Nicholas Shutter was sentenced Monday to 225 months for killing his grandmother, Marilyn Shutter, who had raised him as her adoptive son.
Beltrami County District Court Judge Paul Benshoof sentenced Nicholas Shutter for second-degree murder, a serious felony. He had pleaded guilty to the charge in January.
"What a veil of sorrow that has descended on Bemidji," said Benshoof, referencing both the death of Marilyn Shutter and Nicholas Shutter's "confusion." "I have no pretensions that what I'm going to do today is going to make anything better."
Nicholas Shutter, now 18, killed Marilyn Shutter on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24, 2005, when he was 15. She was shot with a deer rifle.
"I would like to say ... if there was anything like a time machine, let's make up stuff, if there was a time machine to take me back to that date, I would take that immediately no matter the cost," Nicholas Shutter said.
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The Shutter family submitted a written statement that County Attorney Tim Faver read into the record.
"There is no relief or justice for us today," the statement said, explaining that the family is coping both with the loss of Marilyn Shutter to death and the loss of Nicholas Shutter to incarceration.
"We don't need to tell Nick how much it hurts that she is gone; he already knows," the statement said of Marilyn Shutter.
Of Nicholas Shutter, the statement read: "We love him and will continue to support him."
Nicholas Shutter, who was charged as an adult following the Nov. 24, 2005 shooting, will be returned to the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter, Minn., a maximum security psychiatric hospital.
Nicholas Shutter's sentence stipulates that he will serve his time, minus 1,209 days already served, at the St. Peter facility unless he is transferred to another facility.
He would be sent to the St. Cloud prison to serve any remaining time from his sentenced if he is ever deemed to no longer be mentally ill and dangerous, Faver explained following the sentencing.
