Raleigh, North Carolina – An 18-year-old who admitted killing five people in an accident has been sentenced by a judge Mass shooting in North Carolina He was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Friday, rejecting arguments that he deserves a chance at release decades from now.
Austin David Thompson was 15 years old during the October 13, 2022, attack It started at his home in Raleigh when he shot and repeatedly stabbed his 16-year-old brother, James.
Thompson was then armed with firearms and wearing camouflage clothing Four others were shot dead — including an off-duty city police officer — in his neighborhood and along the Greenway. He was arrested in a shed after being shot in the head.
Thompson He pleaded guilty last month He was charged with five counts of first-degree murder and five other charges less than two weeks before his scheduled trial.
Thompson, who did not speak in court, was led away in handcuffs after the sentencing. Family members of the shooting victims cried as the verdict was handed down. Thompson’s lawyers announced plans to appeal the ruling.
Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgway had the option of sentencing him to life in prison with the chance of parole after at least 25 years, but Thompson did not face the death penalty due to his age at the time of the crimes.
“It is difficult to imagine a greater display of malice,” Ridgway said, adding that months of planning and imagining by Thompson to carry out the attack also confirmed that Thompson is the rare juvenile offender “whose crimes reflect irreparable depravity.”
During the sentencing hearing that began last week, prosecutors revealed the previously secret contents of a handwritten note bearing Thompson’s name and the date of the shooting found at his family’s Hedingham-area home.
“The reason I do this is because I hate humans because they are destroying the planet/earth,” the note said, adding that he killed James Thompson “because he would get in my way.”
Defense attorney Deonte Thomas said Thompson “can’t tell you why he wrote that note that way,” noting that he had no history of getting angry over environmental reasons. “And he can’t tell you why he ran through the streets of Hedingham terrorizing people that day.”
When he asked Ridgway to give him the opportunity one day to tell parole commissioners that he “can still be a productive person in society,” Thomas added, “but he’s not irredeemable, he’s not irredeemable.”
Thomas argued that the rampage occurred during a behavioral episode caused by medication he was taking regularly to treat acne that disconnected the youth from reality. A psychiatrist who interviewed Thompson and a geneticist testified to support the explanation.
Ridgway determined that the evidence did not support the conclusion that Thompson’s actions occurred while he was in an altered mental state caused by medication and a genetic defect.
Prosecutors dismissed the medication alibi as weak and highlighted Thompson’s Internet search history on his phone and computer before the attack. They said it included school shootings and was linked to weapons, assaults and bomb-making materials.
Nicole Connors (52); Raleigh Police Officer Gabriel Torres, 29; Mary Marshall, 34; Susan Karnatz, 49, was also killed in the attack. Two other people were injured, including another police officer involved in the search for Thompson.
“In the blink of an eye, everything changed for these people and for the people they left behind,” Wake County Assistant Prosecutor Patrick Latour said Thursday as he urged a sentence without the possibility of parole. “And the thing that made it change wasn’t some acne medication. It was the defendant’s knowledge, research, well-thought-out, planning, and decisive actions.”
The judge heard from people like Yasmin Torres, the widow of Gabriel Torres and the mother of their 5-year-old daughter. She asked Ridgway to sentence Thompson to life in prison without parole, calling him a “monster.”
“None of us the surviving victims, nor our families, our friends, our community, should worry about a future in which our barbaric self is set free,” Torres said last week.
Thompson’s parents testified that they could not explain why their son committed the violence, describing him as a normal, happy child who did well in school and showed no signs of being destructive.
Thompson’s father plead guilty for improperly storing his gun, which authorities said was found when his son was arrested. He received a suspended sentence and probation.
“We have lost our children, one at the hands of the other. We have never seen this and we still cannot understand it,” mother Elise Thompson said last week while telling the families of the shooting victims that she will “forever regret the pain this has caused you.”