Court documents describe a forced entry, a rapid police trip to the hospital and an arrest near Carolina Place Mall.
PINEVILLE, N.C. — A 31-year-old father was being held without bond Friday after police accused him of fatally injuring his 5-year-old son inside a Pineville apartment and arrested him at a nearby fast-food restaurant.
Jehaaz-Akil Khaliq Echoles is charged with first-degree murder in the child’s death early Thursday. The case began shortly after midnight at an apartment on Sabal Park Drive and led officers to rush the critically injured boy to a hospital in the back of a police vehicle, according to authorities and court records.
An affidavit alleges that Echoles broke down the apartment’s front door before entering his son’s bedroom and shutting the door. The child’s mother heard a commotion coming from the room and opened the door, according to the document. She found the boy bleeding and unresponsive as Echoles left the apartment, the affidavit said.
Responding Pineville officers placed the child in a patrol vehicle rather than waiting for an ambulance and drove him to a hospital. The boy later died. Officials had not publicly released his name as of Friday.
The circumstances described in court documents remain allegations and have not been proven in court. Authorities have not announced a possible motive or explained what happened immediately before Echoles allegedly entered the apartment. Records said he did not live at the residence.
Police found Echoles after he left the apartment, arresting him at a Taco Bell in front of Carolina Place Mall. The restaurant is roughly 1 1/2 miles from the Sabal Park Drive apartment. Authorities have not released details about how officers tracked him there or whether he was arrested without incident.
Echoles was taken to the Mecklenburg County jail and appeared before a judge later Thursday morning. The judge denied bond on the first-degree murder charge and appointed a public defender to represent him. The available court information did not identify a future hearing date or indicate whether a plea had been entered.
The arrest also prompted renewed examination of Echoles’ court history. Records show he had faced assault allegations in Mecklenburg and Gaston counties beginning in 2020, including accusations filed in March and June of this year. Those earlier cases are separate from the murder prosecution, and some charges in his record were dismissed.
In the most recent prior case, filed June 15, an affidavit alleged that Echoles struck a woman several times with a leather belt. A March affidavit accused him of injuring a woman’s face by throwing keys at her during a disagreement over a vehicle. The supplied records did not show the final outcomes of those two cases.
A 2020 Mecklenburg County case included charges of assault on a female, assault by strangulation and injury to personal property. The strangulation and property charges were dismissed. State prison records show Echoles was placed on probation for the remaining assault charge and did not serve an active state prison sentence.
The investigation into the child’s death remained active Friday. Echoles continued to be held in the Mecklenburg County jail without bond while the first-degree murder case moved through the court system.
Author note: Last updated July 10, 2026.