A Milwaukee teenager pleaded guilty to murder and other felonies in the 2023 killing of 5-year-old Prince McCree, a case that police say involved a prolonged attack in a home basement and ended with the child’s body carried away in garbage bags and left in a dumpster behind a bar.
Erik Mendoza, now 18, entered pleas Monday, Feb. 16, to first-degree intentional homicide, hiding a corpse and three counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety, according to court reports. The plea, made just as a jury trial was set to begin, comes more than two years after Prince was reported missing and found dead the next day. Mendoza’s co-defendant, David Pietura Jr., was sentenced in 2024 to life in prison without parole. Mendoza is scheduled to be sentenced June 5.
Prince lived with his mother in a residence on Milwaukee’s west side where Pietura and Mendoza also stayed, according to a criminal complaint. On Oct. 25, 2023, Prince’s mother kept him home from school because he had a sore throat and did not feel well. She told investigators she last saw him in the morning and believed he went to the basement to play video games. Later, after shopping for food, she searched the basement, found it dark and empty, and was told by Pietura that he had not seen the child, the complaint said.
Police were notified that evening, and officers and detectives began a search that stretched into the early hours of Oct. 26, moving block by block near the home and checking yards, trash cans and other places a child might go. Investigators also focused on the home itself after noticing possible blood in the basement area Pietura used as a makeshift bedroom, the complaint said. Detectives later obtained a search warrant and brought in search dogs trained to track scent and detect decomposition, according to the complaint. A dog alerted near items at the base of the basement stairs, and detectives documented suspected blood evidence in the basement, including areas that reacted to a chemical used to reveal washed or wiped blood stains.
As the search intensified, police questioned the people who had been in the home. Pietura initially gave detectives a timeline that placed him away from the residence for hours during the day, but detectives later wrote that GPS information from his phone contradicted that account. The complaint said the phone’s location data showed it left the residence later than Pietura claimed and traveled through streets that placed him within about a block of the location where Prince’s body would later be recovered. Detectives also noted blood on Pietura’s leg during an interview and arrested him for obstruction as the missing-child investigation continued, the complaint said.
During a later in-custody interview the morning of Oct. 26, Pietura led police to the area where Prince’s body was found, the complaint said. Officers searched dumpsters in a parking lot behind a business at 5518 W. Vliet St. and discovered the child’s remains. Detectives then reviewed surveillance video from a nearby residence that showed Pietura and Mendoza walking through an alley about 2:02 p.m. on Oct. 25, according to the complaint. The complaint said Pietura carried a large white garbage bag cradled in both arms before handing it to Mendoza, and the two approached a dumpster behind the Vliet Street address. Moments later, the video showed the pair returning without the bag, the complaint said.
Investigators said the video and the recovery of Prince’s body became key evidence as they questioned Mendoza. In the complaint, detectives wrote that when confronted with the surveillance images, Mendoza asked to see them and acknowledged it was him in the video. Investigators told him Prince’s body had been located inside garbage bags in a dumpster and pressed him to explain what happened. Mendoza then said, “I strangled him,” the complaint stated. Detectives wrote that Mendoza described choking Prince while the child was on his back, then using a golf club to strike him. Mendoza said the boy was still alive after being hit, describing signs that he was crying and foaming at the mouth, the complaint said.
The complaint describes a series of assaults that investigators said continued after Prince was moved outside. Detectives wrote that Mendoza said he stomped on the child’s head about 10 times and also punched and kicked him until he was “lifeless.” The two then moved the child back downstairs, the complaint said, and used tape to bind his arms and legs so it would be easier to place him inside multiple garbage bags. Pietura admitted it was his idea to bind and gag the child and wrap him in garbage bags, the complaint said, and investigators wrote that evidence recovered in the basement included duct tape, packing tape and a bowl and towel that Pietura later said were used to clean up blood.
Even after Prince was wrapped and carried out, the complaint says he made sounds that the defendants sought to stop. Pietura told investigators that once the child was taken outside he began to whimper again. Pietura said he responded by dropping a concrete pedestal for a birdbath onto Prince’s head twice, after which the child made no noise, the complaint stated. Detectives wrote that Pietura said his original plan was to take the body toward a trail and place it into a sewage line, but that the body was too heavy, and they instead carried it to the dumpster behind the Vliet Street address.
The guilty plea brings the case closer to final sentencing for both defendants, but it has not ended questions about how the killing unfolded inside a crowded living situation. The complaint describes the home at 2411 N. 54th St. as a residence where multiple people stayed, with Pietura living in the basement and others in upstairs rooms. Investigators wrote that Prince’s mother went back to sleep after her son went downstairs that morning, a detail that became central to the timeline prosecutors later laid out. Police have not said publicly how long the violence lasted, but the complaint and later reports describe a day in which Prince was reported missing in the evening and his body was recovered the next morning.
In addition to the homicide and corpse-hiding charges, the reckless-endangerment counts Mendoza pleaded to reflect concerns prosecutors raised about other people in the home and the danger posed by the defendants’ actions. The complaint also describes how detectives learned of other violent acts tied to Mendoza. Investigators wrote that Mendoza admitted involvement in multiple stabbing attacks in Milwaukee days before Prince was killed. In the complaint, detectives wrote that Mendoza said he carried out three nonfatal stabbings on Oct. 23, 2023, describing them as random attacks and telling investigators he was bored and wanted to stab someone. Police recovered a butterfly knife during the investigation that Mendoza said was used in those attacks, the complaint said.
Pietura’s statements to detectives also became part of the record ahead of Mendoza’s plea. In the complaint, detectives wrote that Pietura said he walked in on Mendoza choking Prince in the basement and did not stop him. Pietura later told investigators he took part in the beating to keep the child quiet, the complaint stated. He also said Mendoza had talked for some time about wanting to kill someone and never liked Prince, according to the complaint. Pietura pleaded guilty in 2024 and was sentenced July 26 of that year to life in prison without the possibility of parole, court reports said.
Mendoza’s case had been positioned for a trial that was expected to include detailed forensic testimony and video evidence, along with accounts of the defendants’ police interviews. Reports also said Mendoza’s attorney spent months challenging whether he should be tried as a juvenile and later sought an insanity defense, but Mendoza was ruled competent to stand trial. The guilty pleas avoided a jury trial, but prosecutors are still expected to present the facts of the case at sentencing, where a judge can consider dismissed charges and related conduct when deciding punishment.
The death of Prince sparked intense public scrutiny in Milwaukee in 2023, in part because of the early search and the discovery of his body in a dumpster not far from the home. The case also drew attention in Wisconsin to how alerts are issued when a child is missing, with officials and lawmakers pointing to Prince’s disappearance as an example of the gaps that can exist when a child is believed to be missing but the circumstances do not immediately meet the strict criteria for a statewide emergency alert.
Prince’s family and supporters have continued to mourn him through vigils and online tributes, and the case has remained a painful reminder of how quickly a child can vanish from view inside a familiar setting. Neighbors and community members have described Prince as a young child who should have been safe at home. Prosecutors have said the evidence shows the defendants acted together and then tried to hide what happened, an allegation the guilty pleas now cement in the court record.
Mendoza is scheduled to return to court for sentencing on June 5, when a judge is expected to weigh the severity of the killing, the evidence described in the criminal complaint, and victim-impact statements from Prince’s family. Pietura’s sentence is already set, and the June hearing is likely to be the last major court date in a case that has stretched from an October 2023 missing-child report to a 2026 guilty plea.
Author note: Last updated February 18, 2026.