Teen Murders Parents in Twisted Assassination Plot

this was the worst scene I've ever been to before you even went into the residence you could smell the decomposition at a quiet suburban home in Waukesha Wisconsin investigators walk into a scene that is straight out of a horror movie at the time that I got there we knew that there were two bodies found right away we were asking questions where is their kid are they gonna find the body they found two and maybe there's a third as terrifying as this situation is this case becomes something so much bigger and darker once you're behind the curtain it's very difficult to know what's going on back there which is exactly what makes these so powerful and potentially dangerous the start of this was really that there was a call that came in and so that started the real what happened situation for us the call comes from 17 year old Nikita Kasap's grandma she's concerned about him she's worried she doesn't know where he is when Nikita's grandma reported that he wasn't attending school and that he was missing we also received a report from the Waukesha school district on the same time and so that's when we started kind of looking into what was going on Nikita's grandma also tells police that she has this strange feeling about her son Donald Mayer this is Nikita's stepdad apparently he wasn't feeling well Donald has been texting her she thinks he's acting a little weird but there's no alarm she thinks okay he's sick and he's acting kind of strange my first involvement was February 28th 2025 Waukesha County Sheriff's Department called me and told me a little bit about the facts and from there I headed out to the scene this was the worst scene I've ever been to before you even went into the residence you could smell the decomposition once investigators go inside they find a house of horrors Tatiana was shot multiple times she had been covered up by numerous blankets and towels towards the front of the residence there was a small office area and that's where Donald was and again he was also covered with blankets and towels it appeared that he might have been at his desk or doing some type of work there there were candles in the area of Donald Mayer's body they were not lit when I got there they were extinguished but it did appear that they had been lit in the past once we were able to remove some of the blankets and clothing from Don you could see that there was a head wound a very massive head wound I noted that there were a lot of piles of clothing blankets in addition to where the two deceased individuals were and my concern was is the 17 year old son somewhere under those those blankets or clothing or was the family jog deceased also hidden right away we were asking questions where where is their kid what's happening and we're all thinking has the kid been kidnapped has he run away are they gonna find the body is the body just in the home and they found two and maybe there's a third when they first entered they thought that this was possibly a burglary pictures were off the walls beds were off the back spring if you had gone into the the closets all the clothing was off any shelving units it was laying all over the floor it definitely looked like someone had gone there and burglarized the residence there's also another small study area upstairs where paperwork was pulled out we did find paperwork for a handgun but we didn't locate a handgun in the house so was it something where a suspect located a handgun and then used it on the family as the night progressed we determined there was no other victims in the house now this is all happening on a peaceful winter's day in a place where murders and especially double murders are very rare waukesha is a very safe place it's kind of an affluent part of the the state it's a very typical midwest city it's really open people are super friendly just the most typical small town american setting but something has clearly gone very wrong in this idyllic town did someone have it in for this family have they been targeted well it turns out their story is very unusual first of all nikita and his mom are from the eastern european country of moldova moldova is just north of the black sea right next to romania just to the southwest of ukraine nikita and his mom were living in moldova and they came over to the u.s when he was seven years old and his mom met donald and moved here got married and donald really took him in and treated him like a son he excelled in school he enjoyed academics greatly he kind of got transplanted right into the american dream and grew up in a in a nice house in a nice neighborhood going to a nice school two questions where is nikita now and what happened to his family we had gotten a couple different uh well-being checks and we had learned that you know nikita hadn't been at school don hadn't been at work nikita had previously been you know perfect attendance at school and now he's a no-show the last date that he was physically at school was the 11th i believe that a couple of his teachers reached out to him and he had a response that he was sick they indicated that he should have one of his parents call the school and no one ever did when was don last seen when was he last at work did his work have contact with him donald really worked from home i think he went in very rarely into