A Mother Says She Killed Her Son ‘Out of Love’

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a single mother spent her time doomscrolling. That exacerbated mental health issues, and she eventually passed along the fears she garnered from the internet to her teenage son. 

When he told her he didn’t want to reach age 18, they formed a murder-suicide pact. She killed him but was arrested before completing the job.

Photographs and video recordings of Austin Lee Pikaart show a happy kid. He was obsessed with Pokémon and could quickly recite every character’s name on a deck. He didn’t take sides on either of the Marvel universe versus DC Comics camp—he loved both. 

Austin repeatedly visited Cedar Point amusement park where he formed many joyful memories, like the time he rode the maximum-thrill-level Rougarou roller coaster with his father, Matthew Pikaart. He participated in a pie eating contest. A favorite activity of his was fishing with his dad. In one video, Austin showed ingenuity by using a leaf blower to propel himself on a swing. 

His obituary reads, “Austin had a patient gentle kind hearted soul as well as a great love for helping others. He was an adventurous spirit, with such little fear and an all around one of a kind.” He fulfilled that description in deeds as a Boy Scout.

Although Matthew was a part of Austin’s life, the boy lived with his mother, Katie Austin Lee. Their apartment in Holland, Mich., was modest but cozy. Lee was experiencing mental health issues. Then the COVID pandemic hit. 

Lee and Austin isolated themselves. Lee shunned her friends and family. Her social media news kept getting darker. As she shared her views with Austin, they both got depressed, according to Lee. Eventually, 17-year-old Austin told his mother he didn’t want to reach his next birthday. They came to an agreement: She would give Austin an overdose of medicine that she would also take to die by suicide herself. 

On February 22, 2025, the eve of his birthday, Lee called 911. “We need an officer here immediately,” she told the dispatcher who asked what was going on. “My son won’t stop breathing.”

It took the dispatcher a while to understand that Lee was trying to kill Austin. “I didn’t do this out of hatred, it was out of love,” Lee claimed.

He had passed out from the medicine but was still breathing, so Lee stabbed him repeatedly and slashed his throat. “I couldn’t get him to stop breathing like he made me promise to do,” Lee said. “...We don’t want to be here anymore. We’re done.” 

While on the line, the police arrived. Lee was holding a knife, expecting the officers to kill her. Instead, they tasered and arrested her. Austin was pronounced dead at the scene. 

In October 2025, after being deemed competent to stand trial, Lee pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, torture and resisting and obstructing police. During her sentencing hearing in January 2026, she apologized and explained what she was going through. “I love him with all that I am. It’s endless and my heart is broken,” Lee said of Austin. “...He is my baby, my rock, my purpose.”

By 2020, Lee’s mental and physical health deteriorated to the point that she and Austin were only stepping out for doctor’s appointments. “After five years of not being out in the world, it became hard for me to tell what was real and not real with the algorithms on my phone being nothing but ‘the world is ending’ content,” Lee admitted at her sentencing. “I fell so deeply into an echo chamber that we were living in a different reality and it was a terrible one.”

Lee reached a critical point in November 2024. “My mental health rapidly declined,” she said. “I began to think the FBI was watching me from across the street.” 

She would spend eight hours a day looking out of her bedroom window, attempting to decode people’s behavior and prove her point. She searched for surveillance bugs in her home. When she didn’t find them, she thought they were using mind-reading drones. “My brain was broken,” Lee said. “It very quickly turned into fear that they were coming to get us any moment and taking us to concentration camps.”

Pikaart has a criminal record going back decades, from larceny and stealing to driving while intoxicated with alcohol and repeated charges of surveilling an unclothed person, according to court records. However, there’s no indication that those behaviors affected his relationship with Austin. He’s currently on probation for convictions involving criminal sexual conduct and credit card theft.

Pikaart did not respond to A&E Crime + Investigation’s request for comment.

Lee also had a history of drinking. Court records viewed by A&E Crime + Investigation show she was arrested in 2009 for driving while intoxicated and picked up the following year for the same offense. She pleaded guilty in both cases.

Reached for comment on the murder case, Detective Sergeant Brent Sluiter responded to A&E Crime + Investigation via email, stating of Lee’s drinking, “There is some history with Katie but nothing that would have remotely suggested something like this was possible.” 

Sluiter declined to comment further due to the family’s desire for as “minimal exposure as possible.” 

At the sentencing hearing, Lee said of Austin, “I never intended for him to suffer in any way. In my broken thinking, I was saving him.” 

Lee was sentenced to 60 to 90 years in prison. The earliest she’ll be eligible for parole is 2085, when she would be 100.