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A Mount Holly man is charged with first-degree murder after authorities say he shot and killed his father.
Police have not said what led to the shooting. Investigators were called to a home on Gaston Avenue late Friday after a relative said they had been unable to reach 62-year-old Ashwin Kumar Vaghjibhai Patel.
As officers and a family member entered the home, they found Patel dead from a gunshot wound.
The victim’s car was missing, and evidence gathered from the scene and other information led police to name his son as a suspect in the slaying, said Police Chief David James.
Jiten Ashwin Patel, 28, was arrested around midday Saturday after a traffic stop in Gastonia. He was being held without bond in the Gaston County jail.
Police said Jiten Patel lived at the home on Gaston Avenue with his parents.
The website for the N.C. Department of Corrections shows he’d spent about seven months in prison in 2007 on a felony larceny charge.
He had also been previously charged with drug possession.
Ashwin Patel owned a BP gas station on N.C. 16 in Mount Holly, and his wife owned a Laundromat, according to WCNC-TV, the Observer’s news partner.
He had lived in the home on Gaston for years with his wife and son.
