A 47-year-old man was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Tuesday for killing his mother over her complaint that he was playing his video games too loudly, according to the New Hampshire Department of Justice.

Thomas Humphrey was living in his mother's basement in Goffstown at the time of the killing last year. Linda Tufts, 70, had recently given Humphrey a PlayStation for his 47th birthday.

Prosecutors said Humphrey stabbed Tufts multiple times following an argument about the volume of his video games. He then lit her body on fire.

Humphrey on Tuesday pleaded guilty to the charges of second-degree murder and felony arson, after previously pleading not guilty.

"This is, as I said in my more than a decade on the bench, one of the most brutal murders that I've presided over," Judge William Delker said before delivering the sentence.

"The brutality of this crime simply makes it too dangerous not to impose a very lengthy state prison sentence," Delker said.

Humphrey was sentenced to 40 years to life for the murder conviction, and received a consecutive suspended sentence of 5 to 10 years on the arson conviction.

Thomas Humphrey was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and arson in the death of his mother. https://t.co/qBmM13trPr

— WILX News 10 (@wilxTV) June 5, 2024

 

--with reporting by TMX