Inset: Nicholas Fiebka (Schenectady District Attorney’s Office). Background: Police outside the home where Fiebka killed his mother and her boyfriend (WNYT)
A 21-year-old man in New York will spend the rest of his days behind bars for killing his 59-year-old mother and her 61-year-old longtime partner, shooting them both multiple times with an illegally modified AK-47 less than a year after he’d been kicked out of their home.
Schenectady County Court Judge Matthew J. Sypniewski on Friday ordered Nicholas Fiebka to serve a sentence of life in prison without parole for the 2022 gruesome slayings of Alesia Wadsworth and William Horwedel.
Prosecutors said that Fiebka was only inside the home for 32 seconds, during which time he fired at least 44 rounds at the victims.
A jury in June rejected defense arguments that Fiebka was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the shooting, taking only three hours to find him guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and numerous other crimes, including criminal possession of a rapid-fire modification device, possessing a large capacity ammunition feeding device, and possession of a weapon with the intent to use it unlawfully against another.
Prior to sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Christina Tremante told the court that Fiebka was one of “the most dangerous people” to ever step foot in the courthouse, according to a report from The Daily Gazette.
“He should never be free in this or any other community,” she added.
Fiebka spoke briefly when he addressed the court, delivering a cryptic message.
“I just want to say I’m a servant of God and they can paint whatever picture they want, but God knows who I really am,” he reportedly said.
Sypniewski bluntly addressed Fiebka prior to handing down the sentence, reportedly prefacing his remarks by saying, “When it comes to sentencing there’s no suspense. You know what you got coming.”
According to a news release from prosecutors, Fiebka on Nov. 21, 2022, entered his mother’s home armed with an AK-47 “which he had modified to hold an illegal drum magazine capable of holding 75 rounds of ammunition and a binary trigger device which discharged 2 rounds for every trigger pull.”
“The investigation determined, from analysis of ring camera footage and evidence collected at the scene, that Mr. Fiebka was inside of the home for 32 seconds and discharged at least 44 rounds from his weapon,” the release states. “Mr. Fiebka was taken into custody the next day in Schenectady by members of the Schenectady County Sheriff’s Street Crimes Task Force while he was on his way to turn himself in at the Schenectady Police Department.”
At trial, Fiebka argued that he was “not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect.” A psychologist testified for the defense that Fiebka believed he was justified in the shootings due to a delusional disorder. However, another psychologist testified that despite suffering from schizophrenia, Fiebka “fully appreciated that he was killing his mother and Mr. Horwedel, and that it was wrong, and a crime.”
Additionally, prosecutors introduced evidence showing that Fiebka harbored a “longstanding hatred” of his mother, which only grew worse after she evicted him from the home and obtained an order of protection against him in December 2021.
After his arrest, authorities searched his phone and found that he’d performed searches including: “manslaughter-definition,” “did Ted Bundy have any survivors,” “standoff meaning,” “deadliest school shooting in US history,” and “are psychopaths good at war.”
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