly 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.
“I tried to drown my mom,” he reportedly said to police, allegedly adding that he was trying to “make the demons stop” by “sacrificing” her.
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“He described the demons as insects all over him but he can’t see them. He can only feel them, and they have been tormenting him for weeks,” police wrote in an arrest report obtained by the News-Times.
The report further detailed how Meagan allegedly described how he planned the attack on his mother and invited her to join him on one of their walks through the park. When they got to the riverbank, he reportedly described how he pushed her into the water and then put her in a headlock and held her beneath the surface for about 10 minutes.
Meagan said that his mother fought him for several minutes, but he could keep hold of her as he slowly drifted farther from the shore and into deeper water until she finally went completely limp, per the News-Times.
After his mother’s body went limp, Meagan reportedly told investigators that he returned to the shore, pulling her body along with him and leaving her floating facedown in the water.
Meagan — who is living with “significant mental health issues,” according to his attorney – also reportedly explained the tragic reason he chose to kill his mother after a previous attempt to quell the demons by strangling one of the family’s cats failed.
“He stated that strangling his cats was his first attempt at making the demons stop but that it was not enough. When asked why he chose his mother, he stated, ‘because I love her the most.’ He stated he feels safe now,” police wrote in court documents, according to the News-Times. “He believed his mother loved him so much she would have been willing to sacrifice herself to save him.”
Meagan is currently being held on $2 million bond and is scheduled to return to court on July 7.
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