The drone and explosives Casap paid for through an online contact were never delivered — the contacts were scammers — and the assassination plan never advanced beyond a digital trail of manifestos and messages found on his cellphone. Federal authorities separately accused him, through a search warrant, of planning to kill Trump and targeting his parents to obtain the money and autonomy to carry out the attempt.
WAUKESHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin teenager received two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole Thursday for killing his mother and stepfather, crimes he committed in an effort to fund a foiled plan to assassinate President Donald Trump with a bomb dropped from a drone.
Nikita Casap, 18, was sentenced in Waukesha County Circuit Court after pleading guilty in January to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide. Judge Ralph Ramirez called the crimes “horrific” and “inexplicable” and declined to set any date for parole eligibility — the term Wisconsin law calls extended supervision.
“I choose to find he’s not eligible for extended release because I do not know … when and if and whether a profound and significant change can occur,” Ramirez said.
The killings
Investigators believe Casap shot his mother, Tatiana Casap, and stepfather, Donald Mayer, at their home in the village of Waukesha on or around Feb. 11, 2025, according to a criminal complaint. He then lived with their decomposing bodies for two weeks before fleeing across the country in Mayer’s SUV with $14,000 in cash, jewelry, passports, Mayer’s gun and the family dog, the complaint said. He was arrested during a traffic stop in Kansas on Feb. 28, 2025, four days after leaving Wisconsin.
The plot
Federal authorities accused Casap, in a search warrant, of writing a manifesto calling for Trump’s assassination and planning to drop explosives from a drone before fleeing by ship to Ukraine, where he planned to hide for a decade. District Attorney Lesli Boese told the court that Casap said he would not have cared how many bystanders around Trump were hurt.
Boese said Casap’s original plan was to affix an AK-47 to a drone. He later decided to drop explosives from it. He sent $8,700 in bitcoin from Mayer’s account to online contacts who promised to sell him the drone and the explosives — but who were scammers who delivered neither.
“He walked right into it,” Boese said.
Detectives found messages on Casap’s cellphone from January 2025 in which he asked a Russian-speaking contact how long he would have to hide before being relocated to Ukraine, according to the complaint.
The federal search warrant said the killing of his parents “appeared to be an effort to obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary to carrying out his plan.”
Background and sentencing arguments
Boese said Casap, who came to the United States from the Republic of Moldova as a grade-schooler, had become increasingly addicted to violent online content and had researched serial killers and school shootings. She said a December 2024 attack in which a doctor drove a car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, prompted Casap to begin planning to kill a politician. Boese argued he was too dangerous ever to be released.
Defense attorney Paul Rifelj asked Ramirez to make Casap eligible for parole after 20 years. Rifelj said online contacts manipulated the isolated teenager by telling him he was part of a broader military strategy, offering direction and purpose at a time when he was becoming isolated at school.
“Children are more than their worst deeds,” Rifelj said.
Casap speaks
Casap gave a tearful statement in which he said he loved his mother and worried about her safety even in small moments — when she was reaching for something on a high shelf, he said. He said Mayer treated him like a son.
“I thought I was part of a revolution,” Casap said. “I thought I was part of a war. I told myself bad things had to happen.”
Ramirez said he lacked a “crystal ball” that would tell him whether Casap would ever change and imposed the mandatory life sentences with no chance at extended supervision.