Austin Sigg was a seventeen year old teen killer from Colorado who would kidnap, sexually assault and murder ten year old Jessica Ridgeway
According to court documents Austin Sigg would grab ten year old Jessica Ridgeway as she walked towards his vehicle. He would bound the child using zip ties and would take the little girl to his home where she would be sexually assaulted and murdered. Sigg would then dismember the body hiding parts in a crawl space and dumping the rest in a park
Austin Sigg would confess the murder to his mother who in turn would call the police. Before his trial was to begin Austin Sigg would plead guilty to a host of charges including murder, sexual assault of a child and kidnapping
Austin Sigg would be sentenced to life in prison plus eighty six years ensuring this teen killer will never get out of prison alive.
Due to the publicity of the case Austin Sigg was transferred to a prison outside of Colorado
Austin Sigg Case
As Austin Sigg was sentenced on Tuesday to a life behind bars, a judge and prosecutor said Sigg himself offered the best word to describe what he had done to Jessica Ridgeway: evil.
“Evil is apparently real,” said Jefferson County District Court Chief Judge Stephen Munsinger. “It was present in our community on Oct. 5, 2012. On that day, its name was Austin Sigg.”
In a complicated sentence, Munsinger imposed the maximum sentence for several of the 15 counts, ensuring that Sigg, 18, will never leave prison.
Sigg pleaded guilty to all of the counts against him in October, including first-degree murder in Jessica’s death and attempted kidnapping for an attack on a jogger at Ketner Lake in May 2012. Because Sigg was 17 when he killed Jessica, the first-degree murder charge carries an automatic sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years.
Munsinger, however, ordered Sigg to serve an additional 86 years after he becomes eligible for parole. The judge rejected defense attorneys’ arguments that such a sentence was unconstitutional or cruel and unusual punishment.
“This case cries out for a life sentence,” Munsinger said.
Law enforcement, prosecutors and Jessica’s family exchanged hugs and wiped away tears after the sentencing.
“The damage, the hurt, the loss remains,” District Attorney Pete Weir said after the hearing. “We hope for closure for families but at times I think that’s a hollow term.”
He added: “The full weight of the law has come to bear on Austin Sigg. It’s not enough. More is needed, but it’s all we can do.”
Sigg declined to speak during his two-day sentencing hearing. As Munsinger went through the charges, listing the maximum allowable time for most of them, Sigg stared forward. He did not look back at Jessica’s family or his mother, Mindy.
Mindy Sigg repeatedly sobbed while gruesome details about her son’s crime were discussed. But as Munsinger ordered Sigg’s sentence, she calmly stared forward toward her son.
Jessica’s mother left the courtroom before Chief Deputy District Attorney Hal Sargent began describing Jessica’s last hours alive.
Soft sobs and sniffles echoed in the packed courtroom as Sargent told how Sigg waited in the back seat of his Jeep, watching Jessica. He waited until she walked next to his car and then grabbed her, bound her arms and legs and threw her in the back seat.
“It’s painful to imagine what he did to her in that time,” Sargent said. “We know he sexually assaulted her.”
He described the nearly two hours Sigg kept Jessica in his bedroom, where he made her watch a movie while he cut her hair and laid out clothes for her to change into. When he tried to strangle Jessica with zip ties, the plastic cut into his hands and he later told police that he didn’t “have enough leverage,” Sargent said.
Sigg eventually strangled Jessica with his bare hands for up to three minutes. When he saw Jessica twitching, Sigg filled a bathtub with scalding hot water and forced her face down into it.
Sargent said he did not want to detail how Sigg methodically dismembered Jessica. Sigg told police at the time that he was fulfilling a sexual fantasy.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Sargent struggled to describe the crime.
“Perhaps Austin Sigg’s words are best,” he said. Sigg told investigators: “There is no better word to describe what I have done than evil.”
Jessica’s disappearance on Oct. 5, 2012, set off a massive search effort that at one point included more than 1,000 people and 75 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
On Oct. 23, Mindy Sigg called police after her son confessed to her that he had kidnapped and killed Jessica. He told his mother he was a monster and needed to be punished.
Jessica’s family declined to speak with reporters after the hearing, but Sargent said the family hopes that the community doesn’t remember Jessica for the way she died but for how she lived.
“He stole from Jessica her future,” he said. “Not only everything she was but everything she would be.”
Jessica’s family shared memories and photos of the joyous, caring girl on Monday. Sigg wept in court as he watched as images of Jessica, smiling behind her purple glasses, flashed before him. On Tuesday, defense attorneys presented, for the first time, a glimpse into Sigg’s childhood with a slide show that included photos of Sigg as a baby and smiling child.
For months, defense attorneys presented experts and arguments suggesting that Sigg was not mature enough or able to completely understand his actions. But prosecutors maintained that Sigg meticulously planned before he went “hunting” for the woman at Ketner Lake, and Jessica four months later.
“It’s a chilling thought to think of what a fully matured Austin Sigg is capable of,” Sargent said.
Austin Sigg sentenced to life in kidnap/murder of Jessica Ridgeway
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