A 24-year-old man with a history of mental illness will be locked up for more than three decades for killing a mother and son who let him live in their rural Minnesota home.
William L. Hillman, of Frazee, Minn., was sentenced Tuesday in Otter Tail County District Court to a 51-year term for the April 2018 beatings of Denise McFadzen, 42, and Dalton McFadzen, 21, in their Gorman Township home north of Perham.
Judge Kevin Miller imposed consecutive 25½-year terms for each killing. With credit for time in jail since his arrest nearly three years ago, Hillman will serve more than 32 years in prison and the balance on supervised release.
In November, after reviewing reports from numerous psychiatric experts who examined Hillman, Miller rejected the defendant's mental illness defense and found him guilty.
The judge pointed to Hillman carrying out "some level of planning" before the killings and his understanding that he knew what he did "was morally wrong and illegal."
Denise McFadzen's body was outside the entrance to the home, while her son's body was in a bed. They had been beaten with a large pipe wrench, according to the charges.
"I'm sorry," Hillman said in a remote appearance at his sentencing, according to WDAY-TV in Fargo. "I would never do this in a million years if it wasn't for mental illness. … This just proves I can't live a normal life without my medication."
Hillman told authorities on the day of the killings that he had hadn't taken his medications for schizophrenia for five months, according to court records.
