A man accused of killing his 5-year-old son slit the child’s neck with a knife and then attempted to bury him in the backyard of a DeKalb County home, police said Thursday night.

Montrais Boyd, 25, is in the DeKalb County Jail on a murder charge.

Montrais Boyd Jr.’s cause of death was sharp, blunt injuries to the neck, according to the DeKalb medical examiner.

According to police, the child lived at a home on Rocky Pine Drive in Lithonia with his grandmother. His parents arrived from California for an unannounced visit.

At some point Wednesday, the boy’s mother and grandmother left the home. When they returned, the child was dead.

Three other children inside the residence at the time told the mother what happened, police told Channel 2 Action News.

The mother went to the backyard and dug up the child’s body, according to the news station. The boy was partially decapitated.

The other children in the home were not injured, Channel 2 reported.

Investigators say the father and mother drove across the country to a grandparent's house where their child was staying.

— Staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this article.

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