A Normandy Park man was sentenced for killing a 96-year-old man he had been caring for and attacking the man’s adult granddaughter.
A Normandy Park man was sentenced Friday to 42 years in prison for killing a 96-year-old man he had been caring for and attacking the man’s granddaughter with a crowbar two years ago.
A King County jury convicted Shane Chamberlain, 24, last month of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. He faced a prison term of 42 to 53 years, including enhancements for his use of a firearm and crowbar.
Chamberlain and his wife were former neighbors and friends of Bethany Hamlin, the adult granddaughter of Phillip Hamlin, according to the Hamlin family and court records.
The couple moved into Phillip Hamlin’s Normandy Park home in September 2013 to help care for the aged inventor and retired entrepreneur, but the couple began having marital problems, according to the records.
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While his wife was visiting family, Chamberlain was working alongside Bethany Hamlin while Phillip Hamlin napped at the opposite end of his house on the afternoon of Jan. 25, 2014.
Hamlin, now 24, was vacuuming when Chamberlain suddenly attacked her with a crowbar, striking her in the head and upper body 22 times before she was able to flee to a neighbor’s house and call 911, the records say.
After she fled, Chamberlain rummaged around in the kitchen and pantry and found Phillip Hamlin’s .38-caliber revolver, which he used to kill the 96-year-old, according to records.
Chamberlain arranged the crowbar, revolver and the unspent rounds from the gun on a bench next to an outdoor pool, then called 911 and surrendered to police in the driveway, the records say.
He declined to speak with detectives, but said in his call to 911, “I broke.”
Though he turned himself in, Chamberlain put forth a general denial defense at trial, the records show.
Meanwhile, the state theorized that Chamberlain’s “long-term unhappiness and despair led him to the moment where he deliberately tried to kill Bethany Hamlin and deliberately killed Phillip Hamlin,” according to court records.
Hamlin was an inventor and pioneer in the cable-television industry, and installed one of the world’s first cable systems in Seattle in 1949.