A Duluth man allegedly claimed that he woke up and found his mother dead inside their home, only to later admit to the shooting while sitting alone in a police interview room.
Nathan Douglas Davin, 46, was charged Tuesday with the intentional second-degree murder of Mae Dean Davin, 74, at their East Hillside residence on Saturday night.
The victim was apparently asleep in a recliner when she was shot once in the face at close range inside the house she owned at 1511 N. Ninth Ave. E, according to court filings.
While an alleged motive has not been publicly identified, Nathan Davin was reportedly displaying erratic behavior, and investigators said they found the words “go to hell” spray-painted on a surface inside the house, along with “several other satanic symbols and phrases.”
According to court documents:
Nathan Davin knocked on a next-door neighbor’s door around 10:50 p.m., stating something about a fatality. A person who was housesitting at the time called 911, noting Davin appeared intoxicated and was only wearing boxer shorts.
Before officers arrived, he also made phone contact with the neighbor, telling him: “My mom’s dead. She blew her head off.”
Police met Davin at the front porch of his home and inquired about some apparent blood on his hands. He replied, “I found my mom f—ing dead,” indicating he had just woken up and discovered her in the living room.
Officers looked inside and found Mae Dean Davin in the chair with a “devastating gunshot wound.” A spent shell casing was found on the floor, and a bullet was located near the exit wound. No gun was located nearby.
During a search of the home, investigators found two pistols in Nathan Davin’s upstairs bedroom, as well as several other guns in an unlocked safe.
A Glock 9 mm was found on a nightstand with apparent blood on it, and nearby officers found a box of ammunition that matched the rounds in the pistol, as well as the spent shell casing and bullet from the main floor.
After Davin was placed in the back of a patrol car, he was heard making several spontaneous utterances, including “wake up to bulls—” and “there went my life.”
The suspect was taken to the Public Safety Building, where his bloodied boxers and other physical evidence were collected. He declined to speak with investigators and requested a lawyer, but a recording from the interview room captured him stating: “God damn it, I killed my mother.”
Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Kirstyn Oye told the court Mae Dean Davin “was positioned in her recliner in a way that indicated she was sleeping” when she was shot. St. Louis County District Judge Eric Hylden granted the prosecutor’s request to set unconditional bail at $750,000 and deny supervised release.
Nathan Davin was charged with fifth-degree domestic assault in 2005, but that count was dropped as he pleaded guilty to interference with a 911 call. His criminal history otherwise appears limited to several impaired driving cases and a handful of other nonviolent offenses.
Hylden approved the defendant’s application for a public defender and scheduled his next court appearance for Sept. 15. The case has been assigned to Chief Judge Leslie Beiers.
The case is the third homicide reported in Duluth this year. In the past five years, more than half of the city’s homicides have involved domestic violence.
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