Murder at TRF 2004

[mpullen]

For those who remember this event, this is from May 18 2006 Navasota paper report:

Man gets 55 years in Renfest slaying

By APRIL AVISON
Eagle Staff Writer


ANDERSON - A Montgomery man was sentenced to 55 years in prison Wednesday after a Grimes County jury heard a tearful plea from a mother whose son was stabbed to death at the Texas Renaissance Festival two years ago.

Brent William Noland, 21, was found guilty Tuesday (Eagle, May 17) of murdering U.S. Navy seaman Brandon Smith, 23. Noland also was ordered to pay the maximum fine of $10,000 for the first degree felony. He will be eligible for parole consideration in 27 1/2 years.

The eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for more than three hours Wednesday as they considered a maximum sentence of life in prison or giving Noland probation.

Grimes County District Attorney Tuck McLain said he was pleased with the outcome.

"There's no doubt in my mind that the fact that he was 19 years old [when the crime occurred] played a role in the sentence," he said. "There's no doubt the jury struggled with that."

Defense attorney Terry Yates of Houston asked the jury to find that the offense was a crime of passion, which would have allowed a sentence of between two and 20 years, but the jury didn't reach that conclusion. Instead they considered a punishment range of between five years to life in prison, McLain said.

Yates, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening, also asked that Noland be placed on probation.

Noland and Smith met in October 2004 at the Texas Renaissance Festival near Plantersville, according to testimony presented during the two-week trial. Prosecutors say Noland became separated from his friends and asked Smith if he could borrow a cell phone. At the end of the day, Noland and Smith met up again, and Noland's friends began arguing with Smith's sister Kristin, according to prosecutors.

Smith stepped in and was stabbed 19 times in the chest and back, according to testimony. The force of the thrusts caused the tip of the 5-inch pocketknife to break off in one of Smith's ribs, McLain has said.

Yates argued that Noland was acting in self-defense and pointed to a stab wound in his thigh as evidence of such. Prosecuting attorneys argued that the wound may have been self-inflicted. Only one weapon - the one used to stab Smith - was found at the crime scene.

Two pastors and Noland's mother, Sue, testified on the defendant's behalf at the Grimes County Courthouse.

Smith's mother, Janet Folsom, took the stand and spoke about the losses she's suffered. Brandon Smith was the third of her four children to die an early, tragic death. Her first son, Jason, drowned in a swimming pool in 1980, and her youngest child, Jeremy, died in March 2003 in a four-wheeler accident in Madisonville.

Her husband died of a heart attack when Brandon Smith was 6 years old, Folsom said, as tears filled her eyes.

She said she attended the Renaissance Festival on the day Smith was stabbed. She left the event separate from her children, Brandon and Kristin, and recalled seeing ambulances and police cars driving past as she was on her way home.

"I just had a gut feeling," she said. "I said, 'I feel like something's happened to the kids.'"

Her neighbors were waiting outside for her when she got home and they took her to the hospital, Folsom said.

"I knew the lady at the [emergency room] window," Folsom said. "She started crying, just shaking her head."

Folsom later saw her son lying on a gurney with a sheet over his body.

"Kristin is not the same person anymore," she said after being asked about how Brandon's death has impacted her family. "She's just lost. She doesn't know how to be an only child."

Kristin Smith testified that she's been diagnosed with post-traumatic shock disorder, anxiety, depression and insomnia.

Noland doesn't have a prior felony record, but Magnolia police officers testified during the sentencing hearing that he was arrested in December 2004 and again in January 2005 for possession of marijuana. Prosecutors have said Noland had been drinking and smoking marijuana at the festival on the day Smith was stabbed.

Another man, Noland's friend Jonathan Damuth, also has been charged with murder in the case, but a trial date has not been set, McLain said Wednesday. Authorities say Damuth kicked Smith in the head while Noland stabbed him.

[LadyShadow]

That is so sad.  I hope the victims family recovers from that horrible loss.

[Just Randall]

So, why was it necessary to bring this up again? 3 years later?

[brier patch charlie]

Well, now I know! I had allways wondered if the little Bast@#& got any time for what he had done. Hope he likes Huntsville in the summer, hoeing cotton on the chain gang. I bet he becomes someones bitchboy real soon.

[MacLaren]

I HOPE he gets to be someone's girlfriend. That's a terrible thing to happen.

Worse yet, is that I know/knew Terry Yates and his family. Many attorneys in that lot. Crime of passion? aren't they all? 19 stab wounds and self defense? Not a chance.

[mpullen]

So, why was it necessary to bring this up again? 3 years later?

Because there was never any word put out and someone asked about it at TRF in 2008, so I did a bit of research.

It's called closure.

[KeeperoftheBar]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  I also have been wondering the outcome and was fearful that he would get a slap on the wrist and everything would be "swept under the rug".  I am glad that this was not the case.
Too bad that they couldn't give the Sailor's family and friends five minutes alone with him before sending him to the pen.  Then there would be closure.

[Lord Dragonspyre]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  I also have been wondering the outcome and was fearful that he would get a slap on the wrist and everything would be "swept under the rug".  I am glad that this was not the case.
Too bad that they couldn't give the Sailor's family and friends five minutes alone with him before sending him to the pen.  Then there would be closure.

Well, when you murder a federal employee, the chances of a "slap on the wrist" drop to an effective 0%...

[Sir Martin]

This case has recently returned to the news because a co-defendent's trial has been posptoned due to an inability to seat a jury.

http://www.navasotaexaminer.com/articles/2009/04/30/news/news02.txt

The important thing for all of us to remember is that this is the only incident of this magnitude in the 35 year history of our great faire.  In the past few years, security has been increased and TRF attendees can be confident that they are in a safe environment.

[LadyElizabeth]

I always wondered what happened in that case.  Thanks for posting this!  I'm quite glad he didn't get off on some technicality.  But he was only 19 yrs old, I kind of feel for him too... He was a kid and I know I wasn't making the best decisions at age 19!!!! 

[Zaubon]

I've made some bad decisions too. I've gotten cars stuck because of some of them, others left me with a really bad head in the morning, There have even been a couple that caused me to wake up with a black eye. None of them ever caused me to go to my car and get a piece of steel which I then proceeded to stick into another person multiple times.
Sorry for jumping on my soapbox, but while I don't care for the way our system responds to antisocial acts, I'm not sympathetic to those that initiate violence and then suffer the consequences.

[FortuneRose]

I've made some bad decisions too. I've gotten cars stuck because of some of them, others left me with a really bad head in the morning, There have even been a couple that caused me to wake up with a black eye. None of them ever caused me to go to my car and get a piece of steel which I then proceeded to stick into another person multiple times.
Sorry for jumping on my soapbox, but while I don't care for the way our system responds to antisocial acts, I'm not sympathetic to those that initiate violence and then suffer the consequences.

agreed.

Thank you for posting this, as I too had wondered the outcome

[Yrose]

I'm glad to know the out come . I also agree with Z, while I've made bad choices in life,  I still know true right from wrong.

[brier patch charlie]

As I told one of my thug's the other day it takes more to walk away than go to blows. This young man is about to inter a whole new world, and when he gets out he will see that he total F/ up his life.  And will more than likely go back to prison, because that is the only world he knows. It's very sad, but very true.

[DonaCatalina]

Actually I wondered what came of this.
Of course, I still haven't heard what happened to the driver of the truck that hit and killed Christopher Lee Bridges.