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A South Carolina man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his bedridden wife and their 9-year-old granddaughter.
His reasoning behind the horrible shootings was that he wanted to spare them the pain of living without him, prosecutors said.
Ronald Gregory, 68, didn't apologize or show any emotion. He barely spoke Monday while entering a plea to killing his wife and granddaughter.
Gregory refused a lawyer and defended himself. He pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the March 21 murders.
He admitted to placing the gun to the chest of his wife, Barbara, 71, and shooting her in the heart while she was a sleep. Then he went into his granddaughter Mia's bedroom, and did the same.
Gregory told investigators that Mia survived the shooting for an hour. Instead of calling for help, Gregory held the victim as she bled to death, prosecutor Kevin Brackett said.
Gregory told authorities the last words by his granddaughter happen to be, "When am I going to stop hurting?"
After his granddaughter died, Gregory went to his bank and withdrew tens of thousands of dollars. He came back home and later dialed 911, asked the operator to send police to his house. He then shot himself twice in the chest.
"In over 20 years of prosecuting, this is just a ghastly case. The thought of what the child went through is unimaginable," Brackett said.
The prosecutor explained why he did not seek the death penalty against Gregory.
He said because of the age of Gregory he would most likely die in prison before the death sentence would be carried out.
He also said going after the death penalty would delay the case going to court for many years, and the family was not in favor of capital punishment for Gregory.
"I didn't just lose Mia that day. I lost a father that day too," Gregory's daughter, Kristie Hawkins said in court.
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