State grants likely freedom to teen killer from Edmonds
Published 1:30 am Saturday, March 10, 2018
LYNNWOOD — An Edmonds man convicted of murder as a teenager in 1996 may be freed in the months ahead.
A state board Tuesday approved a request to reconsider the prison sentence of Lars Snow, 38. That means he may be released if he follows up with other required steps.
Snow was 16 when he and his friends robbed Pedro Sabando, a security guard, and beat the man to death near Lynnwood. The boys split up $71 from Sabando’s wallet.
Now an inmate at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Snow has been behind bars for more than two decades.
The Indeterminate Sentence Review Board, which works closely with state corrections, did not find evidence at a hearing last month that Snow is more likely than not to commit a new crime.
His potential date to walk free will depend on him submitting his release plan, which must be approved by the board. Anyone who’s been locked up for a long time is required to complete a lengthy transition process.
Snow’s original sentence, from Snohomish County Superior Court, was for nearly 29 years. However, a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling brought reforms, which were expanded in Washington, to the lengths of prison terms for offenders who were minors at the time of their crimes. A number of local cases have come up for reconsideration since then. The state review board has jurisdiction over some of those, including Snow.
Snow appealed to the board in 2016 and was found releasable. At the time, the board said that could happen as early as November 2017, documents show.
As part of his transition, he was moved to a lower security level, which eventually meant working two jobs outside prison walls. However, during that time, a corrections officer raised concerns about Snow’s release plan, and the inmate was returned to a higher-security placement in the prison system.
Those concerns have since been resolved, prompting another hearing for Snow last month. He told the state board that he hopes to become a tattoo artist.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @rikkiking.
