CASSIA COUNTY, Idaho — A Burley man has been sentenced to four consecutive fixed-life terms for the murders of four people across two counties in July 2025.
In December, Benjamin Naylor pleaded guilty to the killings of Dennis Mix, Angelica Medina and Kelly and Donna Jenks. He told the court he was suffering a schizophrenic break and was off his medication at the time of the killings.
That plea agreement removed the possibility of a death sentence. Instead, it secured four consecutive life sentences without parole, a decision that was made after consulting with the victims' families, according to the Cassia and Minidoka County Prosecutors' offices.
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“Seeking the death penalty means years of litigation, appeals, habeas petitions, and re-traumatization at every stage,” said Cassia County Prosecuting Attorney McCord Larsen. “The alternative, which is a plea to fixed-life sentences with certainty, means no trial, no cross-examination of the families, no risk of acquittal or reversal, and a defined endpoint to the legal chapter of their lives. It does not end the grief. Nothing does. But it ends the legal prolonging of it. In this case, the families made an informed, courageous decision. They chose certainty. I have enormous respect for that.”
The Minidoka County plea agreement also requires Naylor to pay child support for one of the victim's children. In Monday's sentencing hearing, family members of each victim took turns reading victim impact statements.
While mental illness doesn't excuse a crime in Idaho, county prosecuting attorneys, Lance Stevenson and McCord Larsen, wrote in a joint statement that mental health needs to be addressed and funded.
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“The legal resolution of this case does not mean the community’s healing is complete. Four people are gone. Families are forever changed. We as a community have to reckon with how we address mental illness before it reaches the point of tragedy. We have to fund mental health services. We have to reduce the stigma that keeps people from seeking help. We have to support law enforcement who encounter mentally ill individuals and need better tools and training than we currently provide. And we have to support the families on both sides of this who are living with this forever. Justice in this case meant four fixed-life sentences. It meant certainty for victims’ families. It meant accountability under Idaho law, which is unambiguous: mental illness does not excuse murder. But justice also means asking ourselves, as a community, what we could have done differently before we ever got here.”
