Detectives noted that the physical evidence inside the home, including the lack of forced entry and the positioning of the evidence, contradicted Egler’s account of an intruder, the State Attorney said.
Investigators found bloody footprints matching prints from Egler’s shoes, News 6 reported at the time.
During subsequent police interviews, Egler broke down and confessed to staging the break-in, the State Attorney said.
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Egler told police she took a gun from her mother’s bedroom and waited in the kitchen for the two to come home, police said in charging documents, News 6 reports.
When her mother and Szejnork entered the kitchen, they found Egler waiting for them with a gun in her hand and a chef’s knife in her pocket, according to police.
“Welcome home,” she said she told them, admitting she sH๏τ them several times, police said.
When she ran out of bullets, she started stabbing Szejnork, who was “fighting for his life,” prosecutors said.
At that point, Egler told detectives that Szejnork “essentially asked (Egler) to take him out of his misery,” police said.
She told police she went into her mother’s bedroom to get more ammunition and returned to the kitchen where she sH๏τ him in the head, police said.
Egler will be required to serve a mandatory minimum of 25 years, after which she will be eligible for a sentence review due to her youth at the time of the crime, the State Attorney said.
After prison, Egler must undergo a mental health evaluation and serve 20 years of supervised probation.
In a victim impact statement, Szejnork’s brother, Dustin Szejnork, told the court that his family still lives next door to the house where the murders took place.
“Her actions didn’t just take my brother, they ruined our home,” he said. “There isn’t a sentence that will bring my brother back.”