UK teenager who murdered family and planned school shooting gets 49-year sentence

(AFP): A UK teenager who killed three family members and planned to outdo notorious US massacres to become “the world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century” was on Wednesday jailed for a minimum of 49 years.

Nicholas Prosper, 18 at the time of the killings, used a shotgun to kill his mother Juliana Falcon, 48, sister Giselle, 13, and brother Kyle, 16, who also received more than 100 knife wounds, at their home in Luton, north of London, in September 2024.

“Your ambition was notoriety. You wanted to be known posthumously as the world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century,” Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said on Wednesday as she sentenced the now 19-year-old.

Prosper told police upon his arrest of his “Friday the 13th” plan to also kill dozens of four and five-year-old pupils and two teachers at a nearby primary school that he had previously attended, then himself.

He said his aim was to conduct an attack more deadly than the Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech massacres in the US, but that the plan was interrupted when his mother woke up before he could kill his family in their sleep. The noisy struggle alerted neighbours, who called the police.

After killing her, he placed a novel with the title How to Kill Your Family on her body.

“You explicitly sought to emulate and outdo Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old American who shot dead 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut in 2012,” the judge said.

“You aimed for 34 deaths, one more than the deadliest school shooting of recent times in the United States of America, at Virginia Tech in 2007,” she added.

Prosper had drawn diagrams of the classrooms at Luton’s St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School and written a note next to it reading “kill all”.

“You filmed yourself acting out the killing in the kitchen,” said the judge.

‘Utterly shocked’

Prosper, who experts said showed symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder, was handed a life sentence, with a minimum term of 49 years.

Taking into account the time already served, he will spend a minimum of 48 years and 177 days in jail.

“You remain highly dangerous and it may be you will never be released,” the judge said, adding that Prosper, who delayed the hearing by refusing to leave his cell, had shown no remorse.

After being asked to leave school in 2023, Prosper “existed in an online world, choosing little real-life contact with others”, the court was told.

Analysis of his internet activity revealed a fascination with “notorious murderers, perpetrators of mass school shootings around the world and rapists”, added the judge.

A statement written by Ray Prosper, the perpetrator’s father and former husband of Juliana Falcon, told the court that “the pain of our loss will never be healed”.

“When I heard the horrendous news that day, part of my soul died too,” he said. “This is a lose-lose situation for us all and we have lost four family members.”

Bedfordshire Police Assistant Chief Constable John Murphy said the local police force was “utterly shocked and appalled by the sickening actions of this individual”.