Man who killed St. Louis County officer from Edwardsville is sentenced to life in prison
The man who shot and killed St. Louis County police officer Blake Snyder in 2016 has been sentenced to life plus 27 years in prison without parole.
Trenton Forster, 20, of St. Louis, was found guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree assault on a law enforcement officer and two counts of armed criminal action in the shooting death of Snyder, who was originally from Edwardsville, in February. On Thursday, Judge Kristine Kerr told Forster he’d have to serve the rest of his life in prison for the crime, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
On Oct. 6, 2016, Snyder responded to a disturbance in the 10700 block of Arno Drive in St. Louis. According to the Post-Dispatch, prosecutors said Forster was suicidal, angry and high on drugs when he shot and killed Snyder. Forster’s attorney’s agreed that he’d killed the officer, but argued that he was incapable of committing premeditated murder because of his history of mental illness and tried to bring the first-degree murder charge to second-degree.
Jurors in February disagreed with that argument, however, and convicted Forster of first-degree murder after four hours of deliberation.
At the sentencing hearing Thursday, Forster said he hadn’t planned on speaking, but wanted to apologize to Snyder’s family after hearing victim impact statements, KMOV 4 reported.
“I’m not a piece of [expletive],” he said, and added that prosectors “did him wrong.”
Judge Kerr then cut Forster off and handed down the sentence.
Snyder left behind a wife and son who was 2 years old at the time of his death. He was a four-year veteran of the police department.
This story was originally published April 18, 2019 at 3:23 PM.
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