his office as his boss was reaching out to his employee there were responses back on text messages or emails indicating you know i'm sick when his boss wanted to talk to him i believe he started responding that he doesn't have a voice and therefore he can't talk so he was texting into work since the 11th and the text didn't always make sense he would make poor excuses like saying he had conjunctivitis and then make comments that his throat was sore and so the symptoms wouldn't always line up with diagnoses we also received information from the neighbor's ring camera which was able to determine can narrow down the time of death because we saw when donald and tatiana's cars were last seen leaving and coming back to the residence but this is one of those cases where police are racing against the clock what happened to nikita he's not there the dog's not there was he kidnapped was this for money nikita was not at the residence so then was he a victim or was he a suspect we knew that there was a vehicle missing from the residence i mean it just kept piling on that something's going on here something's wrong investigators need to know what's going on here they need to find nikita the last time anyone heard from him was february 11th now it's the 28th that's more than two weeks later and we started kind of figuring out that night that we believed that nikita had taken down mayor's vehicle that he had left with that vehicle we started pinging doing emergency pings on nikita's phone and we did get some emergency ping information back from waukesha we had a ping or a location going south in illinois we then had him going west through iowa colorado wyoming i believe down to kansas he went to the world's largest truck stop in iowa i thought that was an interesting choice the truck stop that nikita stopped at was on february 24th it almost was like he was sightseeing he's 17 years old and he doesn't have a driver's license so he's driving across the country without a driver's license and then he ended up in kansas what ended up getting him caught was his driving he didn't stop all the way at a stop sign literally that was the reason for the traffic stop as he rolled a stop sign they run the plate coincidentally the waukesha county sheriff's department had just put that license plate in the system as car was believed to be stolen and therefore the timing was was great i mean if he had done that the day before i'm sure he would have gotten a ticket and he would have been on his way it was definitely a break in our investigation that we didn't expect based on the circumstances and how it was a random stop that got nikita arrested it's a very fortunate thing that things ended the way they did so police get a warrant to search nikita kasap's car and what they find is both shocking and confusing there were some things found in the car when nikita was stopped including a 350 handgun. On top of that, there were clothing that smelled of the the odor of decomposition. There was a Bible. - There was cash found throughout the vehicle, jewelry, electronics. There were photo albums, which I thought was very interesting, containing pictures of he and his family. We also found birth certificates for Nikita and his mom. - There was some cameras. So I don't know if he thought that the cameras that he had taken had evidence on them. - Older laptops, electronics, cell phones, is just very eclectic stuff that he had with him. - He did take the dog with him on his road trip. I believe that the dog was the only thing left that was kind of someone who could comfort him or someone who was known to him. - Maybe he didn't want to be alone and he probably didn't want to leave the dog there alone. I was very glad that the dog was still alive. - In one of the cameras, investigators find this memory card that contains some, truly disturbing images. - There was his mother and his stepfather's bodies and kind of odd arrangements of candles and how they were wrapped in blankets. It appeared that, based on the pictures, that there was some sort of fascination with their death and that it was found to be extremely concerning behavior. I believe the reason for the candles and the blankets, there may have been some ritualistic element to it. On top of that, there was a video that was recovered, in which Nikita can be heard on the phone talking about his stepfather's body, saying you can see his rotten body right there. So as he's in the house with his stepfather, he's making comments about how his body is decomposing. - It's unbelievable to say, but it seems that Nikita Kasap was living in this house with his parents decomposing bodies for more than two weeks. - I believe that he was living in this house with his parents decomposing bodies for more than two weeks. - He was mostly staying in the basement of the house. - It looks like there's like a TV room kind of thing, where he had a couch and blankets, and I think he was trying to avoid being on that main level where both his mom and Donald were. - As police piece together what exactly happened during these last two and a half weeks, all signs are now pointing to Nikita as the perpetrator of these murders. - I believe he murdered Don first, and then he waited for Tatiana to come home. I mean, she was still wearing her winter coat, she just had gotten in the door. I think it