‘I Deserve To Be Locked Up’: Man Gets 205-Year Sentence For Murdering 5 Family Members

A Wisconsin man who pleaded guilty to murdering multiple family members in cold blood last spring recently received a maximum prison sentence for his crimes.

On April 27, 2020, Christopher P. Stokes, 44, called 911 at 10:38 a.m. and again at 10:44 a.m. to report he had fatally shot five family members at his Milwaukee home: Teresa Thomas, 41, Marcus Stokes, 19, Lakeitha Stokes, 17, Tera Agee, 16, and Demetrius Thomas, 14.

According to a criminal complaint, Stokes identified himself by name and told dispatchers: “Um, I just massacred my whole family. The gun is still upstairs with the bodies,” and, “I just killed my whole family with my Mossberg,” a 12-gauge shotgun that investigators later located at the crime scene.

Responding officers found Stokes sitting on the home’s steps with victim Teresa Thomas’ 3-year-old grandchild. One officer asked Stokes if he had heard shots. "Yeah, I didn’t hear them. I did them," he responded, the complaint states.

Two doctors determined the shooting suspect did not qualify for a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, and Stokes pleaded guilty in June to five counts of first-degree reckless homicide and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, television station WITI reported.

On July 27, a Milwaukee County judge sentenced the admitted killer to 200 years behind bars — 40 years for each of the five homicide charges — and an additional 5 years for the gun possession charge. He also received 105 years of extended supervision.

“Don't know what in the world came over me. Woke up and just had blood on my mind. Something just wasn't going right. It was, I don't know,” Stokes told the court before his sentencing, according to WITI. “The reality is, I can't take it back. I did the ultimate sin… I deserve to be locked up. I deserve everything I get. I'm not asking for no leniency or anything like that. I deserve it. No one in the world should have done what I did.”

Stokes’ niece, Rosemary Turner, said she and her loved ones “really do hate” the convicted killer for causing them to lose “many people at one time, including him.”

Turner noted, “We still love him because he’s our uncle, but can we forgive him for what he did? No, we can’t. Do we understand it? No, we don’t. It’s like, we just got to take it a day at a time.”