A Curtis Bay woman who fatally stabbed a man during a fight after a rap show at the Fish Head Cantina bar in Arbutus was sentenced to 25 years on Friday.
Shelbie Mech, 33, had previously pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the July 7, 2013, death of John Tyler Bowman, 22. Police said Bowman was restrained by a security guard for the bar when Mech repeatedly stabbed him and fled in a friend's car. Mech's husband, Michael Singer, known as rapper Blizz, had earlier performed at the show.
Both prosecutors and the defense attorney described an emotional hearing that lasted nearly two hours Friday in a packed courtroom in Baltimore County Circuit Court, filled mostly with Bowman's family, who wore T-shirts memorializing him.
Mech's attorney, Warren Brown, said the stabbing occurred when both Mech and Bowman were intoxicated and coming to the aid of someone else when a fight broke out at the end of a show being held at the bar.
"I was drained more emotionally after this sentencing than I've been" in many years, Brown said. He described his client as "very tearful. Her mother was very tearful. She turned and addressed the family." He said Mech and Bowman had been acquaintances before the fight.
"She didn't know the damage she had done. She saw him attacking her husband," Brown said.
Assistant state's attorney Jason League said a fight involving "a number of people" broke out at the bar. Bowman and some of his friends were standing off to the side when Mech's husband tried to get others involved and hit a friend of Bowman's, League said.
Amid the scuffle, Bowman was hit twice with a bar stool by an unidentified person, and in response, Bowman picked up a stool but was stopped by a security guard. As the security guard restrained him, League said, Mech pulled a knife from her wristlet, and waited "for an opening." While Bowman was on all fours, unable to move his arms, League said Mech thrust at Bowman three times, striking him twice. The security guard believed Bowman was being punched but then noticed blood and released him, League said.
The scene was captured on surveillance video at the bar. Mech can be seen raising both her hands "in triumph," League said.
The prosecutor described the killing as "completely senseless, and on her part, completely malicious and in retribution for Mr. Bowman striking her husband, despite the fact that this man was completely helpless."
Bowman was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died from his injuries.
Singer was convicted of being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to four years with all but one suspended.
After the stabbing, the owners of the Fish Head Cantina were ordered by the Baltimore County Board of Liquor Commissioners to pay a $2,000 fine.
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