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Farmington • An Ogden man who fatally shot a friend's former boyfriend during a playful fight that turned into a deadly encounter was sentenced Thursday to prison for up life.
Jory Arlow Fenstermaker was convicted in February of first-degree murder in the death of Randy Lennell Lewis, who was shot once in the chest on March 14, 2015, in a Davis County home and died a short time later.
A jury also found the 23-year-old Fenstermaker guilty of use of a firearm by a restricted person, a third-degree felony, and not guilty of aggravated assault.
When the guilty verdict was read, Fenstermaker had an outburst, according to a court representative. He was taken to a holding cell and returned to finish the verdict.
On Thursday, 2nd District Judge Robert Dale sentenced Fenstermaker to 16 years to life on the murder conviction, to run concurrently with a zero-to-five-year term for the firearm count. In addition, the judge ordered Fenstermaker to pay about $8,500 in restitution, which includes funeral expenses.
Lewis, 29, who lived in Kansas City, Mo., had been visiting Andrea Green and their two children at her West Point home, according to testimony at a 2016 preliminary hearing.
Before Dale handed down the sentence, Lewis' mother said she wants justice for her son and asked for a stiff prison term.
"All I have is a graveyard to visit," his mother, Regina Lewis, said as she held a photo of her oldest son. "If you take a life, then you should go to jail for life."
Letters from some of the loved ones of the father of five, including siblings and children, were read in court. One described him as "the best father that I could ever have" and another as the "heart of our family."
At the trial, defense attorney Russell Farr said Fenstermaker, Lewis and Green were drinking and smoking marijuana the night of the shooting. He told jurors the two men were "slap boxing" and play wrestling earlier in the evening but that as the night went on, Lewis began making threats toward Fenstermaker, possibly because he believed the defendant wanted to date Green.
The defense attorney said Fenstermaker believed his life was in danger when he saw Lewis move toward a kitchen bar area where a kitchen knife had been placed and fired one shot.
In police body camera footage played at the trial, Green tells an officer she is friends with Fenstermaker and had been in contact with him through the messaging app SnapChat. After the shooting, she shows the officers a SnapChat purportedly from Fenstermaker that reads: "I wasn't there. He had a knife. I left."
Green testified at the preliminary hearing that she did not believe Lewis was a threat to Fenstermaker's life.
Fenstermaker, who left the home after the shooting, was arrested soon after. He bailed out of Davis County Jail, but was arrested in August 2015 after allegedly brandishing what appeared to be a handgun in a pizza restaurant in downtown Ogden during an argument.
He later told police it was a toy gun. Fenstermaker has pleaded not guilty to charges of third-degree felony aggravated assault and class C misdemeanor disorderly conduct and a trial on those charges is scheduled for August, according to court records.
Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC