Indiana teen sentenced to 100 years for killing 2 young siblings

Versailles (US), Feb 03: A southeastern Indiana teenager has been sentenced to 100 years in prison for the suffocation deaths of his two young siblings months apart in 2017, when he was 13 years old.

A Ripley County judge ordered the sentence Tuesday for Nickalas Kedrowitz. Jurors convicted him in August on two counts of murder for the killings of his 23-month-old half-sister, Desiree McCartney, and his 11-month-old stepbrother, Nathaniel Ritz.

Kedrowitz was arrested in August 2018 in the May 2017 killing of Desiree and the July 2017 killing of Nathaniel, both of whom were found unresponsive at the family's home in Osgood, about 60 miles (96 km) southeast of Indianapolis. The judge ordered 50-year prison terms for each death to be served one after the other.

Ripley County Prosecutor Richard Hertel said Kedrowitz told detectives that he was "freeing his siblings from hell".

"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," Hertel told reporters after the sentencing hearing. The judge ordered that Kedrowitz's case be handled in adult court despite his attorney's arguments that the teen has untreated mental health problems.