An entitled Missouri son is accused of bludgeoning his mother to death with a gardening tool after weeks of “violently” demanding and threatening her to hand over his inheritance.
Christian County deputies were called to the home of Carolyn Alling, 65, on Thursday at around 9:30 p.m. in Ozark after her husband requested a well-being check because she had not returned his phone calls throughout the day, Sheriff Brad Cole told KBTX.
Officers met with her son, Derrick Alling, upon arrival at the home — about 180 miles southeast of Kansas City — and immediately questioned the 39-year-old about his mother’s whereabouts, according to court documents obtained by the outlet.
Cole said his deputies suspected something was amiss with how Derrick Alling was acting during their questioning, and his answers didn’t add up.
“They just had a gut feeling that something wasn’t quite right, and they acted upon that,” the sheriff said. “Unfortunately, the gut feeling they had, they found to be true.”
When officers asked Alling if his mother was okay, he stayed quiet. When they followed up with whether he knew if she was alive, he told them, “he didn’t think so.”
Alling then told the deputies his mother was in the guest house, where they found Carolyn Alling’s bloodied and beaten body, KBTX reported.
She had been bludgeoned repeatedly in the head and face with a gardening or scraping tool in an attack so brutal it caused multiple skull fractures, authorities said.
Derrick Alling is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action and was booked into the Christian County Jail. He is currently being held without bond.
Prosecutors described Alling’s alleged actions as “violent and gruesome.”
Alling’s stepfather, who called in the well-being check for his wife, said his stepson was the beneficiary of his mother’s trust and had threatened her multiple times over the last few weeks to allow him access to his inheritance, according to court records obtained by the Kansas City Star.
“The victim had been recording the defendant acting aggressively and violently towards her within weeks of her murder,” authorities noted.
The stepfather also allegedly told police that he and Carolyn Alling had to “keep their marriage secret for fear of the defendant acting violently toward them if he found out.”
Carolyn Alling — a licensed dental hygienist — was a Missouri native who spent time living in California with Derrick, her late husband, and their daughter before moving back to Ozark, according to her obituary.
She was remembered for being passionate about “animals and loved spending time near water” and “homemaking, art, being outdoors, and building things.”
Alling has pleaded not guilty to his mother’s murder. He is scheduled to be in court again on Oct. 14.
