In a chilling confession to Mississippi, an Army veteran detailed how he killed and decapitated his mother using nothing but a butter knife, his bare hands and his teeth.

On June 7, 29-year-old Terrelle Johnson, of Stone County, was questioned by local deputies after his mother, Sherry Johnson, was found decapitated in the backyard of the home they shared just a day earlier, reported the New York Post.

Police first went to conduct a welfare check on Sherry when her siblings said they had not seen or heard from the 51-year-old since June 3.

At Johnson’s preliminary hearing on Wednesday, Capt. Ray Boggs of the Stone County Sheriff’s Department detailed what Johnson told the officers in the interrogation room.

“[Johnson] told me that he beat her up real bad,” Boggs testified, according to the Sun Herald. “He said it got out of hand.”

Johnson went on to describe how he used a butter knife to slice his mother’s throat.

According to Boggs, Johnson choked his mother unconscious during a fight over credit cards.

When deputies first arrived at the home to conduct the welfare check, Johnson was found calmly sitting on the front porch, Boggs said in court.

Johnson, who was expelled by the Department of Veterans Affairs after a prior arrest, allegedly confessed to the crimes, yet he has not been formally charged.

Currently, Johnson’s lawyer, Jim Davis, is discussing the possibility of an insanity defense.

“[Johnson] does have a substantial history, and y’all heard the facts of this particular case,” Davis told reporters on Wednesday. “That’s not a normal homicide … [but] we’ve got to wait until we get the records and probably have him properly evaluated. Then, we’ll kind of know where we’re headed.”