was pretty apparent that he had a plan, and he enacted his plan to murder his parents. - He truly executed his parents. He ambushed them, he shot Don in the back of the head, and he shot his mom, I believe, at one point through her throat. He leaves her where she falls, and he leaves Donald where he falls, and then just covers them up with some blankets and lives with them. And what's even freakier to me is that he's calling himself into school. He is pretending to be Donald to his work, he's pretending to be Donald to his mom, who is his grandma. He's covering his tracks, and he's acting normal. - Nikita went grocery shopping. He went and bought fast food. He went to Culver's. He walked the dog, he took out the trash. He shoveled the driveway. He did all the kind of normal things that someone would do while living, but with his dead parents in the house. - It wasn't that he just killed them and ran. He killed them and lived with them. And, I don't know, walked over his mom every day, walked by Don every day, and they're dead. - What's even more concerning is that what started with police thinking this was a burglar looking for loot actually seems to be Nikita working out a plan. - There were plenty of envelopes on the counter, so I think he knew that they kept cash around, and I think that's why he was looking through the house. I think he may have also been looking for valuables, including jewelry, and thought, I mean, a lot of people have safes behind their large pictures, so he thought maybe that is why he took the pictures off the wall to see if there was anything behind it, possibly if anything was taped behind the pictures. - That's what he was doing every day. He spent two weeks searching that house, tearing apart that house. He went through everything. - Yeah. - He went through everything. And at that point, it goes into why. Why did he kill his mom and his stepdad? And that's kind of the onion of the whole thing, because it looks from the outside like it's going to be a cut-and-dry case. - Look, as awful as it is to say Nikita wouldn't be the first person to kill his parents, but detectives are about to learn that he has a plan that is destructive on a whole other level. - He actually wanted to destabilize our government was his ultimate plan, and to assassinate the president and the vice president. - I think he believed that plan was in the stages that it was ready for him to leave and ready to start trying to take action to make this plan happen. - He needed a vehicle. He needed money. He needed to get away from them. If he stayed, there's no way that he'd be able to do what he was planning on doing. - I ended up being sent down there on March 10th to pick up Nikita in Kansas. That's when I first had contact with Nikita. - So since Nikita's arrest a couple weeks ago, he's been held at this juvenile security facility for evaluation. - On the flight back, Nikita's demeanor was kind of bizarre for the circumstances. He didn't show any kind of emotion or concern. He just appeared to be there. He was calm. He was calm. He was quiet. He would occasionally make just shallow jokes or engage in just small talk. But nothing that you would expect from someone who knew that his life was changing significantly and he was now going back to Wisconsin to deal with these consequences of his actions. - So you're born in Moldova in 2007. Mom is Tatiana. - Yes. - You came to the U.S. in 2017? - Yes. - Can you kind of talk me through that, how that came about? - Well, I think like in 2015, my mom met my stepdad online, a dating site or whatever. - Yeah. - And I think the man went on some vacations with him, like all over Europe and stuff like that. Then eventually they married. And then June 2017, moved to America. - Was it hard coming from Moldova to the U.S.? Was that a difficult process? - I guess sort of. I mean, I guess especially in the beginning, you know, I was born in Moldova. I grew up in Moldova. I was born in Moldova. Have you always lived in Waukesha since moving here? Yes. Yeah? How do you like it? It's fine. It's okay? Go on to school. I'll go on to Waukesha West. How's West? How's high school? It's good. Yeah? Good grades. He seemed nice. He seemed polite. And he seemed typical. That's what was interesting. I mean, if you ran into Nikita, you would not say, oh, this is somebody I should be afraid of. It was the calmness, everything in that interview made me think like, oh my God, did you really murder your parents? - Are there any clubs at school? - Yeah, the environmental club. There's basically a local community that's both volunteering and FBLA. It's like, it stands for Future Business Leaders of America, and there's different things you can choose, like different events or topics, and I choose Cybersecurity 1. There's like an exam you take, and there's like regionals and state, and nationals, and through the regionals, I got second place. Okay, cool, congratulations. That's a pretty good accomplishment. Yeah. I was in the process also of joining National Honor Society as well. Grades are really good, then, I would say. Okay. he seemed to do well in school and he got good grades and he was even student of the month one time it seemed to be the issue that when you started looking there were no friends and there or there were very few friends for whatever reason he wasn't