Teen jailed for 100 years for killing his baby siblings and claiming to free them from ‘hell’
The teen said he was “freeing his siblings from hell”
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An Indiana teen who killed his younger siblings in order to "free them from Satan and hell" has been sentenced to 100 years in prison.
Nickalas Kedrowitz,17, was 13-years-old when he carried out the killings, which left his 23-month-old half sister and 11-month-old stepbrother dead. The Indianapolis Star first reported the story. Kedrowitz was sentenced to two 50-year prison terms earlier this week.
He killed the children May and July of 2017. The children were both found unresponsive by police in the family's home. Both children had been left in the teen's care at the time of their deaths. After the murders, Kedrowitz told his parents that his siblings weren't breathing correctly or had stopped moving. In reality, he suffocated both children.
Christina McCartney, the mother of Kedrowitz's half-sister, attempted to resuscitate the child using CPR. The baby eventually died in the hospital.
Later the same year, Kedrowitz suffocated his stepbrother and allegedly mutilated a kitten, then asked to watch while his aunt and uncle took the cat to end its suffering. According to court documents, Kedrowitz asked if he could go with them to "see the kitten's brains splatter everywhere."
According to detectives, Kedrowitz told investigators he was "freeing his siblings from hell."
During an interview with police, Kedrowitz said he had spoken with God about his siblings, but was sworn to keep the conversation secret. The investigators asked him to share just a bit of the conversation, and the teen agreed. He then made comments about saving his siblings from having to endure the hell he lived in.
When asked what constituted that hell, Kedrowitz said "chores."
"This wasn't some sort of heat of passion, one killing and then minutes or hours or even days later, we´re talking months here, so we think that the consecutive part of the sentence was warranted and appropriate in this circumstance," Ripley County Prosecutor Richard Hertel told reporters at the sentencing hearing.
Despite his age, a judge ordered that Kedrowitz's trial be held in an adult court. The teen's defense attorneys insisted that Kedrowitz had untreated mental health issues.
During a competency hearing, three of the five doctors assembled to testify said that Kedrowitz was not mentally competent to stand trial. The other two said he was, and the judge ultimately sided with those doctors.