GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (Court TV) — A Michigan woman offered a tearful apology in court at her sentencing after she pleaded guilty to murdering her teenage son.
Katie Lee reads a statement in court at her sentencing for murdering her son, Austin. (Court TV)
Katie Austin Lee was sentenced to 60 to 90 years in prison as part of a plea agreement after she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, torture and resisting and obstructing officers in the death of her son, Austin Pikaart.
Lee admitted she killed her 17-year-old son after her mental illness spiraled. “Starting in 2020, my already-struggling health declined to the point we were no longer leaving the house,” Lee said at Monday’s sentencing. “After five years of not leaving the house, it was really hard for me to tell what was real and not real with the algorithms on my phone being nothing but ‘the world’s ending’ content.” Lee said that before she took her son’s life, she was spending eight hours a day watching out her window, believing that the FBI was watching her. She said she checked the outlets in her home for bugs. “My brain was broken,” she said.
Lee began to cry as she offered apologies to the attorneys in the case, first responders who came to the scene and her friends and family. “Every day, every thought, every nightmare, every flashback, every moment without him I’ll forever be punished,” she said. “But I know that’s not enough. I will spend the rest of my life in prison trying to process what I could have done differently.”
“Getting to know Katie has taught me a lot of things,” her attorney, Brandon Barthelemy, said in court. “Always check in with your loved ones. Prioritize your mental health.”
Judge John Hulsing expressed no sympathy as he handed down the sentence. “Just reading the narrative was difficult, because it’s horrific,” he said. “Frankly, the acts you committed on that day were nothing less than pure evil.”
