In a quiet home on Mini Ranch Road in Waxhaw, North Carolina, the life of 66-year-old Larisa Pak came to a tragic and violent end on Sunday, June 28, 2026. Deputies, responding to a welfare check requested by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, peered through a window and saw a person lying motionless on the floor. Forcing their way into the residence, they found Larisa Pak deceased, having suffered multiple gunshot wounds to her chest.
The call for the welfare check had come after a man walked into a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police station, stating he had committed a crime and wished to turn himself in. That man was identified as Slava Pak, Larisa's 32-year-old son.
The events of that Sunday began to unfold as a multi-jurisdictional crime spree. Before the discovery of his mother's body, Slava Pak was already the suspect in another violent incident that occurred earlier that day. Around 3:24 p.m. in the neighboring Chester County, South Carolina, sheriff's deputies responded to a shooting near the Great Falls Nature Trail Access. They found a victim who had been shot in the face but had survived the attack. Investigators in Chester County quickly identified Slava Pak as the suspect in that shooting, and as their investigation progressed, they sought to contact his mother, Larisa, leading to a second welfare check request for her at her Waxhaw home. By the time Union County deputies were on the scene of the homicide, the connection between the two violent acts was becoming clear.
Following his surrender to police, Slava Pak was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of his mother. He was booked into the Union County Detention Center, where he is being held without the possibility of bond. In addition to the murder charge in North Carolina, he faces charges of attempted murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in South Carolina for the earlier shooting at the nature trail. The investigation into this violent chain of events remains active, leaving a community in shock and a family to mourn the loss of Larisa Pak. The case now moves to the courts, where the full story behind the tragic killing and the preceding shooting will be brought to light, though the legal proceedings are in their earliest stages.
