'He's a psychopath with no empathy': Teen who admitted he shot dead grandparents in cold blood and kissed their corpses sentenced to life in prison without parole
- Isaiah Sweet, 19, admitted killing Richard Sweet, 55, and Janet Sweet, 62, as they sat on their couch in Manchester, Iowa in May 2012
- He wanted to kill them as his grandfather made his life a 'living hell'
- A judge said despite his youth, Sweet was extremely dangerous and a threat to society
- Sweet's defense asked for a chance for parole after 25 years, but the presiding judge said he was beyond rehabilitation
- The high school dropout told investigators he had considered poisoning his grandfather's beer or beating him to death with baseball bat
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An Iowa teenager who pleaded guilty to shooting his grandparents with his grandfather's rifle will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
On Tuesday, a judge described Isaiah Sweet, 19, as a cold-blooded killer who should never get another chance at freedom before handing down the maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
Sweet has been charged with the May 2012 slayings of Janet and Richard Sweet at their home in Manchester.
Heartless killer: Isaiah Sweet, pictured left in a mugshot in 2012 and right in court Tuesday, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his grandparents' murders
Public enemy: A judge described the 19-year-old as a dangerous man and a threat to society
‘He may be young, but he has shown the world who he is,’ Judge Michael Shubatt said, reading a written ruling in a Delaware County courtroom in Manchester in front of several of the victims' friends and relatives. ‘He is extremely dangerous. He is now and will continue to be a threat to society.’
Sweet had pleaded guilty last year to two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the couple, his legal guardians.
He was a 17-year-old high school dropout when he shot them in the head on a Friday evening. Their bodies were found on a sofa in their home two days later on Mother's Day, when relatives came over for a gathering.
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ShareA day after the killings, Sweet drove 75 miles south to the college town of Iowa City to party with friends.
He was briefly held on a traffic charge and released to a counselor. He was eventually arrested in connection with the slayings one day after the bodies were found, following an intense manhunt in which he ran from police on foot in a wooded area of Cedar Rapids.
First-degree murder convictions normally carry automatic prison sentences of life without parole in Iowa.
Murdered: He shot dead Richard and Janet Sweet, pictured, on their couch in May 2012. He said he had first considered poisoning his grandfather's beer and then beating him with a baseball bat
But because Sweet was 17, he qualified for a possible shorter sentence under recent rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Iowa Supreme Court that require judges to consider whether teenage offenders can be rehabilitated.
Those rulings say that, at a minimum, judges must conduct hearings to consider each defendant's situation rather than giving them harsh, automatic sentences.
Sweet's defense asked for a chance for parole after 25 years, citing an expert who claimed he might have a 75 per cent chance of rehabilitating.
Emotional: Amanda Sweerin, granddaughter of Richard and Janet Sweet, is weeping during the sentencing of Isaiah Sweet at the Delaware County Courthouse Tuesday
Shubatt said he believed that was overly optimistic, and that Sweet was the rare juvenile offender who deserved life behind bars.
Sweet shot two unsuspecting victims simply because he did not like the control they exercised over him, Shubatt said.
He planned the killings by consulting with others and then sold off his grandparents' belongings afterward, even showing a friend a television a few feet from their bodies, Shubatt said.
Assistant Attorney General Denise Timmins, who prosecuted the case, said she believed the sentence marked the first time since a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a juvenile offender in Iowa has received life without parole.
‘If it's warranted in any case, this is the one,’ she told reporters, calling the crime premeditated and heinous. ‘He took two people's lives without a thought about it.’
Sweet didn't show any emotion after the ruling, leaving the courtroom with his attorneys. They are expected to appeal the sentencing.
Angie Camlin, a daughter of the Sweets, told reporters that she did not believe Isaiah Sweet could be rehabilitated, noting that one doctor called him ‘a psychopath with no empathy.’
‘This cannot be healed with medicine and you cannot teach a person how to feel. He was raised by grandparents who showed him love and cared for him deeply,’ she said.
Beyond help: Angie Camlin, daughter of Janet Sweet, told reporters that she did not believe Isaiah Sweet could be rehabilitated
A friend of Sweet, 21-year-old Brandon Ahlers, was sentenced last year to 18 years in prison after admitting to being an accessory.
Investigators say Sweet and Ahlers discussed different ways the couple might be killed, with Ahlers advising him on how to use the rifle.
After the couple was dead, Ahlers broke into the home so he could steal Richard Sweet's vehicle and other items. Sweet also gave the rifle to Ahlers, who sold it.
Camlin praised Shubatt for giving Sweet the maximum, saying it makes her feel safer.
‘I won't feel that I have to look over my shoulder in 20 or 30 years,’ she said, ‘or have my grandchildren on the same street as someone who cannot be helped.’
Smile of a killer: Isaiah Sweet, 18, grins as he is escorted by sheriff officers after pleading guilty to shooting dead his grandparents in court in Dubuque, Iowa on Monday
Sweet's guilty plea last October came after the prosecution played a two-hour video of Sweet's interview with investigators after he was arrested on May 14, 2012, the Dubuque Times Herald reported.
He explained that he had decided to kill his parents after his grandfather constantly put him down, told him he should kill himself and made the teen's life 'a living hell'.
'[I] walked up the stairs... had the earmuffs on and everything, stepped up until I saw my grandpa's head, boom, pulled the trigger,' Sweet said in the interview. 'Pulled the bolt back, shot my grandma twice in the head.
'I went up to them, and I broke down and started crying. I told them how much I loved them,' he said, adding that he kissed them both. 'I don’t know what's wrong with me.'
In court: He said he understood that he faces a sentence of life in prison as he pleaded guilty on Monday
Anger: Sweet said that he killed his grandparents as his grandfather had made his life a 'living hell'
He sobbed: 'I want to go back so bad.'
Both were found slumped dead on their couch with wounds to the head.
He then jumped in his grandfather's truck from their home in Manchester to Iowa City where he went to parties so he didn't think of the killings.
Sweet told investigators he had tried to kill himself before murdering his grandparents and after their deaths, he tried to commit suicide every night by choking himself until he was caught.
He was arrested three days later after a police chase. In the interview, he told investigators that he wanted police to shoot him when they found him.
He said he had first considered poisoning his grandfather's beer and then beating him with a baseball bat.
Testimony: Investigator Scott Regert gestures how Sweet described pointing and shooting the rifle. After the killings, the teen fled in his grandfather's truck but was found three days later
'They didn’t deserve that,' Sweet said of the killings. 'If anyone in the house deserved that, I did.'
Before pulling the trigger, he said he had considered other methods of how to kill his guardians.
The teen thought about poisoning his grandfather's beer. He decided to kill him with a bat but couldn't go through with the swing because he didn't want his grandparents to feel any pain.
He eventually opted to use his grandfather's rifle.
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