Eric Sweeney was charged with fatally shooting his sister-in-law and two young nephews, all of whom he lived with, at a house in Northfield in August 2022.
Now 19, Sweeney is scheduled to plead guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and falsifying physical evidence at 9 a.m. on Friday in Merrimack County Superior Court, less than a month before his scheduled trial.
Sweeney is accused of killing his sister-in-law, 25-year-old Kassandra Sweeney, and his nephews, 4-year-old Benjamin and 1-year-old Mason, on August 3, 2022, in the Northfield home they all shared. The crimes occurred after his brother, Sean Sweeney, left for work.
In 2023, a grand jury indicted him on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of falsifying physical evidence. Prosecutors alleged that he knowingly altered, destroyed, concealed or removed a Taurus .40-caliber handgun to interfere with the investigation.
A court filing from Tuesday shows that Sweeney intends to enter a “naked plea,” meaning he will plead guilty without any agreement with prosecutors on his sentence, which the judge will decide.
By pleading guilty, Sweeney will be foregoing a trial entirely.
Before Sweeney announced his intent to plead guilty, a two-phase trial had been scheduled for September.
The first phase was to determine whether he was guilty, while the second would have considered an insanity defense that argued he was not responsible for his actions due to a mental illness at the time of the killings.
On the day of the killings, Sweeney reportedly called his older brother, Sean, and said, “Someone had broken into the home and killed them all,” according to court documents.
Sean immediately called 911, requesting police respond to their Northfield residence on Wethersfield Drive.
After Sweeney was taken into custody and placed in the back of a police cruiser, he said, “Not my nephews.”
Autopsy results confirmed that all three victims died from a single gunshot wound.
In the months before the incident, court documents say Sweeney exhibited behavioral issues like hiding food in his room or using tools without permission.
These issues led to Kassandra and Sean “punishing the defendant, yelling at him and calling the police to talk to him,” according to the documents.
“The evidence here is relevant as it reflects a deteriorating relationship between the defendant and the Sweeneys, which in turn reflects hostility and provides possible motive for committing the charged murders,” wrote attorneys with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
Sweeney’s court appearance on Friday is expected only to be a plea hearing. A sentencing will take place at a later date.
