MILFORD – They tried to guard against getting caught, but four young men couldn’t contain their enthusiasm over the burglary and murder they planned and executed in Mont Vernon last fall, court documents show.

Documents relating to the Oct. 4 murder of Kimberly Cates, 42, and near-fatal attack on her 11-year-old daughter show the alleged killers talked about the attack among themselves for days beforehand and then bragged to friends afterward about what they had done.

Christopher Gribble, 20, of 23 Oak Hill Road, Brookline, told an Amherst teen it was “awesome” when describing the gruesome crime. Steven Spader, 18, of 7 Wallace Brook Road, Brookline, told the same teen he wanted to “do it” again, police reported.

Gribble described himself and Spader as “sociopaths” and told police he wanted to kill someone for a long time, but he was disappointed by how little emotion he felt afterward. Gribble said the girl had tried to protect her mother as Spader slashed and stabbed them, and he regretted that he hadn’t killed the girl as he’d intended. He said he felt badly that she would live with the trauma.

Gribble and Spader are charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to murder, and each faces life in prison without chance of parole if convicted.

William Marks, 18, of 464 Boston Post Road, Amherst, and Quinn Glover, 18, of 34 Blueberry Hill Road, Amherst, each have been charged with burglary, conspiracy to burglary and robbery, though prosecutors could seek additional indictments when they present the case to a grand jury.

Prosecutors said all four suspects were armed when they broke into the Cates’ home around 4 a.m. Oct. 4, planning to steal whatever they could and kill whomever they might find. The four all were arrested roughly 50 hours after the murder and have been jailed ever since, pending indictment and prosecution in Hillsborough County Superior Court.

A fifth defendant, Autumn Savoy, 20, of 88 Runnels Bridge Road, Hollis, was arrested the following month, accused of lying to police by providing false alibis for his friends and helping them to destroy evidence by throwing it in the Nashua River where police found it a short way downstream.

On Tuesday, Milford District Court released the search warrants and an affidavit filed to support the searches and the charges against the young men. State police Sgt. James Geraghty summarized what police had learned about the case in a 13-page report filed in the court Oct. 6, two days after the murder.

Police were dispatched to the Cates’ home at 4 Trow Road at about 4:15 a.m. by a 911 call. Someone had dialed 911 and left the line open, Geraghty reported.

Milford Police Sgt. Kevin Furlong found Jaimie Cates, 11, inside. Though she was bleeding profusely from machete and knife wounds, the girl was able to tell police what had happened.

“They killed my mommy,” she told them, Geraghty wrote.

Furlong left the girl outside with another officer and found Kimberly Cates’ body in her bedroom, where she and her daughter had gone to bed the night before. Cates’ husband was out of town on business at the time.

The girl was right; her mother was dead, with large cuts and stab wounds all over her body, Geraghty wrote.

Kimberly Cates’ was the first murder in living memory in Mont Vernon, and the brutality and apparent random nature of the attack shocked the community. Fewer than 14 hours passed before investigators got leads on their suspects, according to Geraghty’s affidavit.

An Amherst Police officer questioned Gribble and Spader at 5:19 p.m. Oct. 4, after seeing them stopped near an industrial park that had been struck by burglaries. He noted their identities and registration and sent them on their way.

Later that evening, Amherst police got a call from a resident, Carol Fenton, whose son had told her Gribble and Spader had come by their house after their brush with police and told him all about how they had broken into a house in Mont Vernon and killed a woman and child there. They even showed off two knives, her son later told police. Fenton declined comment when reached Tuesday.

Police went looking for the suspects after speaking with Fenton’s son, and they found Gribble, Spader and Savoy at Savoy’s home in Hollis. All three agreed to speak with investigators at the state police barracks. Marks and Glover also agreed to speak with police, once contacted, Geraghty wrote.

Spader and Glover denied any involvement in the murders, and then asserted their rights to consult lawyers, Geraghty wrote. Spader “told police in substance that he did not commit the charged crimes, that he did not know who did it, that whoever did it should get the death penalty,” Geraghty wrote.

Glover claimed to have been sitting beside a country road blindfolded, meditating and smoking a cigarette while his friends were off elsewhere, the affidavit states.

