Owen Hines Sentenced in Preston Lord Killing Case

William Owen Hines was sentenced to 17 years in prison on May 2, 2025, for the beating death of 16-year-old Preston Lord outside a Queen Creek Halloween party in October 2023. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott McCoy imposed 12 years for manslaughter in Lord’s death and a consecutive five years for a separate drunk-driving crash that left another victim with a traumatic brain injury. Hines, the first of seven defendants to be sentenced in the case, received credit for 456 days already served.¹

What the 17 Years Covers

The sentence resolved four separate criminal cases, all involving conduct before Hines turned 18. On March 4, 2025, he pleaded guilty to:

Manslaughter, for Lord’s death on October 30, 2023.
Vehicular aggravated assault, for a July 6, 2023 crash in Gilbert.
Two counts of aggravated assault, for attacks in November and December 2022.

The original first-degree murder and kidnapping counts tied to Lord’s death were dropped as part of the plea. The agreement set a sentencing range of 10.5 to 21 years for the manslaughter and vehicular assault counts combined. Prosecutors asked for the maximum 21 years.²

Judge McCoy landed in the middle of that range. The 12-year manslaughter term and the five-year vehicular assault term run consecutively. The two remaining aggravated assault counts carry three years of probation to follow Hines’s release from prison.¹

How the Judge Weighed the Sentence

McCoy explained the sentence on the record. He credited Hines’s “willingness to take responsibility,” his age at the time of the offenses, and his “history of addiction.” Against those factors he weighed Hines’s “willingness to engage in repeated assaults” and the “substantial pain he caused.” The judge said he had rarely seen someone “more anxious to plead guilty” and called the case “tragic and senseless.”³

At the plea hearing, Hines had told the court the events “horrified” him and said he had “been sober for over a year.”⁴ Prosecutors pushed back on that framing, pointing to jailhouse phone calls in which Hines allegedly discussed making, selling, and drinking homemade “jail alcohol.”⁵

The Pattern Behind the Manslaughter Charge

Prosecutors described Hines’s record as a “path of destruction” that escalated across roughly a year before Lord’s death. His first documented contact with law enforcement was a shoplifting incident in November 2022. The violence started within weeks.²

On November 22, 2022, Hines and several others jumped Dale Jorgensen at a house party near Higley and Riggs roads after Jorgensen asked the group to leave. Jorgensen, then a student at Basha High School, later said eight people were swinging at him in a circle. He did not report the assault until after Lord’s death, telling reporters he had initially dismissed it as “dumb teenagers.”⁶

Ten days later, on December 2, 2022, surveillance video captured Hines running up to a victim already pinned against a car in a Gilbert In-N-Out parking lot and punching him roughly nine times. Hines later told investigators he was drunk and “swung at some random guy” because his group had a “reputation.”²

The July 6, 2023 crash came next. Hines, by then a high-school dropout, turned left against a red arrow with a blood-alcohol level of .107. The other driver spent several days in the ICU with a traumatic brain injury and onset seizures.⁵

Then came the night of October 28, 2023. Lord, a Combs High School student, attended a Halloween party near 194th Street and Via Del Rancho in Queen Creek. He was punched in the face, knocked to the ground, then surrounded and beaten with kicks and stomps to his head. He died two days later, on October 30, of traumatic brain injuries. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide on February 14, 2024.⁷

What Was Said in the Courtroom

Lord’s family addressed the court at sentencing. His father, Nick Lord, said, “Our world has been shattered, and no parent should ever have to endure the pain of burying their child,” adding, “As we stand here today, I have no words of forgiveness.” His mother, Autumn Curiel, described helping her son pick out a homecoming tie one day and choosing the one he would be buried in the next. His stepmother, Melissa Ciconte, spoke directly to Hines: “I want you to understand the magnitude of what you have done. I hope that every day for the rest of your life you remember his name, his face and the life you cut short.”²

Lord’s grandfather, Tony Reich, called Hines’s courtroom tears “crocodile tears” that “really mean nothing to me or to his victims and their families.”³

Hines spoke as well. He said of Lord: “A kind soul senselessly taken from this world. He didn’t deserve not one of those kicks or punches.” He also told Lord’s parents, “They owe me nothing. I owe them everything,” and told Benjamin Zazick, the victim of the drunk-driving crash, that he hoped his recovery would be “swift.”³

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a statement, “William Hines has shown us through not just one, but a series of acts, that he is unfit for society. The fact that he inflicted harm on other victims did not give him pause as he continued his escalation that ended in the death of Preston Lord. Prison is the only appropriate outcome, and there is still more work to be done.”¹

Where the Co-Defendants Stand

Hines was the first of seven defendants to be sentenced. The other six — Jacob Meisner, Talan Renner, Talyn Vigil, Treston Billey, Dominic Turner, and Taylor Sherman — remain charged with felony murder and kidnapping and have pleaded not guilty. All seven were charged as adults. Prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty against Billey, Turner, and Sherman, the three eligible defendants, because the other four were minors at the time of the attack.⁸

The remaining cases have split into multiple tracks after severance rulings. Meisner will be tried separately and declined a plea deal; if convicted of first-degree murder he faces life with the possibility of release after 25 years.⁹ Renner’s attorneys have said they would not be ready for trial until April 2027. A joint trial date of October 2026 was on the calendar as of mid-2026, though defense teams and the court have signaled that date may not hold.¹⁰

Preston’s Law

Ten days after Hines was sentenced, Governor Katie Hobbs signed House Bill 2611, known as “Preston’s Law,” on May 12, 2025. Sponsored by State Representative Matt Gress in collaboration with Rachel Mitchell, the statute creates a new Class 4 felony for assaults committed when the attacker is aided by two or more accomplices and the victim suffers physical injury. Under prior law, such attacks could be charged as a Class 6 felony and sometimes reduced to a misdemeanor. The law applies to attackers of any age and takes effect 90 days after the close of the 2025 legislative session.¹¹ The new classification did not apply to Hines’s case, which was charged and pleaded under the older statutes.¹²

1
Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. William Hines Sentenced in Preston Lord Case
2
AZ Family. First of 7 Suspects in Preston Lord’s Murder to Be Sentenced
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AZ Central. William Owen Hines Sentencing in Preston Lord Death
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ABC15. Suspect in the Preston Lord Case William Hines to Be Sentenced
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Fox 10 Phoenix. State Prosecutors Recommend Max Sentence for William Owen Hines
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ABC15. Teen Recently Reported 2022 Assault Hoping to Help Others
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Queen Creek AZ. Homicide Case of Preston Lord
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ABC15. MCAO Not Seeking Death Penalty for Three Suspects in Preston Lord Case
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Fox 10 Phoenix. No Plea Deal Reached for Preston Lord Murder Suspect
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AZ Family. 6 Suspects in Preston Lord’s Murder Scheduled for Court as Trial Start Date Looms
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Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Preston’s Law Signed by Governor
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Arizona Legislature. HB 2611 Summary: Preston’s Law