Authorities say a 10-month-old boy died after deputies answered a Thursday call at a Barnardsville home.

BARNARDSVILLE, N.C. — What began as a reported assault on a quiet Buncombe County road Thursday afternoon became a child homicide case within hours, as deputies say a 10-month-old boy was stabbed, rushed to Mission Hospital and later pronounced dead.

The case matters now because it has already moved into serious felony proceedings with possible capital consequences. Investigators say the child’s mother, 34-year-old Ciara Breann Frederick, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. A judge told Frederick at her first appearance that the case could carry either a death sentence or life without parole, placing the Barnardsville case immediately among the most severe matters on the county court docket.

According to local authorities and court records, deputies, firefighters and county EMS crews were sent to Rocala Drive at about 2 p.m. Thursday, March 26. The sheriff’s office first described the response as an assault investigation. When first responders arrived, they found 10-month-old Enoch Chappell with multiple stab wounds and began emergency care before he was taken to Mission Hospital. He later died there. By the next day, the case had shifted from an emergency response to a courtroom hearing. Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said first responders “did everything they could to save this child’s life,” adding that “our hearts are broken.” The statement placed the county’s focus not only on the accusation itself but also on the failed effort to save the baby after crews reached the property.

Investigators have released only a narrow set of allegations about what happened at the home. Court records cited by local outlets say Frederick is accused of unlawfully and with malice killing her son. Separate records say two assault counts stem from an allegation that she chased a man down the driveway of the Rocala Drive property with a fixed-blade knife. Public reports have not identified that man, explained his relationship to Frederick or the baby, or said whether he was injured. Authorities also have not publicly described the sequence between the attack on the infant and the alleged chase down the driveway. Those unanswered questions have left the public record focused on charges, location and timing rather than on a full reconstruction of what investigators believe took place inside and outside the home.

The setting has shaped the case’s public impact. Barnardsville is a small mountain community north of Asheville, and Rocala Drive sits in a rural part of Buncombe County where emergency calls often draw a tight circle of county deputies and local volunteer responders. That backdrop made Sheriff Miller’s statement about the fire department and EMS part of the story, because in sparsely populated places the first people on scene are often neighbors in uniform as much as officers or medics. Public reporting has not described earlier incidents at the Rocala Drive home, and no detailed investigative affidavit has been made public. What has emerged instead is a stripped-down picture of a call for help in a remote area, a child taken from the property in critical condition, and a mother jailed as the main criminal defendant.

The procedural track developed quickly. Frederick made her first court appearance Friday, March 27, in Buncombe County District Court. During that hearing, the judge told her the first-degree murder charge could expose her to either death or life without parole. She requested and received court-appointed counsel. Sam Snead, the chief public defender for Buncombe County, said he was helping the state capital defender’s office identify qualified lawyers for the case. Frederick was being held without bond, and later reporting said prosecutors successfully asked to seal the 911 calls and related reports. Her next scheduled court date was set for Thursday, April 16, for a probable cause hearing at which prosecutors were expected to begin presenting evidence.

The personal toll surfaced in court even as the public record remained thin. Local television coverage said Frederick’s family sat in the courtroom and wept as the hearing unfolded. That courtroom scene stood in sharp contrast to the short, clinical language in the charging papers. Outside court, there was no long public statement from relatives and no broad release of evidence by investigators. Inside court, though, the case already carried the weight of its most basic facts: a dead infant, a mother charged with murder and a county legal system preparing for a high-stakes prosecution. The gap between those human reactions and the limited official record is likely to remain until the probable cause hearing or later filings add detail.

For now, Frederick remains jailed without bond, the 911 materials are sealed, and the next public milestone in the case is the probable cause hearing that was scheduled for April 16.

Author note: Last updated April 18, 2026.