A Kentucky teen who killed two classmates and injured others when he opened fire at his high school in 2018 was sentenced to two life sentences Friday.
Gabriel Parker, 18, will receive an additional 70 years in prison for 14 counts of assault in connection with the shooting at Marshall County High School on Jan. 23, 2018, NBC affiliate WPSD of Paducah reported.
He will be eligible for parole in 20 years, according to the station. Parker pleaded guilty in April to two counts of murder and 14 counts of assault.
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Parker was 15 when he opened fire with a handgun at the high school, killing Bailey Nicole Holt, 15, and Preston Ryan Cope, 15.
Sheriff’s deputies disarmed and took Parker into custody after the shooting at the high school in Benton. He was charged as an adult.
Marshall County Circuit Judge James Jameson, who graduated from that high school, said “I just can’t imagine what happened that day” and he fought back tears in addressing the families of the victims.
“There’s no real justice to be had here, for any of you,” Jameson said, according to video of the proceedings from CBS affiliate KFVS. “We can’t give you your children back.”
Addressing Parker, Jameson said, “there’s no why that can be given,” and he said, “it’s just a senseless murder of two individuals,” and damage to others.
Dennis Foust, the commonwealth’s attorney for Marshall County, told the Courier-Journal newspaper of Louisville that he hoped the sentence would allow the community to start healing and provide some closure.
Benton is a town of around 4,400 in the southwestern part of the state, around 100 miles northwest of Nashville, Tennessee.
