Shane Hall, left, answers questions from Justice Deborah Cashman during a sentencing hearing Tuesday for the 2008 death of Frank Williams. With Hall are his attorneys Andrew Wright, center, and Justin Andrus, right. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Larissa Emery remembers when her older brother Frank Williams brought her to see “Jurassic Park.”

Frank Williams. Photo courtesy of FBI

She remembers living together, enjoying family dinner and movie nights, back when he was sober and worked six days a week at the local mill.

She shared those stories in court Tuesday when Shane Hall was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in Williams’ death in 2008. He died after being attacked by a small group of men, including Hall, at Kennedy Park.

“Without the drugs and without the addiction, he was the funniest, kindest and most generous person you would have ever met,” Emery said. “I know for you, in the way you knew him, that must be pretty hard to imagine right now. But it’s true. He was lovely.”

Hall, 37, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Jan. 23. Prosecutors agreed to drop a murder charge, which could have led to more time behind bars.

A judge said Tuesday that it would have been hard for the state to prove that it was Hall’s actions that caused Williams’ death, especially given the number of people who witnessed the attack and the amount of time that has passed.

“Likely more than one individual was involved with some attack on Mr. Williams. At least peripherally, others were involved,” said Superior Court Justice Deborah Cashman.

Hall was also sentenced to four years of probation after his release. If he violates those conditions, he faces another 10 years behind bars. He will serve that sentence concurrently with a 15-year sentence he was given for kidnapping a woman in Rockland in 2017.

Williams was assaulted and stabbed by a group of people near Kennedy Park just before 2 a.m. on Aug. 16, 2008. Emery remembered she had just learned that her brother was using drugs again, and she had asked him to leave her home, a decision she says she regrets.

In 2023, police announced indictments against Hall and one other man shortly after the FBI announced a $10,000 reward for any information that would help solve Williams’ death. But the case quickly unraveled. Prosecutors had to drop a murder charge against the second suspect, Khang Tran, because Tran would have been a minor at the time.

Hall’s attorneys said in court that the tips police received after the FBI reward were conflicting, most coming from people with lengthy criminal histories themselves.

Kennedy Park wasn’t a safe place 15 years ago, they said, and it was a “confluence of issues having to deal with poverty, crime, addiction, territorial issues” that brought Williams, Hall and others there that night.

“This is not a case of good versus evil,” said defense attorney Andrew Wright. “This is a tragic situation that has obviously had a massive impact on multiple people’s lives.”

Attorney Andrew Wright answers questions from Justice Deborah Cashman during the sentencing hearing for Shane Hall on Tuesday. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Hall apologized to Williams’ family Tuesday.

“I just have to say that I completely apologize, and I’m sorry to anybody that this might have affected — Frank’s family especially, to my family, who I hurt through the whole situation,” Hall said.

Williams was 37 when he died and left behind three children: a 1-year-old daughter and two sons, including one he never got to meet.

That son, Ryan Zachar, asked Cashman to consider imposing the maximum sentence for manslaughter, 30 years in prison.

Zachar said he was young when he learned the man raising him wasn’t his biological father. His mother wanted him to meet Williams. But then his mother found a news article revealing Williams was killed.

“I was left with a painful sense of loss — now not only for never having known him, but because I would never get the chance to,” Zachar said.

His feeling off loss “was compounded with the brutality of the situation,” leaving Zachar with nightmares of Williams’ death.

Williams’ family also described the pain and uncertainty of knowing others were part of Williams’ death and have not been convicted for their roles. They have also struggled with how Williams himself was treated after death — police called him a “transient,” the family said.

“He did have a home,” said Melody Fournier, the mother of Williams’ daughter, who is now a teenager. “He wasn’t in it, he was displaced at the time for having issues he needed to work on. But he didn’t have the opportunity to work on himself, to turn his life around.”

Larissa Emery testifies during a sentencing hearing for Shane Hall, who pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge in the death of her brother Frank Williams. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Emery told Hall she has spent many years going over Williams’ death and life. As an adult, he struggled with substance use disorder — but as a child, Emery said she realizes her brother also struggled with parents who did not give him the love and support he needed to form trusting relationships with others.

“Frankie was born to people who were deeply and painfully harmed in their own childhoods,” she said in court.

But Emery noted that perhaps Hall shared similar struggles, and that he must have once been a vulnerable child, too. She told Hall she hopes he takes advantage of his short sentence to change for the better.

“You can choose to not let this cycle of pain, violence, criminality and destruction continue,” Emery said. “You can choose not to allow the abuses, poverty and addiction play this narrative.”