RIPLEY COUNTY, Ind. — EDITOR'S NOTE: The above video is from a previous report with the mother of the suspect and victims.
An Indiana teen is now facing dozens of years behind bars after a jury convicted him of killing two of his young siblings in 2017.
The verdict came down Friday, Aug. 20. The jury deliberated for just over six hours before finding Nickalas Kedrowitz guilty of murdering his 11-month-old stepbrother, Nathaniel Ritz, and nearly 2-year-old half-sister, Desiree McCartney. Kedrowitz was 13 years old at the time.
Investigators said Kedrowitz smothered the kids to death. Both were killed at the family's home in Osgood, about 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis.
A judge previously found Kedrowitz competent to stand trial and ordered him to adult court. Indiana law allows juveniles as young as 12 to be tried as adults for murder.
Kedrowitz is set to be sentenced Nov. 10 in Ripley Circuit Court. He's facing 45-65 years on each murder count. He is being held in the Ripley County Jail.
13News spoke with Christina McCartney, the mother of the children, in 2018.
"I'm grateful for the time I got to spend with my babies, but my heart breaks for the time that I am missing that has been taken from me, by the hands of my own son," McCartney said, crying.
McCartney said she still loved her son, despite what investigators say the then-13-year-old did to his little brother and sister.
"No mother would ever want to think about that being their son," McCartney said..