Killer in Bangor nightclub stabbing sentenced to 32 years for murder
Sep. 29—A Bangor man was sentenced Wednesday to 32 years in prison for the Feb. 1, 2020, stabbing death of Demetrius Snow, 25, in the parking lot of the Half Acre Nightclub on Harlow Street.
A jury in May found Rayshaun Moore, 36, guilty of murder.
Moore denied killing the Bangor man, whom he knew. He claimed that another man who was in the parking lot that night took a knife away from Moore and stabbed Snow.
Superior Court Justice William Anderson said that in deciding what sentence to impose, he considered that Snow and others assaulted Moore earlier in the evening in the same parking lot.
"I think that what happened before is a very important factor in this sentencing," the judge said in imposing Moore's sentence at the Penobscot Judicial Center.
The prosecution recommended a sentence of 48 years while the defense urged the judge to impose a 25-year sentence.
Snow was stabbed seven times but died as a result of a wound to his heart, Dr. Lisa Funte, Maine's deputy chief medical examiner, testified at Moore's spring trial.
Snow was taken to Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center where he was pronounced dead after 1 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2020.
Moore offered his condolences on Wednesday to the Snow family and apologized for his role in the victim's death.
Snow was one of 12 children and had moved to Maine in 2015 or 2016 from Rochester, New York.
His mother and three of his sisters urged the judge to impose a long sentence. Two of the sisters told Moore that they forgave him. The other said that her brother would have been 27 on Tuesday.
The victim's mother, Sherri Snow, had just lost a daughter in a car accident six weeks before her son was murdered, she told Anderson.
"The last time I talked to Demetrius was on my birthday, Jan. 30, and he was killed on Feb. 1," she told the judge. "I want you to know, Rayshaun, that you have taken a brother, an uncle, a son, a nephew from our family.
"Your honor, I'm asking for the max," she continued. "It won't bring my son back, but it will bring closure to me and my family."
Moore moved to Maine in 2017 for a relationship, said his attorney, Hunter Tzovarras of Bangor. The defendant worked at restaurants in Greater Bangor.
The lawyer played a video of Moore's 15-year-old son, who asked the judge for leniency.
"I really need my father in my life," George Anthony Moore of Brockton, Massachusetts, told the judge. "He's a really, really good person. He needs rehabilitation as a punishment."
Security cameras at the nightclub captured the fight between Moore and Snow and the aftermath of the stabbing, but did not show who wielded the knife. The stabbing took place on a snowbank outside the camera's range. Snow was able to get up and stagger into view before collapsing.
The prosecution maintained that Moore's slaying of Snow was an act of revenge because earlier in the evening Snow assaulted Moore in the Half Acre parking lot.
The defense claimed that Kevin Brogdon Sr., 29, of Bangor took Moore's knife away from him and stabbed Snow. Brogdon took the stand during the trial and denied that. He had never seen nor touched the murder weapon, he said.
Before the trial began, Moore rejected an offer that he plead guilty to murder in exchange for a sentence of 38 years, according to lawyers.
Anderson allowed jurors to consider manslaughter as an alternative conviction to murder but they rejected that option.
Moore faced between 25 years and life in prison. If the jury had found him guilty of manslaughter, Moore would have faced up to 30 years in prison.
