Alabama teenager sentenced to life in prison for killing five family members when he was 14

An Alabama teenager convicted at age 14 of killing five family members, including three younger siblings, has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

District Judge Chadwick Wise handed down the sentence to Mason Sisk, now 18, on Thursday. Wise wrote that the crime was “horrific, disturbing and cloaked in unmitigated evil” and warranted the harshest punishment permitted by law.

A jury convicted Sisk in April of multiple capital murder charges for the 2019 shooting deaths of his father, adoptive mother and younger siblings. All five were shot in the head at their home in the Limestone County town of Elkmont. The youngest was a toddler.

John Wayne Sisk, 38, and Mary Sisk, 35, were found dead in their home on September 2, 2019, along with their three children – 6-year-old Kane, 4-year-old Aurora and 6-month-old Colson. All had been shot in the head.

Authorities said Mason Sisk initially told police he was in the basement playing video games when he heard gunshots and ran outside to see a vehicle driving away. However, he later told investigators that he killed the five.

The U.S. Supreme Court said life sentences for people under 18 at the time of the crime were inappropriate except in the rarest of cases and that judges should take into account “children’s reduced culpability and increased capacity for change.”

Wise wrote that the murders were the rare case in which a life sentence without parole was warranted for a juvenile defendant. He determined that the victims had been killed while they were lying in bed. He wrote that “the circumstances in the Sisk case are far more frightening” than other cases in which life sentences for juvenile defendants have been upheld.

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