FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — For more than a week, Maria Carruthers was living in fear because the man accused of killing her daughter had not been found. Now, the man is behind bars, and the family is speaking out.

Police said that 24-year-old Shalamar Franceschi's husband, 24-year-old Damian Franceschi, stabbed her to death in broad daylight at the Tallywood Shopping Center on Jan. 13.

Monday, after more than a week on the run, police arrested Franceschi at the Starlight Motel in Spring Lake.

"As long as he was out there, I was fearing for my grandson's life and my own and my son's," said Maria Carruthers, Shalamar's mother.

Franceschi was already on probation for assaulting his estranged wife.

Three days before the fatal stabbing, Franceschi was released from jail on a $200,000 secured bond. He was being held for kidnapping Shalamar and holding Carruthers and his 19-month-old son hostage for more than two hours.

"I'm very angry the system has failed her," Carruthers said.

Shalamar is described as a wonderful daughter, sister and mother.

Carruthers said that the person who loved Shalamar the most was her young son, who will now have to grow up without his mother and his father.

The family's anger has turned to hope that Shalamar's death will not be in vain.

"Justice will be served one way or the other. There's been a lot of rallying out here for my daughter. He better not make bond," Carruthers said.

After his arrest on Monday, Franceschi was charged with first-degree murder and is being held at the Cumberland County jail without bond.

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