Spring Family is Stunned, Saddened by Judges Ruling that Set Son's Killer Free

SPRING, TX --A man who'd previously plead guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing of a Spring man in 2014, has been set free by a Waller County judge.

Christopher Ellison, who'd been behind bars since his 2014 arrest, had previously entered a guilty plea to manslaughter in the stabbing death of 23-year old Brayon Molden.

Molden was a student at Prairie View A&M when his life was suddenly taken, and had a bright future ahead of him as a coach and teacher.

In October 2014, Ellison was arrested and charged with murder in Molden's stabbing death.

As the case made its way through the court system, prosecutors opted to pursue a manslaughter charge instead of murder, and requested that Ellison receive a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Instead, Waller County Judge Albert McCaig sentenced Ellison to just 10 years of probation.

The Molden's, who were certain Ellison would get at least 15 years behind bars, were devastated by McCaig's ruling.

“I’m definitely feeling like justice wasn’t served,” Molden's father Henry Molden told KPRC. “It didn’t work for us.”

The ruling also left attorney's on both sides of the case stunned.

“It was a shock,” said Warren Diepraam with the Waller County District Attorney’s Office. “Everyone in the courtroom was amazed when that happened. I honestly don’t even think the defense attorney expected
that.”

But the sentence wasn’t the only surprise in this case.

McCaig reasoned that the knife used in the killing --a large kitchen knife -- wasn't a deadly weapon in his view, which allowed the probated sentence to be rendered.

“He did that in order to give him probation," Diepraam said. "If there’s a finding of a deadly weapon in a homicide case a judge can’t give probation. That was really a shock.”

While the man who stabbed their son to death is now free, the Molden family is still looking for answers.

“You expect justice as one of the first steps of getting closure,” Henry Molden said. “But when that doesn’t happen, you feel re-victimized.”

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