A 19-year-old British man, Nicholas Prosper, has been sentenced to serve at least 49 years before being eligible for parole for fatally shooting his mother and two younger siblings, and for planning a high-profile school shooting. The sentence was handed down at Luton Crown Court on Wednesday.
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03-20, 2025Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb stated during the sentencing hearing that she had considered imposing a life sentence on Prosper, but ultimately decided against it, taking into account his age (18) at the time of the crimes and the fact that he had pleaded guilty. Last month, Prosper admitted at a hearing to killing his 48-year-old mother, Juliana Falena, 13-year-old sister, Giselle Prosper, and 16-year-old brother, Kai Prosper, at their home in Luton, Bedfordshire, on September 13. He had also stabbed his brother over 100 times.
The judge noted that Prosper sought to emulate and surpass atrocities around the world, including the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, which resulted in 26 deaths, mostly children, and the April 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, which resulted in 30 deaths. "Your ambition was to be notorious," the judge said to Prosper, who was forcibly brought to court to hear the sentencing. "You wanted to be the most famous school shooter in the world in the 21st century after your death."
The judge stated that Prosper's case featured "recurring themes" common in global school shootings, including a sexual interest in children, immersion in the online world, a lack of empathy for victims, and the selection of a "uniform" for the killings. The court heard that Prosper was unable to complete his education or find employment, but he managed to forge a firearms license and used it to purchase a shotgun and 100 cartridges from a legitimate gun dealer the day before the murders.
The court heard that his plan was to carry out a mass shooting at his former primary school on Friday the 13th. At around 5 a.m. that day, Prosper conducted a test firing of the shotgun into a teddy bear in his bedroom. His mother woke up first, realizing that something was "very wrong." Prosper murdered her, leaving a novel titled "How to Kill Your Family" on her legs, before shooting his sister, who was hiding under a table, and then stabbing and shooting his brother. "The lives of your own mother and young siblings were simply collateral damage in the achievement of your ambition," the judge said.
After the attack on his family was reported, police swarmed the area, and Prosper stopped officers on a nearby street, showing them where he had stashed the shotgun loaded with cartridges and 33 additional rounds of ammunition. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall of Bedfordshire Police read a statement on behalf of Prosper's father, Raymond Prosper, which stated that the deaths of his former partner, Juliana, and his son, Kai, and daughter, Giselle, had a "wider significance." He said, "Their deaths and the swift response of Bedfordshire Police prevented any other family in the community from suffering the pain we have suffered."
