MIAMI (AFP) - A US teenager has been arrested for allegedly cutting his mother's head off with a butcher knife, police said Tuesday (March 7).

Authorities found Oliver Funes, 18, on Monday (March 6) in the front yard of his house in a small town in North Carolina as he held his 35-year-old mother's severed head in one hand and the knife in the other.

"The nature of the scene is kind of graphic. There was a decapitation and when the officers arrived, he was with the decapitation in his hand and it was a gruesome scene," said Franklin County sheriff Kent Winstead.

The body of the mother, Yesenia Funes, was found inside the house. Two small girls aged two or three were also in the house and in seemingly good condition, Winstead added.

The attack happened in the small town of Zebulon near the state's capital city Durham and it was Funes himself who called the authorities after the killing.

The teenager surrendered without putting up resistance and has been charged with first-degree murder.