They Gave Him a Place to Live — Then He Murdered His Brother's Wife and Their 2 Young Children. Now He Learns Fate By Chris Spargo

A New Hampshire teenager who murdered his brother’s family after being welcomed into their home was sentenced on Friday, Oct. 3.

Eric Sweeney was charged with three counts of first-degree murder after Kassandra Sweeney, 25, and her two sons, 4-year-old Benjamin and 23-month-old Mason, were found shot dead in their home on Aug. 3, 2022.

Just 16 at the time, Eric had been living with the family for three years after his older brother Sean took him in and agreed to serve as his legal guardian alongside Kassandra.

Eric, now 19, entered a guilty plea in August as part of a deal with prosecutors that reduced the charges to second-degree murder.

A judge on Friday sentenced Eric to serve 60 years to life for the murders — more than the 40 years the defense had sought but less than the 97 years recommended by prosecutors.

In handing down his sentence,  Judge John Kissinger said that Eric could be eligible for parole if he hits certain educational milestones and does not commit any major infractions during his time in prison.

That sentence came after a long day of victim impact statements, during which friends and family of the victims spoke about the three lives lost.

The defense, meanwhile, had expert witnesses speak about how Eric’s difficult upbringing led him to this point, with his own lawyer telling the court that his client lacked the mental capacity to fully understand his own actions.

It is that upbringing that led Sean to take in his brother and become his legal guardian when Eric was 13 — a role he attempted to step down from just months before his wife and two sons were murdered.

Eric did not speak in his own defense at his sentencing hearing, and his brother Sean, 28, did not attend the proceedings.

It is Sean who called police to report the murders after receiving a call from his brother, who claimed that someone had broken into the home and shot Kassandra and the boys, according to a bail motion filed by prosecutors and obtained by PEOPLE.

“I don’t know … my brother told me someone broke in and killed them all,” said Sean in his call to emergency dispatch, as noted in the motion.

Eric, who had been living with the family at the time of the murders, initially told police that he was in his bedroom in the basement when he “heard something break” and a “deep, male voice yelling followed by multiple ‘pops,'” according to the bail motion.

The motion said that Eric claimed he fled the home with Kassandra’s cell phone once things quieted down, declining to check on Kassandra or the two boys as he exited the home and drove off.

Police quickly discovered, however, that one of the two guns owned by Sean had gone missing from the home, and a few days later they were able to recover the weapon after searching along the route Eric traveled while he had Kassandra’s phone on the day of the murders, per the motion.

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The shell casings in that gun matched the one taken from Kassandra’s body during her autopsy.

At the same time, security cameras along the street showed that no person entered the home that day prior to the murders.

Sean then spoke with police about why his brother may have had a motive to murder his family.

“Sean told officers that there was growing tension in the family because of the defendant’s behaviors to the point that the defendant would not listen to him and they were barely speaking to one another,” the motion said. “He stated that he had installed a lock on the door to the master bedroom in order to keep the defendant out of the room, but that he didn’t believe that Kassandra locked the door. Sean told investigators that he and Kassandra wanted the defendant out of their home and had been taking steps to remove him.”

His final memory of his wife and children came just minutes before their murders when Kassandra sent Sean a video of the boys.

She included a short message to her husband which read: “I hope they make you laugh.”