A 19-year-old British man who murdered his mother and two younger siblings, and planned a high-profile school shooting, has been sentenced to at least 49 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
During the sentencing at Luton Crown Court on Wednesday, Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb stated that although she had considered issuing a full life sentence for Nicholas Prosper, she decided against it due to his age — he was 18 at the time of the killings — and his guilty plea.
Last month, Prosper admitted to the murders of his 48-year-old mother, Juliana Falcon, and his younger siblings, 13-year-old Giselle and 16-year-old Kyle Prosper, at their Luton, Bedfordshire home on September 13. He also stabbed his brother over 100 times.
The judge noted that Prosper sought to replicate and surpass infamous global massacres, such as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, where 26 people, mostly children, were killed, and the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting that claimed 30 lives.
“You aimed for notoriety,” the judge told Prosper, who had to be forced into court to hear his sentence. “You wanted to be posthumously known as the most famous school shooter of the 21st century.”
The judge remarked that Prosper's case shared several common traits with other school shootings worldwide, including an unhealthy interest in children, a retreat into online spaces, a lack of empathy for victims, and a premeditated “uniform” for the killings.
The court was informed that Prosper, unable to remain in education or hold down a job, forged a gun license and purchased a shotgun and 100 cartridges from a legitimate dealer the day before the murders. His plan was to carry out a mass shooting at his former elementary school on Friday the 13th.
Early that morning, Prosper fired a test shot into a teddy bear in his bedroom. His mother, waking up first, sensed something was wrong, and Prosper killed her, leaving a copy of the book How to Kill Your Family on her legs. He then shot his sister as she hid under a table and stabbed and shot his brother.
“The lives of your mother and younger brother and sister were merely collateral damage in your pursuit of fame,” the judge commented.
As police flooded the area following the family attack, Prosper flagged down officers in a nearby street and led them to where he had concealed a loaded shotgun and 33 cartridges.
In a statement read by Bedfordshire Police Detective Superintendent Rob Hall, Prosper's father, Raymond, expressed that the deaths of his ex-partner and children carried “far more meaning and importance.” He added, “Their deaths and the swift action of Bedfordshire Police prevented any other family from experiencing the pain we have suffered.”