An extreme, demonstrative protest by a warped mind. The finder of fact must seek to learn this first. The kids' defence ought to put first the goal of psychiatric discovery which should examine the possibility of psychopathy or other serious personality disorder as opposed to the alternative answer, severe mental disturbance. So the court is first asked to send the kid away for some serious head shrinking and evaluation. Personality disorders are incurable.
Mental disturbances are curable for the most part.
I did my job and searched that angle. There is no cure for psychopathy. Future prevention is the only remedy. Society can only do its best to manage the behaviour and minimize the impact. Society should be more focused on lowering the incidence.