and connecting with people at school. - And the key to figuring this all out is a classmate of Kasap's who decides to speak to police. Now something to note, this person is referred to as Witness A to protect their identity. - Witness A was someone who had come into the investigation because Nikita had some sort of communication with her prior to killing his parents, that he might kill himself and then in order to not make his parents go through that, he would kill his parents first. - When she would kind of confront him on that, he'd back off saying, well, I don't have a gun, I would never actually do it. And they asked her, how did he describe his upbringing? How did he describe his life, his house, his relationship with his mom and his stepdad? And he was very positive about it. Thought he had a wonderful childhood, believed that he had a good family, which again, makes this even more shocking. a lot of his social time was online. And it caused kind of this interest in having some odd political views or concerning political views. - Looking up school shootings, looking up mass murders, looking up killers. There's a weird fascination that he really had with really dark, scary things. - He'd also shared what she described as gore edits to her. And when asked what a gore edit was, Witness A explained that gore edits were like videos and clips from war that were overlaid with Russian music. Witness A took Nikita's comments as something that was actually serious. - I kind of want to talk to you about why we're here today, Nikita. We have a feeling like we know what happened and when it happened. We have no idea why this happened, okay? The only one who knows why is you and why you were out in Kansas and why you left, okay? And I'm really hoping you talk to me about why this happened. More than what, all right? This is your story. You're the only one that can tell us why. And I promise you, I do want to know. More than anything else, I want to know why. - Yeah, I think I'd rather first talk to an attorney. - Okay, that's your right. - Do you have any questions about him? - Not enough. - Okay. All right, just hang tight, again. If you want one of those, by all means, you can have it. - All right, okay. Thank you. - You got it. - Thank you. - So I'm gonna put you in handcuffs. We're gonna kind of do the old-fashioned way, just get on the back, so if you could just stand up, face the wall to your left of me. It's a short ride, so they'll come off pretty quick. - Nikita Kasap is arraigned about two weeks later. - He was in a suicide vest and he didn't have a shirt on, and I saw Nikita come out, and he looked like a skinny 17-year-old. He looked like a teenager that you'd see anywhere. He looked scared and he looked unsure, and that was most of his court appearances. - I'll note that the first count is first-degree intentional homicide. This is a Class A felony, and if convicted, he shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life. Count two is a second count of first-degree intentional homicide with the exact same maximum punishment. - I ended up charging first-degree intentional homicide, which is that you intended to do something, that this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision, that I believed, in fact, it was planned. - Count three is hiding a corpse. - And then there was the theft of the money and the jewelry. There were 10 counts in total. - In the courtroom, no one showed up for Nikita. I mean, no one was there. It didn't seem like there was anybody, really, that Nikita was connected to. - I am gonna give him a $1 million bail. I believe that that's appropriate, given the seriousness of the crimes, the totality of the circumstances, that, quite frankly, the strength of the state, the state's evidence. - This was not a case that I thought, this one's gonna be really difficult to prove. Certainly, it's a circumstantial case. I don't have video of him killing his mom or stepdad. However, all the puzzle pieces fit together. - As it turns out, this story becomes a puzzle that is not what investigators expected at all. When they dig deeper into Nikita's cell phones and computers, they discover he's not just reading, about the dark underworld on the web. He's actually participating in it. - Nikita had some very concerning web activity and phone activity. It appeared he had a fascination with anti-government and other kind of far extreme political viewpoints. - We know he was talking on the app Telegram. Nikita went onto this app looking for these people. He went looking for neo-Nazis. He went looking for extremists. - These hate groups, they will actually target people very specifically because they want them to go out and do things. And the real problem is because they can do it through this internet process and through apps and platforms, they're very difficult to stop. And so that's what makes them so dangerous. - My understanding is that Nikita had similar political views to some of these other individuals who are committing terror attacks. And so when he saw these people out taking action, he was almost inspired by them to harm people himself in the name of his political belief. - We didn't even know how deep is this? How real is this? How big of a plot is this? Is he working with other people? Is this a terrorist situation? And it just randomly