A Grandmother Was Found Dead in Her Local Church. Her 17-Year-Old Grandson Allegedly Confessed to the Murder By Toria Sheffield

A Georgia woman was allegedly killed by her teenage grandson inside her local church.

The alleged incident occurred on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at Smith Chapel Holiness Church in Athens in Monroe County, per The Monroe Journal, The Independent and WTVA.

Monroe County Coroner Alan Gurley said the victim was 73-year-old Ollie Hamilton, according to The Monroe Journal. Police responded to a 911 call at about 5:45 p.m. local time, per Gurley. They subsequently found the victim in an area that led to the church kitchen. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The victim’s grandson, 17-year-old Jadynn Hamilton, was arrested and charged in connection with her death that evening after allegedly confessing to the crime, per the outlets.

“The longer that investigation went, evidence started pointing in a certain direction. A young man had supposedly gone for help early on after the attack. We ended up bringing him [Jadynn] in last night, and he confessed to the crime,” Monroe County Sheriff Kevin Crook said in a statement to the media, per The Monroe Journal, which reported that the teen was charged with first-degree murder.

Crook called the incident a “tragedy of the worst kind.”

“This is a tragedy of the worst kind because you’ve got a beloved church member, family member and community member killed, and you come to find out within 24 hours she was killed by another beloved family member,” he continued in his statement.

He added, “If somebody is not able to control their impulses and they reach that point, I don’t think it really matters who the victim is at the time. If it got them to that level of anger, they’re going to lash out at whoever — it just happened to be his grandmother.”

Crook went on to urge members of the community to use the tragedy as a learning opportunity.

“Try to learn from every tragedy. Were there signs? Were there things you can point back to and say, ‘Maybe we could have gotten this information to the right people.’ A lot of stuff happens among our youth that isn’t communicated a lot of times,” he said.

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An investigation into the incident is still ongoing, per Crook, according to The Monroe Journal.

PEOPLE reached out to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the Monroe County Coroner’s Office for comment on Saturday, Nov. 1, but did not receive an immediate response.

Jadynn is currently being held on a $500,000 bond, per WTVA.