A teenager who suffocated two of his younger siblings to ‘free them from Satan and hell’ has been sentenced to 100 years in prison.
Gatekeepers News reports that Nickalas Kedrowitz, now 17, was 13 when he murdered his 23-month-old half-sister Desiree McCartney and his 11-month-old stepbrother Nathaniel Ritz.
In August 2021, Kedrowitz was convicted on two counts of murder. The judge ordered 50-year prison terms for each death to be served one after the other.
He killed Desiree in May 2017 and Nathaniel in July 2017 and both children were found unresponsive at the family’s home in Osgood, about 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis.
Desiree was found dead after Kedreowitz had been left to look after the toddler. He told his mother the little girl ‘wasn’t breathing right’ according to Fox 19.
On July 20 that year Kedrowitz was putting Nathaniel to bed and claimed the child stopped moving.
He is also believed to have mutilated a kitten at a relative’s home.
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.
