New Hampshire teenager Steven Spader was involved in a brutal home invasion, killing a woman and seriously injuring her daughter, and has now been found guilty. The 19-year-old was convicted and handed out a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

19-year-old Steven Spader broke into Kimberly Cates’ home in Mont Vernon last year, and murdered her in a gruesome machete attack, hacking her dead with repeated blows. His friend Christopher Gribble, another 19-year-old, stabbed Cates’ daughter Jaimie as the 11-year-old girl tried in vain to defend her mother.

Judge Gillian Abramson said that there was no bottom to the kind of depravity Steven Spader could sink into, and that he “belonged in a cage.” Steven Spader sat without any signs of emotion even as the verdict was given, in the culmination to the trial.

11-year-old Jaimie Cates had to undergo extensive surgery for the serious knife injuries she received. 42-year-old nurse Kimberly Cates succumbed to the machete blows rained on her by Steven Spader, with multiple sharp injuries on her head and upper body.

Cates’ husband appeared in court to testify and said that the family’s dreams and hopes were dashed in one brutal night. He was not at home when the attackers broke in, being on a business trip when the teenaged duo cornered the defenceless mother and daughter.

The vicious attack left 11-year-old Jaimie Cates traumatized as her mother was hacked to death before her eyes as the child attempted to save her.

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