JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Moments after a Jacksonville nurse was shot to death at home, her son knocked on a neighbor’s door and offered a startling admission, the neighbor told police.
“I have done a bad thing,” the neighbor recalled hearing Michael McPherson say. “…I killed mom.”
The neighbor told homicide detectives investigating the February killing that he tried to keep McPherson from leaving, but the 21-year-old hopped into his SUV and drove away in a hurry.
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The alleged confession was detailed in the arrest warrant for McPherson, now 22, who was transported to Jacksonville this month to await trial in the murder of his mother, 45-year-old Stacey McPherson-Dillon.
McPherson, charged with second-degree murder, is being held without bond at the Duval County jail.
The contents of the arrest warrant shed new light on what paramedics and police found when they arrived at the family’s San Servera Drive home Feb. 5 in response to a 911 call.
McPherson-Dillon, a nurse for Wolfson Children’s Hospital, was found lying lifeless in the backyard. She had been shot multiple times and investigators found several projectiles on the ground around her.
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Inside her son’s bedroom, investigators recovered an empty gun holster and gun box, the warrant stated. Multiple people told police the young man was familiar with guns and was known to carry them.
In an interview with News4Jax, neighbor Van Jones recalled what his wife told him after the shooting.
“She said, ‘I was in my office and I heard like five shots. It sounded like gunshots,’” Jones said. “And she said, ‘The next thing I know is that the neighborhood is taped off and there’s a ton of JSO here.’”
An autopsy performed the next day ruled McPherson-Dillon’s death a homicide. The medical examiner determined the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds.
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A be-on-the-lookout notice issued by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office resulted in McPherson’s arrest Feb. 6 in Key Largo. Investigators said they found a firearm inside the SUV he was driving.
McPherson, who was jailed in Monroe County on an unrelated warrant for battery on an elderly person, was transferred back to Jacksonville and booked into the Duval County jail Aug. 8.
Court records show an arraignment hearing for McPherson is set for Sept. 2.