Gribble, Marks and Savoy all denied knowing anything at first but later spoke of the crime in detail, and Gribble and Savoy each lead investigators to places where the youths had hidden evidence, Geraghty wrote.

The four youths had planned the crime for several days, and Marks and Spader picked the Cates house because it was remote, and appeared to have no security system, the suspects told police. Robbery was the motive, the suspects said; they had stolen from other homes before, but they were running out of cash and wanted more.

“Spader and Gribble agreed that they would break into that house and that if anyone was home they would just kill the people in the home for fun,” Geraghty wrote.

All of the youths knew they planned to kill anyone they found, Gribble said, though Savoy later told police he didn’t think his friends were serious about it. Savoy didn’t go with the group to the house, but agreed to be their alibi and claimed they’d been at his home when police first questioned him, Geraghty wrote.

Marks drove with Glover to Walmart that night, where they met Gribble and Spader. It’s not entirely clear who drove to the Cates’ home, but they took Gribble’s 1995 Oldsmobile, Geraghty wrote.

Spader claimed he had carved the word “Die” on the porch before the teens broke in, Savoy told police.

The group first broke open a basement window and lowered Marks inside, but Marks found himself locked in the basement, the defendants said. Spader then got inside and let the others in through a door, Gribble told police.

They got Marks out of the basement, shut off power to the home at the circuit breaker and used the light from an iPod to find their way around and approached a closed, bedroom door.

Spader told the others there were people inside, but his friends misheard, and they all started talking more loudly, Gribble told police. Kimberly Cates woke up and called out, “?‘Jaimie, is that you?’?” Gribble told police.

Gribble was carrying a long dagger and Spader had a machete when they went into the bedroom, each to opposite sides of the bed. Marks and Glover hung back by the doorway as Kimberly Cates tried to turn on a light.

“Spader then started hacking at the woman,” Geraghty wrote, citing Gribble’s interview.

Gribble attacked the girl, stabbing at her face, neck and then her back, trying to pierce her heart, he told police. He threw her against a door, where the girl lay still, pretending to be dead, she told police.

Gribble then stabbed Kimberly Cates a few times, while Spader kicked Jaimie Cates, and “gave her a whack” with his machete, Gribble said.

Satisfied that Cates and her daughter were dead, they turned the power and lights back on and ransacked the house for jewelry and other things they could steal. After gathering what they could find, they went back to Gribble’s car, where they removed their bloodied clothes, wiped down the blades, and drove to Walmart, where Marks had left his car. Gribble, Glover and Spader then went to Savoy’s home, where they spent what was left of the night.

The conspirators had hoped to burn their clothes, empty jewelry boxes, David Cates’ wallet and other evidence at Savoy’s house, but they instead opted to toss the bag into the nearby Nashua River. Police found the bag wrapped around a tree a short way downstream, soon after speaking with Savoy, Geraghty wrote.

The conspirators went to the Pheasant Lane Mall that afternoon, where they sold jewelry at the Cash 4 Gold kiosk, witnesses told police. Gribble told police he got $130 for the jewelry, though at the time he was claiming to have picked it up at yard sales, Geraghty wrote.

At some point, Gribble and Spader got worried about showing their knives off to so many of their friends and decided to bury them in a wooded area along with a pearl necklace the shop wouldn’t take and the iPods they’d used as lights. Gribble later brought police to the spot to dig it back up, Geraghty wrote.

That evening, the young men learned from The Telegraph Web site that the girl had survived the attack, and Spader and Savoy teased Gribble about it, Gribble told police.

Gribble told troopers John Encarnacao and Jeff Ardini he felt badly about having failed to kill Jaimie Cates, Geraghty wrote.

“Gribble told the officers that he had wanted to kill someone for a long time,” Geraghty wrote. “Gribble said that he was disappointed that he did not feel any emotion after the murder. He said, ‘It’s cool because it is different.’ Gribble stated his only regret was that he did not kill the child because now she has to live with this. Gribble stated that if he realized that she was alive he would have killed her.”

Andrew Wolfe can be reached at 594-6410 or awolfe@nashuatelegraph.com.