Inset: Katie Lee (Holland Department of Public Safety). Background: Police at Katie Lee’s apartment in the Bay Pointe Apartment Complex in Holland, Mich. (WOOD/YouTube).
A Michigan mom who claimed she made a murder pact with her son that led to her slashing his throat and killing him because he didn’t want to turn 18 is headed to prison for decades.
Katie Lee, 40, was sentenced Monday in Ottawa County to serve 60 to 90 years for the February 2025 killing of her son Austin Pikaart at their apartment in Holland, according to online court records. She spoke at her sentencing hearing and continued to insist that she was “saving him,” according to local NBC affiliate WOOD.
“I never intended for him to suffer in any way,” Lee told the court. “In my broken thinking, I was saving him from it.”
Lee pleaded guilty in October to torture and second-degree murder for the slaying, which she claimed was planned by Austin. Lee said she was supposed to take her own life as well, by overdosing on medication, but that plan didn’t work. Austin also tried overdosing on medication, but Lee said she “couldn’t get her son to stop breathing,” so she slashed his throat to finish him off.
During a 911 call, Lee stated that “her son asked her to help him stop breathing and had been trying to for a while,” according to MLive.com.
“She advised her son asked her to help him stop breathing because he did not want to turn 18,” police reported.
Lee later admitted to using a knife to cut open her son’s throat while he was unconscious. Police also found stab wounds on his arm.
“At about 4:15 a.m., HDPS officers responded to an apartment in the Bay Pointe Apartment Complex, 791 E 16th St., on a report of a domestic incident,” HDPS officials said in a press release. “Officers went to the apartment where they were immediately confronted by a female subject who was holding a knife.”
Police said after Lee’s arrest that she wanted to be killed by responding officers that night after failing to overdose on the medication.
“Upon being taken into custody, Lee stated that officers were supposed to kill her … so that she could be with her son,” cops reported.
Lee said at her sentencing that mental health issues prevented her from leaving her apartment and made it “really hard” to tell what was “real and not real,” according to MLive.com.
“With the algorithms on my phone being nothing but the ‘world is ending’ content I fell so deeply into an echo chamber that we were living in a different reality. And it was a terrible one,” Lee said.
“Every day, every thought, every nightmare, every flashback, every moment without him, I’ll forever be punished,” she stated about Austin. “I will spend the rest of my life in prison trying to process what I could have done differently and how I could have reached out and continuing to speak out about the warning signs that I so clearly see now.”
Family members were in court Monday wearing shirts that said “Justice for Austin,” MLive.com reports. The judge who sentenced Lee said her actions were “nothing less than pure evil,” per WOOD.
“She’s not a mom, she’s a monster,” an aunt, Alisa Pikaart, told MLive after the sentencing hearing.
“She’s getting what she deserves,” Pikaart said.
