Troy

With his sister quietly sobbing in the courtroom, Anthony Repp admitted on Friday that he beat his mother and stepfather to death last year with a bowling-ball-sized rock.

"I killed my mother with a rock," Repp said in a loud and clear voice as Rensselaer County Judge Andrew Ceresia questioned him about the death of Cynthia Matala on her front lawn on July 4, 2013.

"Did you strike your stepfather, Michael Matala, with a rock?" Ceresia asked Repp.

"Yes," said Repp, who stood at attention.

"Did you intend to kill him?" the judge asked.

"Yes," Repp said. He showed no emotion and at times closed his eyes for extended periods.

Repp, 23, will be sentenced next month to 40 years to life in prison.

His attorney, Terence Kindlon, said Repp suffers from mental illness.

Repp told Ceresia at the plea hearing that he had taken his medication on Friday morning.

Assistant District Attorney Shane Hug said that had the case gone to trial, prosecutors had damning evidence in the form of a 911 tape of the incident caught on Cynthia Matala's cellphone.

She identified her son as her killer to the 911 operator.

On the tape, Matala can be heard screaming for help as her son attacked her husband.

"Then you can hear him on the tape telling his mother she is next," Hug said. "You can then hear him hitting her. She is screaming and then suddenly goes silent."

Repp was scheduled for trial next month on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder.

If convicted of first-degree murder, the top charge, Repp faced a potential sentence of life without possibility of parole.

Repp boarded a boxcar on a freight train and rode it to Massachusetts after the crime.

He was arrested in Deerfield when he got off the train.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and will be sentenced on Jan. 26 to 20 years to life on each count, to be served consecutively.

Kindlon has said his defense would not dispute prosecutors' claims that Repp killed the couple.

Kindlon instead wanted to ask potential jurors to consider the option of finding that Repp was not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect.

"After months of work on the case, we determined we could not win with that defense," Kindlon said Friday.

Repp was found by two county psychologists to be competent to stand trial.

He is in the county jail without bail.

bgardinier@timesunion.com • 518-454-5696 • @BobGardinier