Man sentenced to 15 years for the murder of Portland 2008

Shane Hall appears in the Superior Court of Cumberland County in May for reading positions with lawyers Justin Andrus, on the left, and Andrew Wright. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Personnel Photographer

A man will turn 15 in prison for the death of a Portland fisherman in 2008.

Shane Hall, 37, declared himself guilty of homicide on January 23. Prosecutors agreed to leave a more serious murder position, which could have involved more time behind bars.

Frank A. Williams, III Courtesy of the FBI

Hall was also sentenced to four years of probation after his release. If you violate that, face another 10 years behind bars.

Hall was one of the two men that the police believe that he killed Frank Williams more than 15 years ago. Williams was stabbed by a group of people near Kennedy Park just before 2 in the morning of August 16, 2008.

Police announced two arrests in 2023, shortly after the FBI announced a $ 10,000 reward For any information that helps solve the death of Williams.

But the case quickly unraveled. Tax I had to leave a murder position Against the second suspect, Khang Tran, because Tran would have been less at that time. Hall was 21 years old.

Halls’ lawyers said in the court that the Police of Council received after the FBI reward was contradictory, most came from people with long criminal stories.

They also said that Hall is repentant and has changed in the last decade while in prison for a kidnapping of 2017 in Rockland.

“This is not a good case against evil,” said defense lawyer Andrew Wright. “This is a tragic situation that has obviously had a massive impact on the lives of several people.”

Williams was 37 when he died. He had three children at the time of his death: a one -year -old daughter and two children, including one who never met.

That son, Ryan Zachar, asked the judge of the Superior Court Deborah Cashman to consider imposing the maximum sentence for involuntary homicide, 30 years in prison.

Williams’ family also described the pain of knowing the “brutality and foolishness” of his murder, and that others have not yet been convicted of their roles. They have also fought with the way Williams himself was treated after death: the police called him “transitory,” said the family.

“He had a home,” said Melody Fournier, the mother of Williams’s daughter. “I wasn’t at that, he was displaced at that time because he had problems in which he needed to work. But he did not have the opportunity to work in himself, to change his life. ”

Larissa Emery, Williams’s younger sister, described in the court her brother’s difficult childhood. As an adult, he fought with substance consumption disorder, but when he was a child, he fought with the parents who did not give him the love and support he needed to form relationships of trust with others.

Emery told Hall in court that he thought he could have treated the same problems. She said she hopes that she takes advantage of her brief prayer to change for better.

“You can choose not to let this cycle of pain, violence, crime and destruction continue,” Emery said. “You can choose not to allow abuses, poverty and addiction to play this narrative.”

This story will be updated.