MASCOT, Tenn. — A Knox County man is being charged with kidnapping, domestic assault and elder neglect after authorities said he locked up his mother in a room for days with little to eat or drink and threatened to cut off her head.
According to court records, the victim's pastor reported the incident on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019.
Around 2 p.m. that day officers arrived to respond to an elder abuse incident off A Drive in Mascot. When they arrived, the pastor told them she had initially gone to the home to check on the victim.
The suspect, identified as 55-year-old Randy Norton, told the pastor the day before he and his mother were sick and would not allow the mother to speak with her.
When the pastor arrived the next day to check on her, she said she could hear the mother yell out "I'm sick. I need to go to the hospital" several times. When the pastor asked Norton if she could take the victim to the hospital, Norton told her to deliver her Christmas gifts and he would let her take her to the hospital.
The pastor said as she was walking away, she saw the victim walking toward her with her walker yelling, "Help me." The mother told officers her son had let her out of the home and told her "I'm gonna let you go. You need to run," so she left with her walker as fast as she could.
According to the report, the incident began after the victim said she left a neighbor's home on Sunday, December 15 to go check on her son. The woman said once she entered her son's home, Norton wouldn't allow her to leave.
The victim said Norton had boarded up the windows and nailed and padlocked the door -- closing all the doors in the home.
The woman said she was being held in a room with only a 5-gallon bucket to use a restroom -- saying she was fed just a bowl of soup and half a can of ravioli still in the can from Sunday to Thursday.
The mother said Norton told her at one point he was coming to "cut her head off and watch her bleed out," according to court documents. The woman said Norton had continuously threatened her with a machete and said he had been planning to get rid of her for about two and half years.
The mother said Norton had also kept a list of people he was going to kill after her.
After escaping, the mother was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center to be treated for dehydration.
Norton is facing multiple felony charges, including especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated domestic assault, and aggravated neglect of an elderly or vulnerable adult. He is scheduled to appear in Knox County Court on Jan. 30 for a preliminary hearing.