RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A judge on Friday sentenced an 18-year-old man who admitted killing five people in a North Carolina mass shooting to life in prison without parole, rejecting arguments that he should have a chance at release decades later.
Austin David Thompson, 15, shot and stabbed his 16-year-old brother James multiple times in an attack at his home in Raleigh on October 13, 2022.
Thompson, armed with a gun and wearing camouflage, then shot and killed four other people, including an off-duty city police officer, in his neighborhood and along the greenway. He was arrested in a shed after shooting himself in the head.
Thompson pleaded guilty last month to five counts of first-degree murder and five other counts, less than two weeks before his scheduled trial.
Thompson did not speak in court and was led away in handcuffs after the sentencing. Family members of the shooting victims burst into tears when the verdict was announced. Thompson’s attorneys announced plans to appeal the verdict.
Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway had the option of sentencing him to life in prison with a chance of parole after at least 25 years, but Thompson did not face the death penalty given his age at the time of the crime.
“It is difficult to imagine a more serious act of malice,” Ridgeway said, adding that Thompson’s months of planning and fantasizing to carry out the atrocity also confirmed that Thompson was a rare juvenile offender “whose crimes reflect irreparable corruption.”
During a sentencing hearing that began last week, prosecutors revealed the previously confidential contents of a handwritten note found at Thompson’s home in the Hedingham subdivision that included Thompson’s name and the date of the shooting.
The note said, “The reason I did this is because I hate humans and they are destroying the earth/earth,” adding that he killed James Thompson “because he would be in my way.”
“He can’t tell you why he wrote that note the way he did,” said Deonte Thomas, Thompson’s defense attorney. He noted that Thompson had no history of ecological outrage. “He couldn’t tell you why he was out on the streets of Hedingham that day terrorizing people.”
But Thomas, in asking Ridgeway to give him a chance to tell parole commissioners one day, added that “he is not irredeemable, nor irredeemable” and that he “can still be a productive member of society.”
Thomas argued the rampage occurred during a behavioral episode caused by the acne medication he regularly took, which caused the young man to lose touch with reality. A psychiatrist and a geneticist who interviewed Thompson testified to support this explanation.
Ridgway argued that the evidence did not support the conclusion that Thompson’s actions occurred during a period when he was in an altered mental state due to drugs and genetic abnormalities.
Prosecutors argued the drug argument was weak and highlighted Thompson’s history of Internet searches on his phone and computer before the attack. They said they included school shootings and were linked to firearms, assaults and bomb-making materials.
Nicole Connors, 52; Raleigh police officers Gabriel Torres, 29; Mary Marshall, 34; and Susan Karnatz, 49, also died in the riot. Two other people were injured, including another police officer involved in the search for Thompson.
“In the blink of an eye, everything changes for these men and the people they left behind,” Wake County Assistant Prosecutor Patrick Latour said Thursday while urging a sentence without parole. “It’s not some acne drug that changes the status quo. It’s informed, researched, thoughtful, planned, decisive action.”
The judge heard from Jasmin Torres, the widow of Gabriel Torres and the mother of their 5-year-old daughter, among others. She asked Ridgeway to sentence Thompson to life in prison without the possibility of parole, calling him a “monster.”
“None of us who are the surviving victims, our families, our friends, our community should fear that his brutal self will be unleashed in the future,” Torres said last week.
Thompson’s parents testified 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 disruption.
Thompson’s father admitted improperly storing a handgun that authorities said was found when his son was arrested. He was sentenced to probation and probation.
“We have both lost children, one at the hands of the other. We never saw this coming and still can’t fathom it,” mother Elise Thompson told the shooting victim’s family last week, saying she would be “forever sorry for the pain this has caused you.”
