The judge’s sentence reflected West Virginia’s juvenile murder law as prosecutors argued the crime showed little hope of rehabilitation.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — When Amauri Powe was sentenced for murdering his grandmother, the courtroom confronted two realities at once: prosecutors’ description of an exceptionally brutal killing and a West Virginia law that required parole eligibility because he was 14 at the time.
That tension defined the March 25 sentencing more than any dispute about guilt. A Cabell County jury had already convicted Powe of first-degree murder in the death of 46-year-old Parzella Harris. Prosecutors said Harris was stabbed and cut 37 times in the Huntington home she shared with her grandson. But once the case reached sentencing, the central issue became how a state punishes a juvenile convicted as an adult of one of its most serious crimes. Under West Virginia Code §61-11-23, the answer is a life sentence that still carries parole eligibility after at least 15 years.
MetroNews reported that Judge Sean Hammers made the point directly when imposing sentence, saying he was granting mercy because the law required it, not because he believed Powe deserved it. Prosecutor Jason Spears took a similar view after the hearing. He said he was not hopeful about rehabilitation and described the killing as one of the most gruesome murders he had handled in his career. The prosecutor’s comments framed the case as an example of the sharp limit the law places on judicial discretion in juvenile homicide cases. In public terms, the sentence was the maximum allowed. In emotional terms, prosecutors and relatives suggested it still fell short of the moral weight of the crime.
That legal structure matters because West Virginia no longer permits a juvenile convicted as an adult of first-degree murder to be kept from all parole review. The statute requires that such a defendant be eligible for parole after serving at least 15 years. That rule does not guarantee release, and it does not shorten the life sentence itself. It means only that the parole board must be allowed to consider the inmate after the statutory minimum has been served. In Powe’s case, that future review point sits far down the road, but it shaped the sentencing hearing from the start. Everyone in the courtroom knew the broad outline of the sentence before the first family member spoke.
Against that legal backdrop, the facts of the case were stark. Harris was found dead on Feb. 4, 2024, in a home on the 1900 block of 18th Street in Huntington. Prosecutors later said Powe had told a friend they were going to get money from Harris when the attack occurred. At trial, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Can Metin Savasman testified that Harris suffered 37 stab wounds and cuts, including defensive wounds, and that her death was a homicide. Local reporting said Powe looked away during images of those injuries. A second juvenile was initially charged, but prosecutors said that case ended in a deal. Public reporting has not fully filled in the details of that separate resolution.
The hearing also became a test of how courts weigh remorse in a case where the sentence is largely fixed. Powe told the court he had done a terrible, dumb thing and said he had been on drugs at the time. He said he hoped to receive counseling and therapy as he moved toward adulthood. Spears later called the statement hollow. That divide mattered because it went to the question the law is built around even when it does not say so directly: whether a juvenile offender may someday be rehabilitated enough to seek release. The judge did not have to resolve that question on March 25. He only had to impose the sentence the law allowed. But the courtroom arguments were plainly aimed at that longer future.
Relatives of Harris used the hearing to anchor the case back in loss rather than doctrine. WCHS reported that three family members spoke and additional victim impact statements were read. Harris’ sister, Tonya Whitfield, told Powe she would never forgive him. Prosecutors said Harris was remembered as loving, kind and giving. Her obituary and workplace remembrance described a woman with deep family ties and steady work in Huntington. Those voices made the sentencing hearing more than a discussion of statutory mercy. They insisted that any debate about future parole eligibility had to begin with the person whose life was taken inside her own home.
The sentence is now in place, and the legal tension that defined it remains unresolved except on paper. Powe will serve life with mercy, and the next meaningful legal milestone would not come unless he reaches parole eligibility after 15 years and asks the state to weigh punishment against rehabilitation.
Author note: Last updated April 17, 2026.