A New Jersey man convicted last month of murdering three people, including two young children, over a Facebook post in 2016 has been sentenced to serve 375 years in prison.
Jeremy Arrington, 32, was sentenced Friday on a total of 28 charges, including murder, attempted murder, burglary and criminal restraint. According to NJ.com, the total sentence included three consecutive 75-year sentences and three 50-year sentences.
Essex County Superior Court Judge Ronald Wigler described the crime as unfathomable. Arrington will be eligible for parole in 281 years.
The convict will serve the sentences concurrently, along with additional 50-year sentences for each of three counts of attempted murder.
“Justice has been served. This defendant is pure evil and clearly deserves all 375 years in New Jersey State Prison for the terrible crimes he committed on Nov. 5, 2016. These families have waited over five years for this moment, and we are all so grateful for this sentence,” the news outlet quoted Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecutor Justin Edwab as having said.
It is reported that on Nov. 5, 2016, Arrington broke into a Newark home with a loaded gun and held six people hostage, including the Whitehurst children and McBurroughs – all of whom he murdered, as well as the children’s then-29-year-old mother and her 13-year-old twin siblings.
The Associated Press reported that he then spent more than an hour going from one victim to the next and stabbing them with a knife before returning to his already-injured victims and repeating the assault.
One adult and two children, including the girl who summoned help, escaped the ordeal without injury.
The crime shocked the city and prompted both area residents and city officials to call for a stop to violence in Newark, particularly violence against children.
“This is not a normal thing and we are not going to get used to it in the city of Newark,” Mayor Ras Baraka said at the time.
During Arrington’s sentencing, Wigler, the judge, described the scene of the murders as a “house of horrors.” Edwab, the prosecutor, said the killer treated the home, which belongs to the slain children’s grandmother, like “an amusement park” as he went from one person to another and tortured them.
“He caused as much pain as he could to that family,” Edwab said;
Arrington apologized to the victims and their families, describing his own actions as “craziness” and “uncalled for,” the outlet reported. The families of those murdered refused his apology.
“This has brought me nothing but pain and misery, and it will never go away,” said McBurroughs’ father, Mark Follis.
McBurroughs, who would have celebrated her 29th birthday last week, was set to graduate from New Jersey City University at the time of her death, according to her family. She dreamed of being a teacher for special needs children.
Arrington did not know the college student, who went to school with Karam and worked with her at Amazon. Witnesses said she begged for her life before being shot in the head.
Vanessa Karam, Ariel and Al-Jahon’s grandmother, told the court she tried to always make guests at her home feel welcome. She turned to McBurroughs’ family and apologized for being unable to keep their daughter safe.
“There are no words that can take this pain away from you,” the grandmother said.
McBurroughs’ family shouted out that they love her. They said the murders were not her fault.
“Don’t take his blame,” one family member told her.
Before the murders for which he has now been sentenced, he had been arrested 10 times between 2006 and 2016. He also had four felony convictions and three separate pending charges.
