Tyler Sampson, left, and Adam Eisenhauer were lifelong friends who always helped each other out, their mothers say. (courtesy Janice Sampson)

The man who murdered Adam Eisenhauer and Tyler Sampson in 2005 will not be eligible for parole for 13 years.

Michael Joseph Mitchelmore, 29, wept openly during his sentencing hearing Monday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

"I am so sorry and I will be sorry for the rest of my life," Mitchelmore said as he faced a courtroom packed with the two victims' family and friends.

"I am not a monster. I am a man who made a terrible mistake."

Janice Sampson said she accepts Mitchelmore's apology for killing her son, though she said he took away her future. "He cried tears. It seemed genuine to me. I don't know," she told reporters.

But Heather Eisenhauer, Adam's mother, said she doubts Mitchelmore's sincerity.

"I sat in court and I watched him leaf through crime scene photos of these boys like he was looking at a picture book. I watched him smile and smirk in our face during this whole thing except for today.

"Today, as far as I am concerned, is an act," she told reporters.

Eisenhauer said she was not satisfied with his sentence.

"Thirteen years is minimal for two young men," she said. "I understand that it is a court of law and they have to go with the law. But that's where laws have to be changed, where there have to be stiffer sentences."

The bodies of Eisenhauer, 26, and Sampson, 25, were found on Aug. 14, 2005, in Glen Haven, a small community about 40 kilometres west of Halifax.

Eisenhauer, who was partially paralyzed from a car accident, was stabbed three times while he lay in bed, the court heard.

Sampson was sleeping upstairs when he heard the commotion and ran into Mitchelmore on the stairs. The bloody struggle continued through the kitchen and outside the house, where Sampson was found the next morning.

Sampson died en route to the hospital. He had been stabbed at least 30 times.

Mitchelmore, of Glen Haven, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder last month.

Emotions ran high in the small, jammed courtroom as victim impact statements were read out. Folding chairs were put in the aisles and some people were placed in the jury box.

'He killed 2 entire families'

Sampson's sister, Cindy, was the first to speak. She reduced the room to tears — including Mitchelmore, who wiped his eyes as he sat on the prisoner's bench.

Mitchelmore didn't just kill two young men, she said, "he killed two entire families."

"My mom and I go away every Christmas to pretend it doesn't exist. I don't want Christmas without my brother. He was 25 years old. I want him back," she said.

Mitchelmore cried for the first time when she looked at him and yelled out: "Do you know what I would give to eat one more meal with my brother?"

Heather Eisenhauer recalled having to identify her son's lifeless body on a steel gurney.

She described being led down a hospital corridor with her husband to a room with a large window. If they recognized Adam, they were told, they had to say his full name.

"Adam Nicholas Eisenhauer," Heather Eisenhauer said slowly in court, her fist clenched and tears running down her face. "I saw my child through glass. I couldn't touch him because I might contaminate evidence. He was violently stolen from us."

She stared at Mitchelmore and told him, "I will never wake up from the nightmare."

Defence lawyer Kevin Burke told the court that Mitchelmore was a cocaine addict who was injecting drugs the day of the murders, as well as as the days leading up to them. He said his client was a roofer working to feed his drug habit.

In the end, the judge accepted the joint recommendation of life in prison with no eligibility for parole for 13 years.