Fifteen-year-old Matthew Liewald will be prosecuted as an adult for the shooting deaths of his father and stepmother.

The teenager is accused of shooting his 43-year-old father, Christian Hans Liewald, and his 24-year-old stepmother, Cassie Meghan Buckaloo, in September.

Christian Liewald was shot four times - in the head, face, chest and back - according to a preliminary autopsy report introduced into evidence Monday during a probable cause hearing in Mecklenburg juvenile court.

Buckaloo was shot eight times, including in the head, face, chest and abdomen, the autopsy shows.

District Judge Lou Trosch ruled there was probable cause to believe that Matthew had committed two first-degree murders.

The judge transferred the teenager's case to adult court, where Matthew Liewald would face life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. The Observer has not named him previously while the case remained in juvenile court.

Around 2 a.m. on Sept. 26, Matthew called 911 and told a dispatcher he'd shot his father and stepmother, according to prosecutors. When officers arrived at the teen's home on Buxton Drive in southwest Mecklenburg County, they found the couple dead.

The teen began to cry Monday as a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer testified about finding bloody footprints, the bodies of Christian Liewald and Buckaloo, and shell casings at the home.

During an interview taped after the killings, Matthew told a homicide detective he was afraid of his father, who he said had assaulted him in the past and grounded him days before the shootings because he had stayed too late at Carowinds.

He said during the interview, which was played in court, that he feared his father "as long as I can remember."

Matthew told the detective that he wasn't sure his stepmother was with his father when they arrived home moments before the shootings.

"I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing," he said.

The day before the shootings, the teen went to church with Buckaloo, whom he described as "very nice." At some point that evening, his father and stepmother left home, Matthew said. That's when he said he packed a book bag with clothes, gathered guns and taped a knife to his tactical vest.

Then he watched the monitor of his father's surveillance system until he saw the headlights of an approaching vehicle, he told the detective. Matthew said he started walking toward the door and opened fire as he turned the corner.

He said he had planned to drive south, maybe eventually to Mexico. Instead, he just ran into nearby woods and eventually called 911.

He said he didn't have any idea how he was going to get away.

"I didn't have any money," he said. "I think I had a dollar or two in my wallet."

Matthew told detectives he felt he had to shoot his dad in order to run away.

"The only thing I was thinking was that was something I had to do," he said.

The detective asked Matthew if he realized what he'd done was wrong.

He said after the smoke cleared and he saw his father and stepmother, he started to break down.

In the interview, Matthew also described how his father would sometimes push him or smack him in the back of the head. He recalled one time when his dad knocked him out of a chair onto the floor and began choking him.

"He always told me if I ever ran away, he'd find me," Matthew said.

At one point, Matthew's mother, Shelby Hodges, walked out of the courtroom. She later told the Observer that she'd felt sick. It wasn't the details of the shootings that upset her, she said, but rather Matthew's descriptions of abuse.

"I've been there," Hodges said. "You never get over it."

Hodges has said she experienced verbal and physical abuse at the hands of Christian Liewald, her ex-husband. Until her son appeared in court last month, she hadn't seen him since he was 6 years old.

As the prosecutor and defense attorney talked to the judge about bond for the teen, Matthew began to cry again, his shoulders heaving. His grandmother also wept.

Trosch set a $250,000 bond. If Matthew is able to post bond, he must be on house arrest with an ankle bracelet to monitor his whereabouts.

The judge then ordered that Matthew be taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after defense attorney Valerie Pearce expressed concern for his mental health. The defense attorney said the teen had not been sleeping, had been depressed and had asked to see a doctor.

Matthew's paternal grandparents, who plan to seek custody of the teen, declined to comment about their grandson's hearing.

Earlier in the hearing, Pearce urged the judge not to find probable cause that Matthew had committed first-degree murders.

"Matthew was in a state of fear and desperation," she said. "He wasn't thinking clearly. He was not really thinking at all."

The defense attorney said Matthew didn't mean to shoot his stepmother.

"He'd always been afraid of his dad," Pearce said. "He was just thinking of getting away. .... He was seeking safety. He had no intent to kill anybody. His only intent was to escape."

But Assistant District Attorney Bill Bunting told the judge there had been no significant history of abuse.

The prosecutor said Matthew's plan was to kill his father and run away to Mexico.

Bunting then pointed out that Christian Liewald had been shot four times, Cassie Buckaloo eight times.

"This was planned," the prosecutor said. "It was premeditated."