A warped teenager desperate for notoriety who shot his own family and plotted to target a classroom of four-year-olds in a school massacre has been jailed for life with a minimum of 49 years.
Nicholas Prosper was 18 when he murdered his mother, brother and sister in September last year as part of a horrifying plan to become the deadliest mass killer in history.
He will be 67 years old before he is considered for release after he was spared a rare whole life order for the murders, which he carried out with a shotgun he purchased with a forged licence.
His mother Juliana Falcon, 48, was found with a gunshot wound to the head following the early morning attack in their flat in Luton, along with his younger sister Giselle Prosper, 13, who was sheltering under a dining table. His brother Kyle Prosper, 16, was shot in the chest and head also suffered over 100 knife wounds.
A judge told him he is highly dangerous may never be released unless experts deem he no longer poses a risk to society.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said: “You intended to unleash disaster on the community of Luton. Your plans were intelligent, calculated and selfish.
“Your ambition was notoriety. You wanted to be know posthumously as the world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century.
“The lives of your own mother and younger brother and sister were to be collateral damage on the way to fulfil your ambition.”
She added: “Words such as heartless and brutal are insufficient to describe the horror of those last moments of the people who were closest to you.”
Prosper, now 19, had refused to leave his cell on the morning of his sentencing at Luton Crown Court, but the judge ordered him to attend, telling him: “You have to face the consequences of your actions.”
He appeared in the dock wearing a grey t-shirt and refused to stand as his sentence was handed down, holding his head in his hands. Less time already served on remand, he must spend at least another 48 years and 177 days in prison.
Members of Prosper’s family sobbed in the public gallery as the horrific crimes were detailed by the judge.
In a statement read on their behalf outside court, they said they were horrified to learn the atrocity Prosper had planned as they paid tribute to Ms Falcon, Kyle and Giselle.
“He had completely isolated himself from us over the past year, and we had no knowledge of his intentions,” they said.
“We now see the deaths of Juliana, my son Kyle and daughter, Giselle, had much more meaning and importance. Their deaths and the fast response of Bedfordshire Police stopped any other family in the community going through the pain we have suffered.”
The killer had admitted to the three murders as well as charges of purchasing a shotgun without a license, possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life and possession of a kitchen knife in a public place.
Inside prison he even told a staff member “I wish I had killed more” as he revealed he hoped to kill at least 30 children and two teachers at his former primary school in a bid to exceed the death toll of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, US, which claimed 28 lives.
The court heard how he had meticulously planned his attack for more than a year, carrying out surveillance at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School and “meticulously forging” a shotgun licence on his computer.
He had intended to shoot his family as they slept and lie in wait at their eighth floor flat before ambushing the 9am early years assembly at the school less than a mile away.
However he was forced to abandon his plot after a violent struggle with his family at around 5am alerted the neighbours.
He hid nearby as police swarmed the area, but eventually gave up and gestured to a passing police car with blood on his clothes and glasses. Officers discovered his double-barrelled shotgun and 30 cartridges hidden in a bush.
On arrest he was “inappropriately cheerful”and engaged the officers in conversation, asking if the local schools were locked down.
Prosper’s actions were “cold, deliberate and without sympathy or emotion”, prosecutor Timothy Cray KC told Luton Crown Court, adding he wanted to “imitate and even surpass other mass killers around the world”.
Investigators found he had researched other mass school shooters, their manifestos and had an “interest in the darkest sides of humanity”, including people being killed or seriously injured.
He had also selected a distinctive black and yellow “uniform” to help him be remembered. Footage played to the court showed him dressed in the outfit, complete with a yellow bucket hat, brandishing a wooden post like a gun.
The day before the attack he purchased a shotgun and 100 cartridges for £650 cash from a private seller, who delivered it to his flat in Luton, after he sent him the forged shotgun licence.
He spent the rest of the day carrying out online searches about arterial anatomy, including “do you die if shot in the neck”, “man shoots woman in the head at close range” and one relating to necrophilia.
In a pre-recorded video posted to his Facebook page at 6.22am after the shooting he claimed his sister Giselle had made “incorrect choices” while playing video game The Walking Dead, and “for that her face will be mutilated further than is necessary”.
Referring to an eight-year-old fictional character called Clementine in the zombie apocalypse game, he added: “I am the chosen one; chosen by Clementine. I am guided as Christians are guided by Jesus Christ.”
However Mr Cray said his explanations for the crime should be treated with caution, adding: “The idea that he was solely or even mainly motivated by a video game does not square with the amount of research he put into researching other mass killers.”
The senior investigating officer at Bedfordshire Police, detective chief inspector Sam Khanna, said: “I have never encountered anyone capable of such horrific acts whilst showing no remorse.
“I have been utterly shocked and appalled by the actions and plans of the offender in this case and am pleased that this truly evil individual will now be serving a significant proportion of his life behind bars.”
