A 14-year-old Sheboygan boy will continue to face adult charges for the brutal killing of a 78-year-old woman in Sheboygan Falls.
Circuit Judge Timothy Van Akkeren on Wednesday ruled against letting Nathan Paape be tried as a juvenile. The judge disagreed that Paape would get more access to mental health and education programs in a juvenile institution than he would in an adult prison. Van Akkeren added that the seriousness of the crime also had to be considered, calling it one of the most heinous in his nearly quarter-century on the bench.
Paape and 14-year-old Antonio Barbeau are both charged with homicide from last September. Authorities say they killed Barbara Olson, Barbeau’s great grandmother, with a hammer and a hatchet, ransacked her house for money, and then spent it on marijuana and pizza. Both boys were 13-years-old at the time.
Barbeau decided to stay in adult court and has pleaded insanity. If he’s found insane, he would go to a mental institution indefinitely. Otherwise, he faces life in prison.
Paape has not entered a plea yet. Had he been found delinquent as a juvenile, he would have been freed at age 25, instead of facing a much longer adult penalty.