The plea resolves the last pending homicide case in the 2023 death of Prince McCree, whose body was found in a dumpster a day after he was reported missing.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Erik Mendoza, an 18-year-old charged as an adult in the killing of 5-year-old Prince McCree, pleaded guilty Feb. 16 to first-degree intentional homicide and other felonies, ending a case that had drawn statewide attention since the boy’s death in October 2023.
The plea matters beyond one courtroom because it closes the prosecution of the second defendant in a killing that shocked Milwaukee and later prompted a change in Wisconsin law. Prince’s disappearance did not trigger an Amber Alert at the time because investigators lacked details required under the old standard. Since then, lawmakers passed the Prince Act, lowering the threshold for alerts involving endangered missing children. Mendoza now awaits sentencing after his codefendant, David Pietura, received life in prison without parole in 2024.
According to investigators, the case began on Oct. 25, 2023, when Prince stayed home from school after waking up with a sore throat. Authorities said the child went to the basement of the home where he lived with his mother to play video games. Pietura lived in that basement area, and prosecutors said Mendoza was also there. Prince’s mother later went to the basement and could not find him. After she called police, officers searching the property found blood on the floor. Pietura tried to explain it away, telling detectives he and Mendoza had been roughhousing and that Mendoza got a bloody nose, investigators said. That account quickly came apart as officers found blood in other spots and compared Pietura’s statement with phone records. By the next day, detectives said a K-9 unit detected human decomposition on the property, and a chemical test used to reveal hidden blood showed more signs of violence throughout the basement.
Police said Pietura then changed his account and blamed Mendoza, telling detectives he saw the teen choking and beating Prince with a golf club. Investigators found a golf club near a furnace, matching part of that statement. Later on Oct. 26, officers recovered Prince’s body from a dumpster near 55th Street and Vliet Street, about a mile from where he had last been seen near 54th Street and Meinecke Avenue. Prosecutors said the child’s body was wrapped in duct tape and white garbage bags and appeared to have been there for some time. Neighborhood surveillance video, according to investigators, captured Pietura and Mendoza disposing of the body during the afternoon of Oct. 25. When detectives confronted Mendoza after his arrest, they said he admitted, “I strangled him.” Authorities said he also told them he hit Prince with the golf club and knew the boy was still alive because he was crying and foaming at the mouth. Court records described a prolonged attack in which Prince was beaten, stomped on and struck with multiple objects before he died.
The complaint laid out a series of details that made the case especially disturbing. Investigators said Mendoza told police he stomped on the child’s head about 10 times outside and punched and kicked him until he appeared lifeless. Pietura later admitted he also joined in the beating, saying he wanted to keep the boy quiet. When Prince continued to whimper, Pietura told police he dropped a 30-pound barbell on the child’s head. Authorities said the two then wrapped Prince in garbage bags, but the child began making noise again. At that point, investigators said, the men took turns striking him with the golf club while he was bound and gagged inside the bags. Pietura then found a concrete birdbath pedestal and dropped it on Prince’s head twice, according to the complaint. The child stopped making sounds after that. Some facts remain unresolved in public records, including a clear motive for why the attack escalated with such force. But the charging documents and later plea proceedings make clear prosecutors believed both defendants played direct roles in the killing and in hiding Prince’s body.
The legal path moved in stages over more than two years. Pietura, who was 27 when sentenced, pleaded guilty in June 2024 to first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime. A judge sentenced him on July 26, 2024, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. During that hearing, Prince’s family filled the courtroom and described the trust they once placed in Pietura. Prince’s mother, Jordan Barger, said he had been kind to her son before the killing and that Prince had called him his best friend. Mendoza’s case took longer. He was 15 at the time of the killing but was later prosecuted as an adult. His defense tried to move the case out of adult court and later pursued an insanity-based defense. Court proceedings were paused in 2024 for a competency evaluation, and a later psychological review followed in 2025 after Mendoza first entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. He was ultimately ruled competent to stand trial, and the case was set for a jury trial before the plea deal was entered.
Mendoza pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree intentional homicide, one count of hiding a corpse and three counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety. A sixth count was not part of the final guilty plea. The hearing took place the day his trial was expected to begin. By resolving the case with guilty pleas from both defendants, prosecutors avoided forcing Prince’s family through a lengthy public trial centered on the details of the killing. The plea also fixed the next procedural milestone: sentencing. A judge set Mendoza’s sentencing for June 5 at 2 p.m. in Milwaukee County court. He faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison, though the final sentence will be up to the judge. No public record tied to the plea indicates a separate trial is still expected, and no other defendants have been identified in connection with Prince’s death. The homicide case itself is largely settled on guilt, but sentencing will determine how Wisconsin punishes the last remaining defendant.
The case also left a wider mark on Wisconsin policy. At the time Prince disappeared, authorities said the information available did not meet the state’s standard for issuing an Amber Alert because investigators did not have enough detail about a suspect or vehicle. Prince’s body was found the next morning. The public attention that followed helped drive passage of the Prince Act, signed in April 2024, which broadened the circumstances under which alerts can be sent for endangered missing children. State Sen. LaTonya Johnson, who lived a few houses away from Prince’s family, publicly tied the case to that push for change. The law does not alter what happened in the basement of that Milwaukee home, but it became one of the clearest policy consequences of Prince’s death. For Prince’s relatives, the legal milestones have come with repeated reminders of the case’s brutality. At Pietura’s sentencing, family members spoke through tears as prosecutors reviewed the timeline. The guilty plea from Mendoza spares them one more trial, but it does not end the public accounting yet.
For now, the case stands at its final sentencing phase. Pietura is already serving life without parole, and Mendoza is scheduled to return to court June 5, when a judge is expected to decide his punishment and hear any final statements from prosecutors, defense lawyers and Prince’s family.