Judge says killer must serve extended sentence

A man convicted in 1995 of stabbing a transient to death near Whitefish was back in court last week on charges he violated his probation. The suspended portion of his 10-year-old sentence was reimposed.

Michael Shannon admitted killing Mark Perry at a hobo camp a half-mile east of the railway station May 22, 1995. An autopsy showed that Perry was stabbed nine times.

Shannon pleaded guilty to mitigated deliberate homicide in a plea agreement with former County Attorney Tom Esch. District Judge Ted Lympus sentenced Shannon to 30 years in prison, with 15 suspended, saying that Shannon was under "extreme mental or emotional distress" at the time of the murder. Although he had four prior felony convictions, none were violent, and Shannon had no legal trouble in the 16 years before the murder, Lympus noted. The stabbing was a spontaneous event when both Perry and Shannon were intoxicated, Lympus said.

Shannon went to Montana State Prison for five years and was released to a pre-release center in Missoula. He escaped from the center and was charged with felony escape, according to court documents. For that, he was sentenced to two years in the prison.

In 2004, he was released again to an intensive-supervision program in Missoula. He reportedly absconded to Arkansas, where he was found and work began to revoke the suspended part of his sentence.

Last week, Shannon was returned to Lympus' court, and the judge imposed another 15-year suspended sentence, with no credit for probationary time served.