\n<\/p>\n
RALEIGH, N.C. — <\/span>A judge sentenced an 18-year-old who acknowledged killing five people in a North Carolina mass shooting<\/a> to life in prison without parole Friday, rejecting arguments that he deserved the chance for release decades from now.<\/p>\n Austin David Thompson was 15 during the Oct. 13, 2022, attack that began at his Raleigh home<\/a> when he shot and repeatedly stabbed his 16-year-old brother, James.<\/p>\n Equipped with firearms and wearing camouflage, Thompson then fatally shot four others<\/a> \u2014 including an off-duty city police officer \u2014 in his neighborhood and along a greenway. He was arrested in a shed after a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.<\/p>\n Thompson pleaded guilty last month<\/a> to five counts of first-degree murder and five other counts less than two weeks before his scheduled trial.<\/p>\n Thompson, who did not speak in court, was led away in handcuffs after the sentencing. Family members of the shooting victims cried as the sentence was handed down. Thompson\u2019s attorneys announced plans to appeal the sentence.<\/p>\n Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway judge had the option to sentence him to life in prison with the chance for parole after at least 25 years, but Thompson did not face the death penalty given his age at the time of the crimes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to conceive of a greater display of malice,\u201d Ridgeway said, adding that months of planning and fantasizing by Thompson to carry out the rampage also confirmed that Thompson is the rare juvenile offender \u201cwhose crimes reflect irreparable corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n During the sentencing hearing that began last week, prosecutors revealed the previously confidential contents of a handwritten note with Thompson\u2019s name and the shooting date found at his family’s house in the Hedingham subdivision.<\/p>\n The note said the \u201creason I did this is because I hate humans they are destroying the planet\/earth,\u201d adding that he killed James Thompson \u201dbecause he would get in my way.\u201d<\/p>\n Thompson \u201ccannot tell you why he wrote that note the way that he did,\u201d defense lawyer Deonte\u2019 Thomas said, noting that he had no history of ecological-based anger. \u201cAnd he cannot tell you why he ran down the streets of Hedingham terrorizing people that day.\u201d<\/p>\n But \u201che is not unredeemable, he is not incorrigible,\u201d Thomas added in asking Ridgeway to give him the opportunity one day to tell parole commissioners he could \u201cstill be a productive person in society.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas argued that the rampage happened during a behavioral episode caused by medicine he regularly took for acne which dissociated the youth from reality. A psychiatrist who interviewed Thompson and a geneticist testified to bolster the explanation.<\/p>\n Ridgeway decided the evidence did not support the conclusion that Thompson\u2019s acts happened while he entered an altered mental state induced by the medication and a genetic abnormality.<\/p>\n Prosecutors dismissed the medication argument as weak and highlighted Thompson\u2019s internet search history on his phone and computer leading up to the attack. They said it included school shootings and were related to guns, assaults and bomb-making materials.<\/p>\n Nicole Connors, 52; Raleigh police Officer Gabriel Torres, 29; Mary Marshall, 34; and Susan Karnatz, 49, also were killed in the rampage. Two other people were wounded, including another police officer involved in the search for Thompson.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the blink of an eye, everything changed for those people and for the people that they left behind,\u201d Wake County assistant prosecutor Patrick Latour said Thursday while urging a sentence with no potential parole. \u201cAnd the thing that made it change was not some acne medication. It was the defendant\u2019s knowing, researched, well thought out, planned, decisive actions.\u201d<\/p>\n The judge heard from people like Jasmin Torres, the widow of Gabriel Torres and the mother of their 5-year-old daughter. She asked Ridgeway to sentence Thompson to life without parole, calling him a \u201cmonster.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot one of us surviving victims, our families, our friends, our community should ever have to worry about a future where his barbaric self is set free,\u201d Torres said last week.<\/p>\n Thompson\u2019s parents testified they couldn\u2019t explain why their son committed the violence, calling him a normal, happy kid who did well in school and showed no signs of destruction.<\/p>\n