N.J. man gets 30 years for killing mother, niece

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - A Galloway Township man was sentenced yesterday to 30 years in prison for killing his mother and his young niece and attempting to kill another niece in August 2008, Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel said.

Ronald Weed, 42, of the 400 block of South Nectar Avenue, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Bernard E. DeLury within the guidelines of a September plea agreement that Weed would serve two concurrent 30-year prison terms with no chance for parole.

Weed was charged with using an ax and a ceramic figurine to bludgeon his mother, Loretta Weed, 65, in the home she shared with her son.

Investigators said Weed then turned his rage to his twin 12-year-old nieces, Kimberly and Courtney McCarten, who were visiting their grandmother from Alabama.

Courtney McCarten survived. Now 14, she told the court yesterday that she witnessed the killings.

The twins' mother, Loretta Largo, urged the judge to sentence her brother - a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic - to an institution where he could get mental-health treatment.

But DeLury said the evidence indicated that Weed was not criminally insane and was aware of right and wrong. Evidence showed that his motivation was that he "believed he was being harassed by his family," DeLury said.