A 25-year-old man in Wisconsin may spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his 74-year-old grandma. He shot her to death so she wouldn’t call the police when she found his gun.
Court records show that on Tuesday, Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Arthur Melvin III sentenced Sean C. Couture to 26 years to life in a state prison for the murder of Nancy Lovejoy in 2024.
Couture made a deal with the prosecutors and agreed to plead guilty to one count of first-degree intentional murder with a domestic abuse modifier. Other charges, like failing to comply with an officer and operating a firearm while drunk, were dropped in exchange for the plea. Melvin told Couture that he had already spent 388 days of his sentence.
A probable cause shows that at 8:32 p.m. on August 25, 2024, police from Waukesha reacted to a call about shots being fired in the 200 block of Douglass Avenue, which is about 20 miles west of Milwaukee.
While Couture’s parents were on vacation out of state, they called 911 to say that their son had called them and said, “It’s over, it’s over.” He also said that he had just shot his grandma and was going to shoot himself.
When the police showed up, Couture locked himself in the house. Police used a drone to see what looked like the body of an adult woman lying still on the stairs going to the basement. Rescuers waited for Couture to go into a bedroom before going into the house and taking Lovejoy out of the way. She was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, but she was declared dead after being shot several times.
Police were able to get into Couture’s house with the help of a K-9 unit and arrest him. Couture had a blood alcohol level of 0.45, which is more than five times the legal limit for driving a car. The cops found a handgun, several magazines, and a receipt that showed Couture bought the gun on June 4, 2024, in the house.
At the hospital, Couture agreed to talk to the police. He asked about his grandmother and kept talking about how she had been shot, even though the officers had only told him up to that point that his grandmother had been hurt and died.
Police said Couture then admitted that he had shot his grandma.
“The Defendant ultimately admitted that he and his grandmother began arguing the night of August 25, 2024 after she discovered the firearm in his room,” it said. “The defendant said he thought his grandmother was going to call the police because he had a gun, so he shot her as she stood outside the side door to the house.” The defendant then revealed that he had brought the victim’s body inside the house and dumped it on the basement stairs, where it was found, because he didn’t want to leave it outside.
Also, Couture said he drank alcohol before and after the killing.
