Carson Peters-Berger, who was 14 when he beat, strangled, and sexually assaulted his 10-year-old cousin Lily Peters in a Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, woods in 2022, pleaded guilty to first-degree intentional homicide and will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Chippewa County Judge Steven Gibbs accepted the guilty plea and imposed a life sentence on Aug. 26, ending a case that had dragged through the courts for more than four years. Peters-Berger, now 18, will be eligible to seek release to extended supervision after 25 years. He was credited with four years already served since his arrest at age 14, the New York Post reported.
Two additional charges, first-degree sexual assault and first-degree sexual assault of a child under 13 resulting in great bodily harm, were dismissed as part of the plea agreement. A trial had been scheduled for November, but prosecutors announced a resolution hearing earlier this month, and the case concluded without one.
The facts of this case are as grim as any in recent memory. On the evening of April 24, 2022, Lily Peters was reported missing after she failed to return home from her aunt's house in Chippewa Falls. Her bicycle was found near a wooded area. The next morning, searchers discovered her body in the same woods.
Police interviewed Peters-Berger on April 26, 2022. He told investigators that he and Lily had been traveling along a trail, he on a hoverboard, she on her bicycle, before he asked her to go exploring in the woods. He then punched her in the stomach, struck her in the head with a large stick, and strangled her until he believed she was dead. He attempted to sexually assault her before leaving the area, Fox News Digital reported.
After learning that Lily had been reported missing, Peters-Berger returned to the scene, moved her body several feet, and covered it with leaves.
A forensic autopsy documented blunt-force trauma to the head, manual strangulation, and sexual assault. And the Wisconsin Court of Appeals later noted a chilling detail from Peters-Berger's own statements to police: before they ever left the house that evening, he already intended to kill and sexually assault his cousin. He described the premeditation to investigators as his plan "from the get-go," the Associated Press reported.
Because Peters-Berger was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, Wisconsin law placed the case in adult court from the start. His defense attorneys, Michael Cohen and Alicia Linzmeier, fought to change that. They argued that Peters-Berger would not receive adequate mental health treatment in the adult criminal justice system and asked Judge Gibbs to transfer the case to juvenile court.
Gibbs held a three-day hearing on the request in January 2024. He acknowledged that Peters-Berger had raised valid concerns about whether the adult system could provide adequate treatment. He also found that keeping the case in adult court was not necessary to deter others. But Gibbs ruled that moving the case to juvenile court would not reflect the seriousness of the alleged crimes. He denied the transfer.
The defense appealed. In September 2024, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld Gibbs' ruling, finding the judge had acted within his authority. The case stayed in adult court, where the consequences matched the gravity of what Peters-Berger had done.
Fox News Digital reached out to Peters-Berger's attorneys for comment. No response was reported.
Lily Peters was visiting family, doing exactly what a 10-year-old should be able to do on a spring evening in a small Wisconsin city. She rode her bicycle along a trail with her older cousin. She had no reason to fear him. He had every reason to protect her. Instead, he had already decided to end her life before they left the house.
The plea agreement spared the community a trial but also spared Peters-Berger the prospect of facing a jury on all three charges. The two sexual assault counts, including sexual assault of a child under 13 resulting in great bodily harm, were dropped. What remains is the life sentence, with the possibility that Peters-Berger could petition for supervised release after serving 25 years. He would be in his late thirties.
For a crime this calculated, this predatory, and this savage against a child who trusted him, the system delivered the heaviest sentence available. Whether 25 years before a parole petition is enough to reflect what happened in those woods is a question Lily Peters' family will carry far longer than any court proceeding.
Some crimes are so deliberate and so merciless that the only honest response is a locked door, and the only remaining question is whether that door stays shut long enough.
