Your Honor, and to the Court:

My name is Samantha VanTreese, and I am the older sister of Ivan Nickolas Vetecnik, who was taken from us in a way that no family should ever have to endure. I am also speaking on behalf of our mother, who is no longer here to speak for her son, though I know that if she were, her voice in this courtroom would be loud, fierce, and full of love for him. Two years before this crime, he lost both of his parents. We were already a broken family trying to hold onto each other just to survive that pain. And my brother — a fifteen-year-old child — was trying to rebuild his life, trying to find stability and love again. He didn’t deserve another loss. He didn’t deserve to have his future taken on top of everything he had already lost.

When I speak about my brother, I speak as a sister that was there when he needed a hug, when he needed guidance, when the world felt like it was too much. He was still a child who needed safety. He was still a child who needed adults and peers who cared — not someone who viewed him as disposable. And instead of getting a chance to grow up, to heal, or to experience happiness after trauma — his life was ended in the most violent and terrifying way imaginable.

Let me tell you who he really was:
He was a child still hurting from the death of both of his parents. He was a child who still talked about them, who wondered what life was supposed to look like without them. He was goofy, soft-hearted, trusting — too trusting. He wanted connection. He wanted family. And in the end, someone he let close — someone he believed cared — made him feel fear, pain, and betrayal in his last moments.

Trying to find words that contain the level of pain, shock, and destruction this crime has caused feels almost impossible. There is no sentence long enough, no vocabulary deep enough, to capture what it is like to lose a 15-year-old child — a brother- a boy who still had his whole future in front of him — in such a violent, intentional, and gruesome way. Every day, I wake up with the reality that someone I loved with all my heart is gone forever. I think about the moments we shared, the future we imagined, and the fact that he will never again walk through our door, call me, or laugh with our family.

My brother was not just a body or a name on a case file. He was a son, a brother, a child who laughed, who had dreams, who trusted people around him — including the person who chose to end his life. He was only fifteen. Fifteen. He should have had years of birthdays, first dates, graduations, and a chance to become whoever he wanted to be. Instead, our family was forced into a nightmare — receiving news no one should ever hear — that he was stabbed twenty-six times in the back of his head, and that his body was dismembered and discarded like trash. Those details are not just facts. They live in my mind every day. They are the images that haunt my sleep, the thoughts that hit me out of nowhere, and the trauma I now carry for the rest of my life. They are the images that come into my mind when I see kids his age, when I try to sleep, when the world suddenly goes quiet. I will never stop wondering if he was scared, if he cried out, if he realized that the person who claimed to be his friend had become the person who decided he didn’t deserve to live.

I am his sister. For fifteen years, I felt responsible for him. I protected him, I held him when he cried, I celebrated every milestone he had. And in the moment he needed protection most, I wasn’t there. I carry that guilt, even though I know it is not mine to carry. A part of me died with him — the part that believed the world was safe, that children are protected, that friends don’t turn into killers.

Our family has been shattered. Holidays are quiet now. Birthdays hurt.Pictures of him — which used to be cherished memories — now feel like reminders of what was stolen. I will never get to see who he would have become. I will never get to watch him experience life. And no amount of time will make that okay.

To the defendant: I am speaking directly to you. You were his friend. He trusted you. My brother looked up to you. And in return, you gave him terror, pain, and his last moments alone. I will never understand how a person could do something so cruel. I hope you think about the life you took — not in a vague or distant way, but specifically — him. His laugh. His innocence. His family. What you destroyed is not replaceable.

What you took from him cannot be measured. But what you took from us — from the rest of his family — is permanent. We live every day with a hole where he should be. We live birthdays, holidays, dinners, milestones — with an empty seat. There is no sentence that can replace that loss. But I need the court to understand: we are serving a life sentence too.

I am asking this court to understand that my brother was a person whose life mattered. His absence changed us permanently. Whatever sentence is decided today will never compare to the life sentence my family and I are serving — a lifetime of grief, trauma, and empty chairs at family gatherings. But I ask that the sentence reflect the truth — that a child’s life was brutally taken, that he deserved protection, and that the choices made by the defendant created harm that will last generations.