WAUKESHA, Wis. (Court TV) — A judge showed no mercy for Nikita Casap as he handed down a life sentence without the possibility of parole to a teenager who murdered his parents.
Nikita Casap sits with his attorney at his sentencing on March 5, 2026. (Court TV)
Casap, 18, pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional homicide for the gruesome murders of his mother, Tatiana Casap, and stepfather, Donald Mayer. While the charges carried a mandatory life sentence, the judge had the discretion of whether to allow for extended release after an initial sentence.
“What I did was vile,” Casap said in court on Thursday. “What I did was thoughtless. What I did was wrong.”
Prosecutors say Casap shot both victims to death in their Wisconsin home on Feb. 11, 2025, and then lived with the bodies for two weeks while he continued to work on a terrorist plot.
Casap became obsessed with terrorism after six people were killed in a deadly attack at a Christmas market in Germany on Dec. 20, 2025. “The truth is, I became obsessed with hateful thoughts and feelings,” Casap said in court. “I thought the world was a sick, evil place.” Casap joined chatrooms where he began talking to people about a plot to attack the United States. “I thought I was part of a revolution,” he said. “Part of a war. And I told myself that bad things had to happen in war.”
Prosecutors said it isn’t clear where the plan to kill his parents came from, but after murdering his parents, Casap stole money from their bank accounts to buy supplies for his planned attack using Bitcoin. Casap sent more than $8,700 to buy a fake license plate, a drone and explosives to place on the drone. Casap’s ultimate plan, prosecutors said, was to unleash the drone and the explosive to kill President Donald Trump.
Referring to killing his parents as “the Tuesday thing,” prosecutors said in an interview with federal agents, Casap said he was waiting for instructions on how to carry out the plan “when he wound up doing ‘the Tuesday thing.'” But the plan was all a hoax, prosecutors say. After an extensive federal investigation, no other arrests were made. Investigators say the people Casap had been talking to never intended to supply him with anything and only saw him as an easy mark.
Casap, who came to the United States with his mother from Moldova, was described by the prosecution as “a kid who had it all,” including a loving mother and stepfather who gave him a safe home and anything he needed.
“I know that my mom and Donald were kind, loving people. They were people who took care of me, and they were people who took care of others,” Casap said at his sentencing. “The person I chose to kill was the person who loved me no matter what. … I miss my mom. I would much rather be with her and my stepdad now in Heaven than being on Earth.”
While Casap’s defense attorney urged the judge to see Casap as a vulnerable child with capacity for change who has already dedicated his life to Jesus Christ while behind bars, Judge Ralph Ramirez wasn’t persuaded.
“I choose to find he’s not eligible for release for extended supervision,” Judge Ramirez ruled. “I do not know, given what happened here, when or if or whether a profound or significant change can occur.” The judge suggested that with good behavior, Casap would be able to move around within the framework of the prison system to gain privileges.
