BELLEVUE, Wash. — A man convicted of murdering a Bellevue family and previously sentenced to life in prison was resentenced Thursday.
Alex Baranyi was resentenced to at least 46 years in prison with credit for time served. Baranyi, who was 17 at the time of the killings, was serving a life sentence for the murders of the Wilson family.
Prosecutors asked for a sentencing of 80 years, saying Baranyi's actions couldn't be chalked up to youthful immaturity or a failure to appreciate risks.
The resentencing follows a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that abolished mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders. The court found it violated the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.
“That's the hardest part of it is getting the families to understand why we are here, and it's difficult because the law is ever-changing, and we do the best we can to help them through the process – a process they never thought they'd have to deal with again,” said Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Castleton.
David Anderson, Baranyi’s best friend who was also 17 at the time, was convicted in the Wilson murders in a separate trial. He was resentenced in March 2022 to at least 33 years in prison. The state appealed the resentencing, and Anderson’s second resentencing hearing is pending, according to prosecutors.
Baranyi was convicted of first-degree aggravated murder and originally sentenced in January 1999. Baranyi confessed to police the killings of Kimberly Wilson, her parents Rose and William and 17-year-old sister Julia in January 1997.
Baranyi strangled Kimberly at a park near her home, and after realizing she may have told her family she planned to meet him there that night, Anderson and Baranyi went after the family. The teens drove to the Wilson home where Anderson bludgeoned Rose with a baseball bat. Baranyi then stabbed William multiple times before attacking Julia.
At trial, prosecutors said Baranyi had been planning the crime for a year. In police interviews, Baranyi said he committed the killings because his “lifestyle was too stagnant and needed to change.” He said he didn’t have a particular motive to kill Kimberly but he wanted to kill for “the opportunity to experience something truly phenomenal.”
Baranyi's attorneys claimed their client was mentally impaired with diminished capacity and that he blurred fantasy and reality. However, the jury never believed the theory.