Lancaster City man sentenced for ‘torture-killings’ of two disabled brothers

Lancaster City man sentenced for ‘torture-killings’ of two disabled brothers

A 19-year-old Lancaster City man got two life sentences back-to-back after pleading guilty to what prosecutors called the “torture-killings” of two disabled brothers who lived together, one of whom he killed with a sword, and who were each stabbed multiple times.

Juan Cristo-Munoz Jr., 19, reportedly said “Nah,” when asked if he any comments for the families of victims Richard Walton and Leroy Kinsey before the sentence was handed down this week, according to the Lancaster County DA’s office. Asked by the court if the grisly details of the double murder were true, he reportedly only answered, “Yep.”

Both brothers relied on wheelchairs to get around and lived in a home on the 600 block of Poplar Street in Lancaster City. Kinsey, 61, had recently suffered a stroke and required a wheelchair to get around, while Walton, 62, had a prosthetic leg, according to LancasterOnline.com.

Kinsey was stabbed 10 times, and Walton was stabbed 54 times, prosecutors said. Cristo-Munoz used a sword during the killing of Walton, they said. The nature of the fatal attack and number of stabs prolonged the victims’ deaths, which led prosecutors to describe the killings as torture, they said.

“It is truly a heinous crime,” Alan Walton, the victim’s son, said in court, according to the Lancaster DA’s office. “I don’t understand why someone would willingly do it, especially to two people who were obviously disabled and would have extreme trouble defending themselves.”

According to the DA’s office, Lancaster County Judge David Ashworth said before issuing the sentence that he was “at a loss for words at how one human being could do this to another.”

The murders were originally described as a botched home invasion/robbery. Cristo-Munoz and his codefendant, Joshua Proper, 19, who is still facing similar charges, forced their way into the disabled brothers’ home and demanded money from them before stabbing them both to death. A caretaker who was also inside the home at the time called 911. Kinsey was found dead in the living room with multiple stab wounds to the chest. Police responding to the scene found Walton dead in an upstairs bedroom, with stab wounds in the torso and leg from a “large sword.” They also found Cristo-Munoz and Proper hiding in the basement, covered in blood and carrying multiple knives, and arrested them.