It seemed to be a typical day for Denise Hallowell and her adopted son, Carlos Hallowell. The pair headed to a funeral and then back to their Inverness, Florida, home. Denise Hallowell, 57, never imagined the next funeral would be her own. Her son, 17, seemed to adore his mother, a former teacher, and spent many wonderful days with her. But on July 9, 2019, the teenager brutally murdered his mother with an ax and will spend the rest of his life in prison.
According to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered, Carlos Hallowell called 911 after killing his mother and said he found her in her bed covered in blood. Dispatchers sent police to the home, where they discovered Denise Hallowell nearly dead with an ax embedded in her head. She was barely breathing and life-saving efforts failed.
Carlos Hallowell told police he and his mother fell asleep in the afternoon, and he discovered her in bed after letting the dogs out. He reportedly told police, “I don’t know anybody that would have done that,” the show noted, per Oxygen True Crime.
According to Dateline, years before her death, Denise Hallowell adopted another son, a boy named Angel. But false accusations of child abuse led to her losing custody of Carlos and Angel. Once investigators proved the accusations wrong, Carlos Hallowell returned home, but the authorities decided it was in Angel’s best interest not to return. Police initially felt he was a suspect in Denise Hallowell’s death but found he was incarcerated at the time of the crime.
It took more than two months, but police finally had enough evidence to pin the crime on Carlos Hallowell. “I remember being outside at the shed, and grabbing the ax …,” he told detectives of the night his mother died. “And that’s it. That’s all I remember.”
According to Carlos Hallowell, he and his mother argued about his college plans prior to the murder. She wanted him to attend a university, but he had his sights set on vocational school.
“I started thinking about, you know, everything my mom and I talked about in the car,” he told Dateline. “‘You’re not worth anything,’ ‘You’re a disappointment,’ you know, these words that she has told me over time that are all accumulating that are just kinda, kinda built up one day.”
Carlos Hallowell admitted that killing his mother was wrong and expressed guilt. “I am very deeply and truly sorry for what I did. I did something very heinous and very unimaginable,” he said on the show. “I miss her. I love her and I wish I could take things back, but I can’t ’cause I did that. I made that choice.”
A judge sentenced Carlos Hallowell to life in prison in September 2021, Fox 13 reported.