got uncovered when he killed his parents. - That's when police call in the FBI. Turns out though, this isn't new. The FBI had actually investigated Nikita Kassab two years earlier. - Back in 2023, Nikita's mom actually called the Bureau and the FBI showed up to do an investigation, decided that it was nothing of consequence and moved on. But there was that concern of his being online, being in contact with some of these more extremist organizations. - At the time, there wasn't enough to charge Nikita Kassab with anything. This time, it's very different when agents discover the extent of his plot. - He truly believed he was going to murder the president. - The notion is I'm going to go get a drone and I'm going to somehow get close enough to the president and I'm going to drop some sort of an IED or a bomb. - That whole strategy was his plan. I'm going to use a drone. I'm going to weaponize it. And somehow I'm going to be able to kill the president of the United States. - He felt that by taking the president down, he could then push forward the collapse of society so that it could be rebuilt to better fit what his ideals were. He had become so radicalized that he believed the greater plan of, you know, taking action against the government was more important than any individual life of someone that he may or may not have loved or, you know, may or may not have cared for. - So now all of a sudden, this isolated, very lonely young man has the potential being in a group of 10, 20, 30 people. Now he has people who understand him. Now he has friends. Now he knows exactly where he's going. And that's what makes it so powerful. - They're telling him all the things he wants to hear, offering him a life that he could have somewhere else. And it could be this group for him, this friendship and this thing that he's missing. He's missing in his life. - I believe that they made promises to him, like come out here and, you know, if you paid this kind of money, this is what we can get you. I think they also saw we've got a kid here who we can take advantage of. - He did provide them with some thousands of dollars. He has more than $14,000 in cash. He has jewelry, he has other valuables. And the question is, was this driven for just that purpose to exploit this young man? Just so they could take all of his assets. - Certainly he was in these chat rooms in which people were talking about their hatred of the US government. But I believe it was him who decided that maybe I need to buy a drone and weaponize it so I can do this. - But this assassination plot wasn't the end of Nikita's scheme. No, he actually gave some thought to what would happen next. - After he completed his mission to try to kill the president, he had planned to lay low in Ukraine for an amount of time, for some years, and then eventually move on to other countries or to other things. He had this belief that he would be able to kind of fly under the radar as long as he hid for an amount of time. - He was looking not to necessarily live in the US, but to do this, destabilize the country, and then move to Eastern Europe. He was looking for a place to kind of start over his life before he kind of destroyed the country. - I really think in his mind, he thought he was gonna end up in Ukraine and he'd be living a normal life. And maybe that's why he took the family albums with him. Certainly that would be the reason why he would take birth certificates of his mom and himself, because he would have to get to Ukraine. - And had he left sooner, he could have been gone for Eastern Europe or wherever if he had plane tickets, because no one knew what he did for quite some time. So I really think he didn't contemplate getting caught. And maybe that's kind of in the head of a 17 year old. You think, oh, I can get away with this. - This is shockingly to me, half-baked in the very same way that we're talking about him using a drone to kill the president of the United States. But you know what? One of the things about hate groups, extremist groups, is that they can miss a lot of times. They can fail a lot of times. They only need to succeed one time. - It's interestingly disturbing. And as law enforcement, it's extremely concerning that an intelligent teenager can be radicalized to the point that they're taking this type of action to kill the people that they care about most. - As the new year begins, Nikita Kassab is awaiting his double murder trial. But then there's a court hearing. And something happens there that no one really saw coming. - Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everybody. The matter is here today for a change of plea hearing. I was advised that that it was the intent of Mr. Kasap to enter pleas of guilty or no contest to counts one and two. - And we're all like, what, what do you have to gain? Like, what are you doing? Why are you changing your plea? You could take it to trial and just see. - Tell me if this is true. It says, "I give up my right to a trial," true? - Yes, Your Honor. - All right, let's take a look at the charge against you, or charges, I should say. Count number one in the information alleges that on or about February 11, 2025, you did cause the death of victim A, who's identified as Donald Mayer, with intent to kill that person. What is your plea to count one, sir? - Guilty, Your Honor. - What I