Disclaimer: Some readers may find the story disturbing. Discretion is advised.
Nicholas Prosper, a 19-year-old in the UK who killed his mother, brother and sister and went on to carry out a mass school shooting before being arrested, has been sentenced to jail for 49 years, without the possibility of parole.

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Prosper had pleaded guilty in February to killing his mother Juliana Falcon, 48, sister Giselle Prosper, 13, and brother Kyle Prosper, 16, at the family's home in Luton, Bedfordshire, on September 13 last year. 

Prosper, who also stabbed his brother over 100 times, was not given a life sentence due to his age at the time of the crime - he was 18 - and his guilty plea.

“Your ambition was notoriety. You wanted to be known posthumously as the world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century,” said Luton Crown Court Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb addressing Prosper, who had initially refused to attend the court to hear the verdict on Wednesday (Mar 19).

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She noted how there were several “recurrent themes” in his case similar to other mass shootings, such as sexual interest in children, withdrawal into an online world, a lack of empathy and a “uniform” for the killings, which he planned to carry out on a Friday the 13th. The date choice was deliberate given the superstitions attached to it.

 

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Who is Nicholas Prosper, the 'quiet, geeky' teen killer?

Prosper wanted to become famous for shooting a classroom of children aged just four and five at his old primary school, St Joseph's Catholic Primary School. His former teachers had recalled him to be a 'quiet, geeky boy'.

After killing his family members around 5 am on the fateful day, he left a novel How To Kill Your Family beside their bodies. 

Planned murder

Prosper killed his family after a long physical struggle with them.

His mother and siblings tried their best to fight for their lives, leading to neighbours calling the emergency number.

He was arrested with his pocket full of blood and the knife that he used to attack his brother.

Prosper had managed to hide a gun with 33 cartridges in a bush nearby, and was about to execute his second plan of massacring 30 children in St Joseph's Catholic Primary School when its gates opened.

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Later, he admitted to investigators that he had plotted to quietly kill his family while they were asleep, before carrying out his second plan of shooting 30 children in his former primary school. 

About his family, he told the investigators that "he had a good life with them... but he just wanted to do this to be famous".

Before committing the triple murder, Prosper shared a video of himself discussing characters from Telltale's The Walking Dead series.

Prosper's guilty plea

On February 24, Prosper was found guilty of three counts of murder, the first one of buying a firearm without a certificate, the second of possessing a firearm with intent to harm life, and the third one of having an article with a blade. 

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Prosecutor Timothy Cray KC, had earlier told the court: "The killing of his family was to be the first step in an even more shocking mass killing."

He further added, "That same Friday morning, he had planned to kill at least 30 of the youngest pupils and two of their teachers at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Luton. He had been preparing these killings for months. His planning was cold, deliberate, and without sympathy or emotion towards the actual victims or potential victims."

(With inputs from agencies)