A 77-year-old Hope man will face a murder charge for the stabbing death of his son.
James T. Mee of 222 Scott St. was formally charged Monday with murder, which carries a potential sentence of 45 to 65 years in prison.
He is accused of stabbing his son, Charles A. Mee, 50, in the neck during the early morning hours of Jan. 7, as well as causing blunt force trauma to the head, according to court documents.
Although James Mee was also initially accused of inflicting a non-life threatening head injury upon his wife, Barbara Mee, 78, there are no charges filed in relation to that incident, court documents state.
As formal charges were filed, additional details were released in a probable cause affidavit filed Monday by Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department Detective Terrance Holderness.
The detective provided a transcript of the 911 call placed at 6:39 a.m. on Jan. 7 by Charles A. Mee, who died later in the emergency room of Columbus Regional Hospital.
“My dad stabbed me in the throat,” Charles Mee told the dispatcher. When asked where his father was at that moment, the victim replied “I’m still in the house.” At that moment, it sounded like Charles Mee suddenly lost his ability to speak, according to Holderness’ account of the 911 call.
The first person on the scene was Hope Police Chief Matt Tallent, who was let into the home by James Mee. Tallent is the suspect’s nephew, while the male victim was Tallent’s cousin.
Due to that connection, the Hope Police Department was not allowed to be part of the investigation. Last week, another source erroneously stated the Mee family is related to a woman who works as a subordinate for the police chief.
When Columbus Police Department Detective Thomas Foust arrived at the home on Scott Street, he found Charles Mee seriously injured while sitting in a recliner, and began administering first aid, Holderness said in the affidavit. However, the Charles Mee never regained consciousness and was later pronounced dead at the hospital, the affidavit stated.
Hope firefighter Levi Garrison, who was the second emergency-responder at the scene, told detectives he saw James Mee walking from the front porch in the driveway with a broken stick in his hand.
After Garrison asked Mee what had happened, the suspect replied “He’s in there … I stabbed him … he’s dead … I probably killed him,” the affidavit states.
When James Mee was searched, sheriff’s deputy Kevin Abner took two pocket knives from James Mee’s pockets, the affidavit stated. But as he was being further questioned, the suspect seemed to be confused.
“James told Abner that he and his wife had been held hostage for 3-4 days by a male and female, but could not otherwise identify them,” Holderness said in the affidavit. “He claimed that someone had thrown him to the ground and injured his back.”
Later at the hospital, sheriff’s deputy Dane Duke spoke to Barbara Mee.
“I just know he said, ‘I stabbed him,’ and I got up to go see my son … and that’s when he hit me,” wrote Holderness as he quoted Barbara Mee from an interview transcript from Duke.
Barbara Mee also said she could hear Charles calling 911 as her husband was striking her, and she believed her son was attempting to protect her, Holderness wrote.
Barbara Mee told Duke that “James is a sick man. He’s sick. He didn’t know what he was doing,” the affidavit stated.
Other family members also reported that James Mee had been suffering from dementia and paranoia directed, in particular, at his son Charles and his wife, Barbara, the court document stated.
A manual folding knife with a partially serrated blade found by investigators behind a couch is believed to be the murder weapon, the affidavit states. James Mee’s broken walking stick was found next to the recliner where his son was found, the affidavit stated.
Although the case has been assigned to Bartholomew Circuit Court Judge Kelly Benjamin, an initial hearing for Mee has not yet been scheduled.
Benjamin allowed Mee to be held without bond for five days as investigators examined the case until the formal charges were filed Monday.
