The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, Ky. - A Kentucky teen who admitted to murdering his parents last December broke months of silence Tuesday, telling an Adair County judge that he is sorry for what he did.

"I have no way to tell anyone what inside of me made me pull the trigger and kill my father," Blake Walker, 17, said in a written statement delivered to reporters at his sentencing hearing here. "Those moments are just a blur in my memory. My mother screaming still haunts my sleep each night. ... I have no idea why I shot my mother. She was so good to me."

Walker, a former Boy Scout and honor student at Adair County High School, had not spoken publicly about the crimes except to enter a guilty plea in July. That's when he admitted shooting his father, Brian Walker, once in the head with a rifle and then shooting his mother, Barbara Peterson, multiple times in their home on Dec. 9.

Walker told Adair Circuit Judge James G. Weddle that he loved his parents and that he was sorry for the trouble he had caused.

Weddle sentenced the teen to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.

"Every minute that I am awake, I think of what happened," Walker said in the statement. "Every minute I sleep I see what I did, over and over again. My parents are always in my thoughts. I am so sorry for what I did."

In his prepared statement, Walker said he had taken a gun and went hunting after an argument with his father. When he came back into the house, the argument continued.

"The next thing I know, I have the gun back in my hands and I have it pointed at the back of my Dad's head," Walker said. "I did not plan to kill him. I just sat there on the bed and the anger and frustration just kept growing inside me."

Weddle ordered Walker incarcerated by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice until he turns 18 on Dec. 27. At that time, the judge said, Walker will be placed in an adult prison.

Peterson, 55, had been a full-time faculty member at Lindsey Wilson College, a four-year private liberal arts school in Columbia. Brian Walker, 54, had served in the Peace Corps and co-founded the Knifley volunteer fire department.

Manning Walker, 20, Blake's only sibling, was away at Hanover College in Indiana at the time of the shootings.

Walker's defense attorney, Theresa Whitaker, said she had not uncovered any history of mental illness.

She said she also turned up no evidence that his parents mistreated him.

Walker said in his statement that his relationship with his father had always been strained.

"My father never physically abused me," he said. "I can only remember being spanked on one or two occasions. However, the verbal tirades started early in my life and had become almost a daily occurrence during the last six months before the shootings occurred. ... The yelling would go on constantly for several minutes. And then 10 minutes later, he would be calm and act like nothing ever occurred."

Walker said his suspension from school and a subsequent arrest for drunken driving had further strained his relationship with his father.

Walker concluded his statement by saying he has no way to explain why he killed his parents.

"I am so sorry," he said. "I felt so helpless and hopeless that I just went off. I have never been like I was that night, not before then or since. I have always been a calm and collected person, who didn't do things out of anger. I have never let my emotions get so out of hand. I had never even thought about doing anything like I did before that night. I am sorry."