Mason Sisk brutally shot his dad, stepmum and three siblings in the head in a case described as being “draped in unmitigated evil”
Elkmont is a small town in Alabama with just 500 residents. In 2019, it was home to quiet teenager Mason Sisk. The 14-year-old lived with his dad John, 38, and stepmum, Mary, 35. He had three half siblings, brother Grayson (known as Kane), six, sister Aurora (Rorrie), four, and six-month-old baby Colson.
John, who loved motorbikes, worked as a technician at a car dealership and had also been a hair stylist in the past. Mary was a special educational needs teacher and was naturally patient with young people. She was about to start a PhD. Sisk’s biological mum was dead and Mary had treated him like her own since he was four.
On her online teacher description, Mary had written, “I’m happily married with a great husband and four beautiful children.” Mary didn’t treat Sisk any differently from her biological children. Sisk had recently started acting out, breaking into his school and vandalising it. There were also rumours circulating that he’d been hurting animals with fire. But he also babysat his siblings and, with his dark rimmed glasses and quiet demeanour, he was considered “nerdy” by his peers.
Last day of their lives
On 2 September, Sisk and his family returned from a short break visiting friends in Florida. No doubt tired from the journey, they turned in for bed early that night. At around 11pm, Sisk called 911 from his home to report a shooting and when emergency responders arrived, they found him waiting in the driveway. He explained he’d been downstairs in the basement playing video games when he’d heard gunfire. He had then run outside to see a vehicle pulling away.
Police officers went into the house and discovered that John, Mary, Grayson, Aurora and Colson had all been shot in the head while apparently sleeping in their beds. Grayson and his dad John were barely alive and were rushed to hospital, but they couldn’t be saved. Mary, Aurora and Colson were all declared dead at the scene.
Officers who attended the scene struggled to understand why anyone would enter the home and kill an entire family – especially in the quiet community of Elkmont. And how had Sisk survived a mass shooting? A bodycam recorded one of the officers at the scene commenting that Sisk seemed “a little fishy to me”. He was taken in for questioning, but at the station he continued to deny he had played any part in the deaths of his family and he was accused of lying repeatedly.
Then, eventually, he changed his story. He confessed he had indeed been the one who had pulled the trigger. Sisk even helped officers find the murder weapon on the side of a nearby road where he’d thrown it before the police arrived. It was a 9mm gun that he had stolen while in Florida. When pushed for a motive, Sisk said he had got “fed up” with the fighting in his family. “Yeah, they argue a lot and I got fed up with it,” he was recorded saying. “And the kids were going through a lot.”
After the shocking confession, he apologised to the police who’d been questioning him. “I’m sorry I lied to y’all,” he said calmly. Investigators alleged that Sisk had previously laced Mary’s coffee with peanut butter because she was allergic, although they didn’t reveal how they had found this out. While Sisk was waiting for trial, his probation officer wrote a report that said he’d shown “no sign of remorse” and hadn’t mentioned his family once during detention. It was almost impossible to believe that a 14-year-old boy had killed his whole family simply because he was “fed up” and he wasn’t even sorry afterwards.
Private funerals were held for the five victims. They were buried in four coffins with baby Colson cradled in his mum’s arms. Some of Mary’s family hadn’t even met the newborn before he died. Because Sisk was 14 at the time of the killings, he wasn’t eligible for the death penalty, but he was tried as an adult due to the severity of the crime. The trial originally started in 2022 but was declared a mistrial after the FBI finally unlocked Mary’s mobile phone and allowed lawyers time to examine the evidence.
The second trial started again this year. The prosecution said Sisk had anger control issues and the murders were calculated. There were suggestions that there was tension between Sisk and his dad – and that he had extended his anger to his entire family.
Sisk had been dating a girl at the time and had sent her disturbing messages from prison. Some were read out in court. “I am good with a gun – I killed my family in less than four seconds. All head shots,” one message said. He’d also told her that he wanted to be a contract killer.
The prosecution said Sisk rang his girlfriend four times before calling 911 on the night of the murders. The jury heard that each family member was shot once except for six-month-old Colson, who had been shot twice and had died in his mother’s arms.
In April, Sisk was convicted of four counts of capital murder. Three months later, impact statements were heard ahead of sentencing. Mary’s brother Douglas Prater said they had welcomed Sisk into their family when he was just a little boy and he appeared in all of their photos. “We haven’t been able to rest for years because of what you did,” he said. “You were accepted into our family… A whole family has been lost. I lost my sister Mary. She loved you and you killed her.”
Prison until he dies
In September this year, Sisk, now 18, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge said there was no evidence of mental illness and described the killings as “ghastly, disturbing and draped in unmitigated evil”. He said the sentence had to be the most severe punishment possible.
After the sentencing, the prosecution made a statement. “I’ve prosecuted a lot of people in my career,” District Attorney Brian CT Jones said. “And I can tell you that out of all of those people, only four out of five people scare the hell out of me and he’s at the top of my list.”
Sisk showed no reaction to his conviction. He has shown no remorse for executing five members of his family in cold blood. His lawyers say they plan to appeal because he was “coerced” into a confession and was simply “parroting back” what the officers
were saying to him. Meanwhile, the quiet boy who shocked Elkmont remains silent on his despicable actions as he prepares to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
