Kyriakos Savvas Georghiou had previously been accused of punching the 76-year-old woman in the face in April.
His attorney, Jeffrey Wilner, said Georghiou’s parents posted his $10,000 bail in the assault case last month and were getting him mental health treatment at a facility in Houston. Georghiou had been in jail since June for the alleged assault.
“The mother loved him. His dad loved him. … I’m just in shock,” Wilner said Monday, adding that he “would have called the police and told his dad not to bond him out” if he had any idea that Georghiou would be a danger to his family.
Georghiou, 27, allegedly went to his parents’ house on Friday and started stabbing Jane Georghiou, said Carvana Cloud, a prosecutor with the district attorney’s office in Harris County, Texas.
When Costas Georghiou tried to protect his wife, he was stabbed several times in the face and chest, Cloud said.
Kyriakos Georghiou left his parents’ home and his father went to get help. But Georghiou came back with a second knife while the father was away, the prosecutor said.
“He continues to stab his mother to the point where he kills her and her head is severed from her body,” Cloud said.
It was the second time that Georghiou had been arrested for an assault on his mother. In 2014, he was sentenced to three years in state prison after pleading guilty to a charge of injury to an elderly individual for punching his mother, leaving her with broken teeth and a swollen left eye. He also had prior arrests for drug possession and aggravated robbery.
Wilner said Georghiou “loved his mother” and that his parents had struggled for years to get him help for his mental health issues.