CONCORD, NH – The teenager who killed his sister-in-law and two young nephews three years ago in their Northfield home was sentenced Friday to 60 years-to-life in prison.
Eric Sweeney, now 19, pleaded guilty in August to three counts of reckless second-degree murder and one charge of falsifying physical evidence. He was 16 years old when he killed Kassandra Sweeney, 25, Benjamin, 4, and Mason, 23 months old, on Aug. 3, 2022 in their Northfield home.
Weeks earlier, he had been released from Hampstead Hospital where he was treated for a mental illness. Sean Sweeney, his step-brother and guardian of him with his wife, had pleaded with the hospital not to release him to no avail, according to court testimony.
The falsifying physical evidence charge accused Sweeney of tossing the murder weapon, a .40 caliber Taurus pistol he took from his brother’s lockbox, out a truck window into the median strip of Interstate 93. The gun was later recovered by investigators.
Judge John C. Kissinger Jr., presiding in Merrimack County Superior Court, on Friday issued the sentences: 60 years to life on each second-degree murder count to be served concurrently. If Sweeney earns his high school diploma and competes a vocational program, the sentence could be reduced by a total of six years. Kissinger said that, depending on Sweeney’s conduct, he could go before the parole board at age 70 or 68, with additional provisions provided by law. At a minimum, he would serve a total of 54 years. He already has been jailed for a little over three years.
“That’s a little over half a century from now,” the judge said.
The sentencing followed statements from 11 family members who called Sweeney a “monster” and who urged the judge to give him the lengthiest sentence allowed by law.
Kissinger said he spent many hours thinking about what sentence would be appropriate. Before issuing the sentence, however, he said he wanted to acknowledge three people: Kassandra Sweeney, Benjamin Sweeney and Mason Sweeney.
“I want to thank the state for presenting some images from the day of the homicide … photos and videos depicting them in life. What is evident from those photos and the remarks of family today is these were three wonderful people. People who were happy, joyful, loved each other and I can tell from each of you who spoke today, the depth of the loss but also what those lives meant to you.”
He acknowledged Sweeney had a horrific early childhood that included physical and sexual abuse, and severe neglect. However, he said the murders were “unimaginably brutal and heinous.”
He said it was a young mother, 25 years old, and her children playing “just enjoying a typical day. Costumes, seeing an animal out the window. A typical day a family should be able to enjoy when the defendant with no provocation, no justification, no thought or care for the consequences of his actions savagely slaughtered each of them by shooting them. Leaving their bodies on the floor of the home they shared with him, that they welcomed him into when he had no place else to go. What an act of love and compassion, for somebody who is suffering, to welcome them into your home. To cover for his own despicable acts, the defendant fled the home and got rid of the gun.”
Kissinger said it was hard for him to reconcile those two things: “A child who suffered like they shouldn’t suffer” and the awful nature of his crimes. The sentences, he said, was to allow Sweeney a narrow path, providing for his rehabilitation and redemption, and release.
Prosecutors wanted the judge sentence him to a total of 115 years, 35 years for killing Kassandra; and 40 years each for the murders of Benjamin and Mason, all to be served consecutively. The three deaths, they maintained, was a mass murder.
The defense argued for 40-years-to life. They said Sweeney is not a monster although the acts were monstrous. They said a 115-year sentence was cruel, a life sentence and unconstitutional when it comes to juveniles.
Eleven family members addressed the judge either in person or in letters read by a victim/witness advocate Calling Sweeney a monster, a coward and undeserving of the Sweeney name, family members asked the judge to sentence him to the longest sentence allowed by law. They described how the loss of two little boys and their mother had devastated them and said no sentence imposed would ever be enough.
Kassandra Sweeney, they said, was a sassy, funny woman who was a natural when it came to being a mother. Four-year-old Benjamin was the smartest little boy they ever knew and who loved dinosaurs. Mason, two weeks shy of his second birthday, was bubbly, loving, sweet, and loved to eat.
“That boy could eat and eat,” said his aunt Katrina Turnball, Kassandra’s sister. “We could see his future as being a competitive hot dog eater.” It was the only moment of levity in a courtroom filled with tears.
“Enjoy the prison,” she told Sweeney. “You know what they do to baby killers.”
Through it all, Sweeney sat looking straight ahead, never turning to look at a speaker even when they implored him to look at them.
Kassandra and her husband Sean, Eric’s step-brother, became Eric’s guardians in 2019. In the months leading up to the killings, Eric had increasing behavioral issues creating tension between he, his brother and sister-in-law, resulting in police being called to their Northfield home. At the time of the murders, the brothers were barely speaking to each other.
The couple realized that Sweeney, who was seeing therapists, needed more help than they could provide and went to court seeking release from their guardianship. The court denied their request.
On the morning of Aug. 3, 2022, Eric, using Kassandra’s cell phone, called his brother to say someone had broken into the house “and killed them all.” Sean Sweeney called police and headed back to his house.
When police arrived at the 56 Wethersfield Drive home, an officer looked through a window to see a woman and young child – Kassandra and Mason in pools of blood on the dining room floor. Steps away on the kitchen floor, police found Benjamin dead. A bullet hole was visible in the hood of the dinosaur costume he was wearing.
Investigators found no evidence of a home invasion.
Autopsies determined all three had died from a single gunshot to the head. The medical examiner recovered a bullet from Kassandra’s body while the bullets that killed the children had passed through their bodies.
The medical examiner determined the bullets came from the .40 caliber Taurus pistol recovered by police.
Sean Sweeney told investigators he kept two guns in a locked safe under his bed but he didn’t think Eric knew that. One was a .40 caliber Taurus pistol, loaded with mismatched ammunition, and the other a 9mm Hi-Point. There were two sets of keys, one in the bedroom closet, the other on the key chain for Kassandra’s Silver F-150 pickup truck.
The Taurus pistol wasn’t in the box when police looked at it.
That morning, Durand said, Sean Sweeney had left early for work. Kassandra communicated with him through cell phone, sending texts and videos of the children playing with her. One video was of a groundhog outside in the yard, which the kids called a hedgeho, the video prosecutors played in court on Friday. Another was of Benjamin in his dinosaur costume and Mason playing.
Through those texts and videos, investigators were able to pinpoint the time when the murders took place – around 11 a.m. – because Kassandra sent four Snapchat messages at 10:58 a.m., the last time she sent anything.
Minutes later, investigators tracked movement of Kassandra’s phone heading away from the home. Eric Sweeney took Kassandra’s cell phone with him when he left in Kassandra’s pickup truck, authorities said, the same truck recorded on one of the videos she sent her husband.
Eric drove down the driveway passing tree workers, never stopping, and continued driving until he reached Interstate 93 South where he threw the murder weapon out the window into the median strip.
At 11:16, he tried to call his brother but the call didn’t go through. At 11: 17, he texted his brother, “Help.” Seconds later, he sent a second text, “It’s Eric.” He finally connected with his brother in a call at 11:19 a.m. when Eric tells him someone broke into the house and “killed them all.”
When he later spoke with investigators from the New Hampshire State Police Major Crime Unit, Eric denied committing the murders. Sean Sweeney, who was present during the interview, collapsed on the floor, Durand said.
Investigators also found gunshot residue on Sweeney’s hands and on the steering wheel of the pickup truck.