Wisconsin teen sentenced to life in prison for 2023 murder of 5-year-old boy

Erik Mendoza, now 18, was sentenced Friday to life in prison for the October 2023 killing of 5-year-old Prince McCree in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mendoza, who was 15 at the time, pleaded guilty in February to first-degree intentional homicide, hiding a corpse, and three counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety. Court records show Mendoza admitted to choking McCree and striking him repeatedly with a golf club before he and co-conspirator David Pietura disposed of the boy's body in a dumpster roughly a mile from his home; surveillance footage captured the pair carrying a white garbage bag through an alley on the day McCree disappeared. Pietura, who also lived in the home with McCree's family, initially misled investigators but eventually led police to the body, and was himself sentenced to life in prison in 2024. Mendoza will not be eligible to petition for release for 50 years. During sentencing, McCree's parents delivered emotional victim impact statements, with his father expressing raw grief and anger and his mother saying she was glad justice was served. The Milwaukee Police Department's Amber Alert request for McCree had been denied because his case did not meet the required criteria, a gap that directly led to the passage of the Prince Act, signed by Governor Tony Evers, which broadened Wisconsin's alert system to include missing children who do not qualify for an Amber Alert.