GRAND HAVEN — A mother accused of murdering her 17-year-old son in Holland will serve a minimum of 60 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections, according to a plea agreement reached in October.
Katie Austin Lee, 40, was sentenced by Judge Jon Hulsing in Ottawa County’s 20th Circuit Court on Jan. 19. She was charged with a single count of open murder and one count of resisting and obstructing an officer in the death of her son, Austin Pikaart, at Holland’s Bay Pointe Apartment Complex on Feb. 21, 2025.
During a plea hearing Oct. 22, Lee pled guilty to second-degree murder, resisting an officer and torture.
Lee was sentenced to a maximum of 90 years with credit for 332 days. She previously told officers she was “fulfilling her son’s wish” to die before he turned 18, and had intended to die herself. Upon arrival, responders said, they were confronted by Lee holding a knife.
Officers reportedly gave verbal commands and, according to reporting from WOOD TV-8, Lee dropped the knife — but when she tried to retrieve it, police deployed a taser and took her into custody.
During her hearing in October, Lee confirmed she administered a drug or sedative that prevented Pikaart from moving, then cut his arm at least twice and sliced his throat with a knife while he was unconscious.
Lee read a statement Jan. 19 apologizing to first responders, detectives, hospital staff, court staff, family members and the community.
“I’m sorry for blindsiding you with such heartache,” Lee said. “I can only begin to imagine what this has put you all through. I know there are no magic words to make it better.”
Lee voiced struggles with her mental and physical health, calling her brain “broken” and saying she feared she was being watched by the FBI and lived in a different reality.
“… in my broken thinking, I was saving him,” she said through tears.
“I will spend the rest of my life in prison trying to process what I could have done differently and how I could have reached out. Now for me, the only thing scarier than living in prison is life without Austin.”
Hulsing acknowledged Lee’s willingness to take responsibility and her decision to accept a plea deal — which, he said, spared jurors from seeing photographs of the “horrific” scene.
— Cassidey Kavathas is the politics and court reporter at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at ckavathas@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on X @cassideykava.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Katie Austin Lee sentenced for murder of teenage son in Holland
Reporting by Cassidey Kavathas, Holland Sentinel / The Holland Sentinel
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