The refrain from family members and friends of Noah Sadowski and Dylan Morris was constant throughout the two hours of testimony Monday morning: They were stunned, they said. The men they knew weren’t capable of the violent torture they pled guilty to.

“This crime is completely out of my brother’s character,” said Morris’ brother, Christian Morris.

“This isn’t him to any degree in my mind,” Sadowski’s sister, Charity Skowvron, told Common Pleas Judge Katherine Emery. “That’s not Noah.”

They spoke of two men who suffered great trauma in their respective childhoods and who grew up to be compassionate adults — adults whose undiagnosed mental health and substance use issues combusted in a truly ugly way. But, they claimed, it was an aberration.

The men they described bore little resemblanc

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