DUBLIN — A Hayward man was sentenced to 17 years to life in prison for killing his neighbor in 2024 after an argument that started with the victim’s girlfriend telling him she wanted to take a shower at the defendant’s apartment, according to court records.
But things could have been a lot worse for Shawn Moayer, 36, who now sits in North Kern State Prison with the potential for parole eligibility in about 15 years. In sentencing him, Judge Amy Sekany dismissed a firearm use enhancement that could have pushed Moayer’s parole eligible date back 25 years, giving him a chance to prove in his late 40s or early 50s that he has been rehabilitated.
Sekany’s order came after she heard from the family of the victim, 36-year-old Matthew Beck, as well as loved ones of Moayer. But Sekany seemed most interested in details from Moayer’s childhood, laid out in a probation report. She said Moayer grew up with a “mentally unstable” mother in an abusive household and was “clearly exposed” to substance abuse at a young age.
“As I read the reports and letters submitted on his behalf, I could not help but notice that perhaps there was just a little flicker of light in there somewhere,” Sekany said. “I saw not only adversity and despair, mistakes, and wrongdoing, a lot of poor decision making, but I also saw a person trying, against all odds, to somehow make change and possibly even ultimately rise above.”
Moayer has made several attempts to get sober, including most recently in jail, after he was arrested for killing his neighbor, court records show.
It happened during an Aug. 26, 2024 argument at the Hayward apartment complex where both men lived. According to testimony at the preliminary hearing, Beck was armed with a knife and irate after his girlfriend informed him she was going to Moayer’s home to take a shower. Moayer allegedly grabbed his gun and killed Beck, then threatened Beck’s girlfriend to keep quiet.
At the preliminary hearing, Sekany found that there was enough evidence to hold Moayer to answer on a charge of dissuading Beck’s girlfriend from testifying, but balked at the murder charge, choosing instead to hold him to answer on a voluntary manslaughter count. Prosecutors re-filed the murder charge and convinced another judge to let the case go to trial, where Moayer was convicted of second degree murder.
At Moayer’s Nov. 21 sentencing, Beck’s mother, Judith Smith, submitted a letter to the court where she said she has lived in fear of retaliation since Beck’s murder.
“The death of my son has changed my whole world, the meaning of friendship, trust, and security,” Smith wrote. “When Matt was murdered, friends and family and true friends of Matt wanted to do a memorial at the site. I asked them not to because I felt they would not be safe. I knew Matt would not want anyone hurt.”
Beck’s niece, Amanda Simpson, said in a letter that Beck was the father of three boys and his death has impacted the entire family.
“He was the one to make sure that we all stayed together as a family and made sure that, as a family, we were always okay and didn’t not want for anything before himself and would give you his shirt off his back to make sure everyone around him was always okay before himself,” Simpson said in the letter.
Moayer’s family — including his brother, a former Stockton policeman named Handsome Moayer — voiced support for him. One family member compared Moayer to Sully from the Pixar animated film “Monsters Inc.”, a character who appears large and intimidating but has the biggest heart in the film.
“What I can say is through all my experiences, from experience as a police officer, experience as just the average civilian in society, I’ve been able to gather whether or not somebody is a cruel person or a fearless person and just a person with no care,” Handsome Moayer said. “My brother is not that person. My brother is a very passionate, loving person.”
Prosecutors argued that at the time of the murder, Moayer was “essentially selling drugs out of this house” and that he kept guns in his apartment because of this criminal activity.
“Quite frankly, Mr. Beck would have never died if the defendant had not illegally possessed that firearm last summer,” Deputy District Attorney Margaret Watts said at the hearing. “While I have a lot of empathy and a lot of sympathy for the past, there is no nexus between that childhood and what happened in this case today.”