Mania Meneide of Brockton, Massachusetts was simply trying to do the best she could for her son. Frantz Polynice, 18, had dropped out of school and had slipped into a paralyzing depression.

The 44-year-old mother thought they both had worked out a solution: Send him to Haiti, where many of their relatives lived. Many the tropical environment would soothe his soul.

As they pulled up the airport, there was one problem. Meneide's son didn't want to get out of the car.

“Frantz did not want to go to Haiti at all,” his grandmother told investigators, according to an incident report obtained by the Boston Globe.

Reached in Port-Au-Prince, Meneide's brother said that she wanted to send his nephew to Haiti just "to wake his mind up," Bryan Buteau told Enterprise News.

"She didn't want to send him for a long time," Buteau was quoted as saying.

The mother and son returned back to their Brockton home. When they got their bickering began. Meneide implored her son to eat his food.

“Leave me alone with your food,” Polynice told her. This was all witnessed by his 67-year-old grandmother, Rose Pierre, who lived at the home as well.

Soon, police say Polynice went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and attacked his mother, allegedly stabbing her 10 to 15 times in the neck, torso and face.

The grandmother alerted a neighbor, Maryanne Monteiro, who approached the inside of the home only to see a horrific sight: Polynice covered in blood -- and looking straight at her.

She told the Globe he looked like a "zombie." 

“That was extremely scary. It’s not a moment I want to relive again any time soon.”

“I’m like, ‘OK he does not look right,’ ” Monteiro told the Globe. “I started backing off and then he picked up the pace and came running. I just grabbed [Pierre] and I ran like hell out that house and just pulled her down the driveway.”

According to the police report, when first responders arrived at the home, Polynice was "shaking uncontrollably” on the porch steps, according to the Boston Globe. “She is inside,” the report said.

“We’re dealing with a terrible, tragic situation where an 18-year-old person murdered his 44-year-old mother,” Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz told the Globe on after Polynice’s court appearance. “How do you get your arms around that?”

"How can you kill your mother?" Meneide's brother Buteau told Enterprise News. "Your mother is your life."

Polynice has pleaded not guilty to murder.