WA: recent murder sentences

No attempts at funny punchlines here, just news of sentencing hearings for two deeply messed-up murderers:

Kent man gets life for killing his parents

A Kent man was sent to prison for the rest of his life Tuesday for the shooting deaths of his parents despite his plea that "a lifetime in prison is going to be painful."

Neelesh Phadnis -- who maintains a group of thugs killed his parents after kidnapping him and beating him up -- asked the King County Superior Court judge for leniency as "some lessening of my pain."

But the 24-year-old's sentence had already been decided under state law: A conviction of aggravated murder means a mandatory life sentence. A jury convicted him of two counts of that charge last month.

Judge Helen Halpert told Phadnis, who acted as his own lawyer, that the crime was terrible and "whatever happened to you, the murders of your parents make that pale."

Man who said cat's behavior persuaded him to kill gets 50 years

A man who said he was convinced his cat's behavior showed who should live and who should die has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for first-degree murder, the top of the standard range.

Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Ellen J. Fair accepted the recommendation of prosecutors on Tuesday in sentencing Clayton Edward Butsch, 40, of Lake Stevens, for the shooting of Chad J. Vavricka, 30, of Snohomish.

Prosecutors said Butsch was delusional and high on methamphetamine but knew what he was doing when he killed Vavricka on Jan. 24, 2004. Vavricka's body was found the next day in some illegally dumped garbage.

Butsch believed his cat Sam was the reincarnation of a kitten he had baked to death in an oven 10 years ago and thus could show him who was evil and who was good. According to testimony in his trial, Butsch shot Vavricka, who was asleep at the time in Butsch's fifth-wheel trailer in Lake Stevens, after the cat refused to go near him.