A 14-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with first-degree rape and murder of a girl in a North Carolina community, UK MailOnline reported.
Authorities in Sampson County announced Wednesday that they have made an arrest in an 11-year-old Salemburg girl's homicide last year.
McKenzie Mae Sessoms, a fifth grader from Clinton, North Carolina, was found suffocated with a pillow last September 6 - the morning after her brothers threw a "rowdy gathering" at the family home.
Although the teenage boy's name was not released by officials on Wednesday, family and neighbors identified him as Antonia Trey Jones.
Antonia was living just feet from McKenzie's home at the time of the murder with his grandfather Howard Jones, Jones told WTVD-TV.
"If he done it, I'm glad they got him. That's all I can say," Jones said.
McKenzie was suffocated, an autopsy report revealed. She was found wedged against the pillow with her pants rolled down. A quilt was draping her body, according to UK MailOnline.
After using DNA evidence to match Antonio to the crime, authorities said they arrested the suspect.
Jones said his grandson Antonio had moved away to live with his mother.
McKenzie's family said Antonio was banned from the girl's home after he made "vulgar" comments to her, WTVD reported.
However, a Jones family friend told the TV station that the boy is mentally disabled and incapable of such violence.
"He's just as sweet as he can be," Rhonda Wright said. "Trey is being accused of terrible, terrible things that I just don't see him mentally capable of doing at all."
McKenzie's family said she was focused on being a little girl before being murdered.
"She loved riding horses, riding four-wheelers, just hanging with her friends," grandmother Cathy Starke told the TV station.
"She had her whole life planned," Starke said. "I don't know what made him do it, but I hope that by him doing it, he realizes that he's really messed up his life as well as taking McKenzie away from us."
