FORT EDWARD, N.Y. -- Twenty-four-year-old Matthew Slocum was sentenced to 88 years to life in state prison on Friday for the shooting deaths of his mother, stepfather and stepbrother in their White Creek residence last July.
Judge Kelly McKeighan gave consecutive sentences to Slocum for the three murders and arson after hearing three emotional impact statements from family members of the victims. Slocum declined to make his own final statement and only responded to McKeighan in one word replies during the Friday morning sentencing. His Public Defender, Michael Mercure, told the judge his client had requested an appeal in the case, due within 30 days of sentencing.
Slocum was found guilty March 8 on seven charges, including three counts of second-degree murder and first-degree arson, tampering with physical evidence, criminal possession of a weapon and petit larceny. Slocum entered a not guilty plea and maintained his innocence through the course of the trial, including on the stand March 7, when he admitted to setting the house on fire with gasoline in the early morning hours of July 13, 2011, but testified that it was only after his girlfriend, Loretta Colegrove, had shot the three victims: Slocum's mother Lisa Harrington, her husband Dan Harrington and Harrington's 24-year-old son Joshua O'Brien.
Police and the prosecution attested to Slocum as the murderer.
Colegrove was never charged and testified to being in a
Slocum received an indeterminate sentence of 25-years-to-life for each murder charge, the maximum penalty for second-degree murder in New York, a state which does not have the death penalty. McKeighan said he knew there was no death penalty because he had checked prior to Friday's sentencing.
-- Zeke Wright
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