VILLAGE OF WAUKESHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin teenager arrested in Kansas over the weekend has been charged with felony theft after his parents were found dead in a Waukesha home.
17-year-old Nikita Casap faces felony counts of operating a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent and theft of movable property. He was stopped for driving his stepfather’s vehicle and stealing his gun in WaKeeney, Kansas on Friday, Feb. 28.
The teenager’s mother Tatiana Casap and stepfather Donald Mayer were found dead Friday morning at their home on Cider Hills Dr. in the Village of Waukesha.
Police in Kansas found a firearm, spent shell casings, ammunition and driver’s licenses belonging to Casap’s mother and stepfather in the car, according to a criminal complaint. The missing family dog was also in the car. Investigators confirmed that the firearm recovered, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, is the same type of gun owned by Mayer, which was missing from his residence.
The complaint alleges Casap stole the car and gun on Feb. 23. Location data showed Casap’s cell phone leaving Waukesha on Feb. 24 and traveling through through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado before he was stopped in Kansas.
On Friday, Mayer’s mother requested a welfare check on the family after she hadn’t heard from her son since Feb. 23. A welfare check was also requested Friday from Waukesha West High School because Casap had been absent from school for two weeks and previously had perfect attendance.
When Waukesha County sheriff’s deputies entered the residence, they found Tatiana Casap’s body in a hallway covered in blankets and towels. They observed a “possible exit wound in the back, near the right shoulder” and a bullet hole in the wall nearby. Deputies later found Mayer’s body in a first floor office covered in piles of clothing with an “obvious wound to the back of his head.”
The 17-year-old is in custody and investigation is ongoing.