saw was a very robotic response when he was pleading guilty in this case. Yes, Your Honor. Yes, Your Honor. You could see his chair literally shaking. You could see that his knees must have just been shaking underneath the council table as he was trying to get this over with. - Count number two says on the same date and location, February 11, 2025, at the address, you did cause the death of victim B, who's identified as Tatiana Kasem, with intent to kill that person. What is your plea to that charge, sir? - All right. Did you commit these offenses? - Yes, Your Honor. - People want to know is why not take this to trial? Why did you plead to die? - Actually, for us, our main goal was to have him accept responsibility for the two deaths in this matter. In consulting with the family, they were in agreement that this is a fair offer. I think it gives us a time period that we want for incarceration, so there's really no reason to put the family through a trial. - Are you in any way surprised about Kasem's decision to plead guilty? - I guess I'm a little surprised. I mean, there's really no downside for him to take it to trial, but again, I think the courts look at the fact that someone takes responsibility for what they did, and I think that's a factor that they consider at sentencing. - Pleading guilty to the two counts of intentional homicide also gives Nikita one distinct advantage. The state agrees to dismiss the other counts, so while there's no question that he is going to get, two life sentences, the question of parole is still in play. - I think his best chance of possibly getting a sentence in which he would be back in the community at some point was to accept responsibility, enter the plea, and hope that the judge makes that decision. - All right, I'll call the matter State of Wisconsin versus Nikita Kasem. - As Nikita's sentencing hearing begins, his role, and as the court's sentencing hearing begins, his lawyer stresses that his client has changed his ways. - Just weeks after engaging with these online predators and committing the terrible acts that he had committed, Nikita Kasem was sitting down with the FBI doing a voluntary interview to help them in any way that he could to catch the online predators. Within a month, he is sitting down with the good guys, trying to help them catch the bad guys. - He did meet with federal officials to provide information to them about this. They did say that he was very cooperative during that interview. One of the things that a court can take into consideration at sentencing is you're accepting responsibility for your conduct. Therefore, it somewhat made sense that one may want to accept responsibility to at least argue there should be a possibility of release at some time in the future. - But when friends and family deliver their statements about how the killings of Nikita's parents impacted their lives, Nikita's cause isn't looking as good. - The step-aunts and uncles and the grandparents, they were in court to blast him. They were in court to tell him, "You've destroyed our lives." I mean, they were not in court to support Nikita. No one was in court to support Nikita. - We hear from Michael DeBona, a childhood friend of Donald Mayer, Nikita's stepdad. - DeBona's my best friend. He was also a son, a brother, a husband, and a source of love, laughter, strength to everyone who knew him. His wife was his partner in life, someone he loved deeply and planned a future with. In a single act of unimaginable violence, the defendant erased not one life, but two. I ask that the court fully recognize the gravity of what was done here, and not just the taking of two lives, but the destruction of everything those lives touched. - Your Honor, I have come here today as a representative of my family to share the profound impact that the loss of my brother Don and his wife, Tatiana, has had on our family and their friends. Their lives were intentionally taken in an act of senseless and unforgivable violence. The manner in which Don and Tatiana were killed is something no family should ever have to endure. I believe a person capable of such betrayal and violence poses a continued danger to others. For the safety of the community, and in honor of Don and Tatiana's lives, I ask that he be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. life in prison without any possibility of release. Then it's time for District Attorney Leslie Baze to make her case. This isn't a kid who just went off one night. He was mad at his parents. This was a kid who had it all. He had a loving home. He had good schooling. He had support. He really, he went on vacations with his family. And do I believe that some of his researching of the internet caused him to start having strange ideas? I do. But it wasn't the internet that told him to come up with this plan. It was not the internet who told him that he should kill his parents. That was this defendant's decision. What he did showed a total disregard for human life. This shows an individual who does not deserve to ever be back in the community. So I'm asking the court to do. the maximum penalty, life without the possibility of extended supervision, on each count consecutive to one another. From the defense perspective, they were arguing that these people got into his brain and that's why he did the things he did. This court