Benjamin Sweeney, a 4-year-old White male, was found dead alongside his mother, 25-year-old Kassandra Sweeney, and his 1-year-old brother, Mason, inside their home on Wethersfield Drive in Northfield, New Hampshire, on the morning of August 3, 2022. Police responding to a 911 call discovered the three victims, and autopsies determined each had been killed by a single gunshot wound.
In the hours before the shootings, Kassandra had recorded cheerful videos of her sons and sent them to her husband, underscoring how abruptly the ordinary morning turned into tragedy. Investigators soon searched areas along Interstate 93 near Tilton for evidence as the homicide probe widened.
Attention quickly turned to a teenage relative who had been living in the home. In late 2022, authorities arrested Eric Sweeney, then a juvenile, in connection with the killings. The following year, a Merrimack County grand jury indicted him on charges related to the deaths, including allegations that he destroyed or concealed the handgun used. Reporting at the time emphasized that the motive had not been publicly disclosed, and investigators indicated they believed all involved parties had been identified.
Prosecutors later detailed how the victims were shot in the head with a handgun taken from a locked safe belonging to Eric's older brother, Sean. Evidence and timelines presented in court described the swift sequence from Kassandra's final messages to the fatal gunfire, as well as Eric's movements afterward. These accounts painted a picture of a crime that unfolded within minutes inside the family's Northfield residence.
In September 2025, Eric Sweeney, by then 19, pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder. The following month he was sentenced to a term of 60 years to life in prison, with the possibility that a small portion could be suspended, leaving him eligible for parole in his late 60s. The plea resolved an earlier trajectory toward a first-degree murder trial and cemented the conclusion of a case that had shaken the Northfield–Tilton area since the day Benjamin and his family were found.
