PORTLAND — A Portland man was sentenced Tuesday to 32 years in prison for what the judge called the “senseless, brutal killing” of a man with whom he was drinking on a summer night in 2010.

Shawn Garland stabbed Richard Meyers nearly 100 times in Garland’s apartment on Grant Street, then tried to dismember the body.

Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea told the judge that police believe Meyers suffered most, if not all, of the 97 stab wounds before he died, on Aug. 12, 2010.

In sentencing Garland, Cumberland County Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler said there were mitigating factors, such as Garland’s mental illness and his agreement to plead guilty, but they were more than offset by aggravating factors, including the violence of the assault.

Zainea said Garland, who’s now 26, described a troubled relationship with Meyers, who was 58.

Zainea said the two were drinking on the night of the attack, and Meyers’ blood alcohol level was later determined to be 0.36 percent, more than four times the legal limit for driving. Garland’s blood alcohol level was never determined, but he told police he was intoxicated at the time.

Garland told police that Meyers frequently belittled him. The fatal fight is believed to have started when Meyers began drumming his knuckles on Garland’s forehead. Garland initially gouged Meyers’ eyes, then stuck his hand in Meyers’ mouth to keep him from yelling. He used five knives to attack Meyers and to try to cut up his body, Zainea said.

Garland also used a sword, Zainea said, although Garland’s lawyer, John DeGrinney, said none of Meyers’ DNA was found on the sword.

Garland dragged Meyers’ body to a bedroom, Zainea said. Hours later, when he realized he could not cut up the body completely, she said, he called police.

Zainea asked Wheeler to impose the maximum sentence of 35 years in a plea agreement with Garland.

DeGrinney asked for a sentence of 25 years, the minimum in Maine for murder.

He said prosecutors have relied too much on Garland’s initial statements to police, made before he began receiving medication for his mental illnesses, including schizoaffective disorder.

Garland was “routinely being dominated and terrorized by Mr. Meyers,” DeGrinney said, and when Meyers began hitting his knuckles on Garland’s head, that — along with the mental illness and alcohol — set him off.

Wheeler said she recognized that Garland has had a difficult life, beginning as “a throwaway baby” whose mother took cocaine during her pregnancy.

He was in foster care for years and began residential treatment programs for his problems when he was 9, Wheeler said.

“He is almost a poster child for an example of someone our society has failed,” she said.

While he took responsibility and spared Meyers’ family a trial, the judge said, the brutality of the attack led her to impose a sentence near the high end of what was available to her in the agreement.

None of Meyers’ family members attended the sentencing. Zainea said they all live out of state, and traveling would have been difficult financially.

Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

emurphy@pressherald.com