SEATTLE -- Eight years after the murder of an Evergreen High School cheerleader, her boyfriend and his grandparents, the man responsible was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday.

Leemah Carneh pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated murder for their deaths in 2001 in the south Seattle suburb of Des Moines.

Charges against Carneh were dismissed in 2005 by a King County Superior Court judge because it was unclear if Carneh, who was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, was competent to stand trial.

Following two years of treatment at Western State Hospital, Carneh was deemed to be competent to stand trial in July and prosecutors re-filed first-degree murder charges in 2007. He was scheduled to go to trial which could have lasted months, instead he pleaded guilty.

The four victims, 63-year-old Richard and 64-year-old Leola Larson, their grandson, Taelor Mark and Taelor's girlfriend, Josie Peterson, were found murdered inside the Larsons' home.

Prosecutors said Carneh was obsessed with Peterson. When detectives searched Carneh's house, after the murders, they found a photo of Peterson, and posessions belonging to the other victims, including Taelor's ring, and luggage bearign the Larsons' name.

For Lorraine Marks, who lost her parents and son, it's the end of living with anxiety and constant stress.

"It's been very frustrating because all we've heard about for eight years is the defendant, while we've been carrying the burden of what happened to our family members and the knowledge of exactly how violent and premeditated the crimes were,” Marks said.

She calls Carneh a predator, and is grateful he'll go to prison for the rest of his life and not a mental hospital.

Mary Marrero, Josie Peterson's mother, said she is happy, “Just to see him go to prison and to rot in prison is a privilege for me today. I will be at peace."

Mark and Peterson were 17 at the time of their deaths; Carneh was 19.

When asked if he had anything to say, Carneh said, “No I don’t have anything to say.”

Carneh, now 26, is not eligible for parole.