can and should give strong consideration to the following reality. In February of 2025, when Nikita Kasip committed these terrible crimes, he was a child. On the day that he committed these crimes, had Nikita Kasip tried to enlist in the military or enter into a contract, had he tried to vote in an election, or so much as buy a lottery ticket, the people in charge would have all given likely the same repudiation, "Get out of here. You're just a kid." Why do those protections exist? They exist because we know that children tend to be much more impulsive, we know that they are more vulnerable to outside influences and pressures. Their character is not as well formed or developed as those of an adult. And our global recommendation for both counts is for the court to impose, obviously, the mandatory life with the possibility of extended supervision in 20 years. The defense memorandum had a lot of studies that were cited in terms of how susceptible kids can be. If they come from a different country, they don't have any friends, I think they're even more susceptible. And I believe all that to be true. I guess the part I could not make is the leap that he was having this communication with this person that was associated with a group, and that's why he killed his parents. And I just, that was not a leap that was supported by any evidence. Before the judge officially sentences Nikita Kasip, this teenage defendant, addresses the court. Mr. Kasip, what do you want to tell me? Your Honor, I want to begin by apologizing to the family and friends of both my mother and my stepfather Donald. To everyone who loved them, to everyone who feels pain and grief because of my actions, I am sorry. As much as anyone, I knew that my mom and Donald were kind, loving people. I mean, it really does sound like he loved his mom and his stepdad really treated him as a son. So, do I think he came to regret, like, "Oh my gosh, what did I do?" I do. I do believe he did. I would worry about my mom when she had to use a ladder or hop on the car top to reach something high on the shelf. I would worry about my mom when she had to use a ladder or hop on the shelf. I would worry about her safety and insist that she let me get it for her. This was the mother I killed. The person I chose to kill. The person who loved me. No matter what, the mother who always took care of me, I miss talking to her and being with her. I think when I see tears like this, especially when you have young people, I think they're real. I mean, people want things to be logical. People want to believe that there's good on one side and there's evil and they don't bleed together. And yet you see a boy who's crying about the death of his mother that was caused by his own hands. Some things truly are irreconcilable. There is no excuse for what I did. The truth is I became obsessed with hateful thoughts and feelings. I felt like the world was a sick, evil place and that my extreme actions to try to change it were justified. I thought I was part of a revolution, part of a war. And I told myself the bad things have to happen in war. I could not blame the videos, propaganda and people that inspired my actions because I had the ability to choose right instead of wrong. I am very sorry for what I have done. I'm not immune to the fact that I have a very young man here and that whatever decision I make is a decision that is going to affect that young man for the rest of his life. I have no choice but to impose two life sentences. But this court can set an eligibility date for extended supervision. I am not immune to the fact that I have a very young man here and that whatever decision I make is a decision that is going to affect that young man for the rest of his life. Given the nature of these acts, I do not know, given what occurred here, when and if and whether a profound and significant change can occur. Given the nature of these acts, I do not know, given what occurred here, when and whether a profound and significant change can occur. : I think the sentence is appropriate. This was a planned out, well thought about, and it wasn't an act of passion. I think the sentence is appropriate. He made a conscious decision to kill people that he cared about to further a political terror attack, essentially. I believe that someone who is willing to take that type of violent steps is a very dangerous person, and I think that letting him out at any point in his life would have been very dangerous for the community and wrong. What made him go over the edge? What made him actually do what he did? I don't know if we'll ever know 100% why he did what he did. Look, we're left with as many questions as answers in this case. It seems incomprehensible that a teenager, Look, we're left with as many questions as answers in this case. It seems incomprehensible that a teenager, from a caring family, would brutally kill his own parents and plot to overthrow the government, but there is one thing that's clear. This is a cautionary tale for parents out there who are concerned about what their teens do online. What I think that the takeaway should be is the internet can be a very dark and dangerous place, and can be a very sinister place when you're talking to somebody on the internet. It may not be your friend. It may be a 46-year-old extremist man somewhere in Eastern Europe.