Judge adds more time to killer’s life prison sentence

A convicted murderer made faces repeatedly at a newspaper photographer on Thursday during a court hearing in Las Vegas.

Shawn Eisenman was convicted by a jury in January of first-degree murder in the December 2015 killing of Cameron Ryan, 27, near Lone Mountain Road and U.S. Highway 95. Authorities said Eisenman shot Ryan in part because he claimed Ryan owed him a small amount of money.

After convicting Eisenman of Ryan’s killing, the jury sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the courtroom of District Judge Jacqueline Bluth. Eisenman was back in court Thursday, when Bluth added at least eight years to his sentence because the crime was committed with a deadly weapon.

Defense attorney Betsy Allen told the judge that she did not think it made sense to sentence Eisenman to any additional time in prison because of the already existing sentence of life without parole. She also said that when Eisenman was 15, he was sentenced to prison as an adult. Court records indicate that he was convicted in 2013 of grand larceny of an automobile and burglary.

The incarceration at such a young age, Allen said, had a profoundly negative impact on Eisenman.

“What you have essentially is a man created by the state of Nevada,” the attorney said. “They took a kid, they put him in prison, and they kept him in solitary confinement for three years, which the trauma alone from that is incomprehensible. It sort of led to where we are today.”

Allen said an appeal of Eisenman’s conviction was planned.

Eisenman also is charged with murder in the July 2016 killing of Ladonna Metais, 46, in July 2016 in Las Vegas. Authorities allege that Eisenman shot Metais because he was upset over a missing trailer.

Court records show that he is scheduled to be tried in that case in January 2023.

Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.