Prince McCree woke up with a sore throat on October 25, 2023. His mother kept him home from school. It was supposed to be a quiet day at home. It was the last day he was ever seen alive.
The 5-year-old from Wisconsin wandered down to the basement of his own home to play video games. He never came back upstairs. What two men who lived in that same house did to him over the next several hours is the kind of evil that courtrooms rarely have to describe out loud.
Erik Mendoza — just 15 years old at the time — beat Prince with a golf club, choked him, stomped on his head 10 times, and punched and kicked the child until he went limp. His co-defendant, David Pietura Jr., 29, dropped a 30-pound barbell on the boy’s head. When the child still whimpered from inside garbage bags, the two men took turns beating him with the golf club. Pietura then found a concrete birdbath pedestal and dropped it on Prince’s head — twice. The little boy never made another sound.
Prince’s body was found the following morning — blood-soaked, bound with duct tape, wrapped in white garbage bags, and thrown in a dumpster on the property. Police said it was “clear” the child had been dead for some time.
“When he killed my baby, he killed me. I wish I could do it with my hands.” — Darron McCree, Prince’s father, speaking from behind a glass wall at sentencing
At sentencing this week, now-18-year-old Mendoza stood before a judge and heard the word that will define the rest of his life: life in prison. He will not be eligible for parole for 50 years. Pietura had already been sentenced to life without any possibility of parole.
Prince’s father, Darron McCree, was forced to address his son’s killer from behind a glass partition in the courtroom gallery — separated because of past outbursts. Standing there, with a wall of glass between him and the man who murdered his child, he said what any father would feel: “I wish this guy would die and burn. No mercy.”
Prince’s mother, Jordan Barger, spoke after the hearing. “I’m glad justice got served for my baby,” she said. “I just hope he gets what he deserves in there, because my 5-year-old didn’t deserve that.”
Prosecutors told the court that Mendoza’s actions do not “get more serious, more egregious than this.” His defense attorney acknowledged his client was legally responsible but called him a “very troubled, seriously mentally ill person.” Attempts to have the case dismissed, to try Mendoza as a juvenile, and to claim insanity all failed. He was ruled competent to stand trial and tried as an adult.
During police questioning, Mendoza also admitted to three separate random stabbings in the neighborhood. His reason? He was “bored” and “wanted to stab someone badly.” One victim, he said, was “just sitting there on his phone.”
What this means: Both killers are now behind bars for life. Erik Mendoza, who was a teenager when he took Prince’s life, will be in his late 60s before he even sees a parole board. For Prince’s family, no sentence will ever be enough — but at least neither man will ever walk free again.
Prince McCree was 5 years old. He stayed home sick that morning. He deserved to grow up.
