Flathead man gets 20 years at Warm Springs for fatal stabbing
The mother of a 22-year-old man stabbed to death in Columbia Falls in 2022 said that the system set up to protect the community from criminals failed her son.
"It took you murdering someone for anyone to pay attention," Jodie Davis told Zain Alexander Ray Glass, 24, during his sentencing in Flathead County District Court on Oct. 17. "Had anyone been proactive in [Glass'] life or done their job we would not be sitting here today."
Initially brought up on a deliberate homicide charge, Glass reached a plea deal with prosecutors in August that saw him plead guilty to negligent homicide. As part of the arrangement, prosecutors agreed to recommend Glass serve a 20-year stint with the state Department of Public Health and Human Services at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs.
Though he was expected to be arraigned later that month, the hearing was postponed while officials tried to determine whether he was fit to proceed. Judge Robert Allison, who oversaw the case, ordered him to Warm Springs for an evaluation and observation in November of that year.
Glass was eventually arraigned in February 2024.
During the interim, personnel at the mental health hospital diagnosed Glass with schizophrenia, cannabis use disorder and stimulant use disorder, according to court documents. Attempts to get him fit to proceed to trial stretched out over months.
Jodie Davis, the sole witness to testify during Glass' sentencing, attributed her son's death to Glass' failure to take treatment seriously prior to the stabbing.
"Your willful neglect of schizophrenia was your choice," she said.
She described her son as a wonderful brother to his sister, "a light to his entire family" and a loyal friend.
"He was just a 22-year-old boy looking forward to his life," she said.
Jodie Davis also described her son's final hours, thanking medical personnel for fighting to save him as he clung to life for about eight hours.
"The thought of his last day on earth, experiencing pain, holding him until his last breath, has taken my spirit," she said. "That, Mr. Glass, is what one stab did."
ALLISON FOLLOWED most of the recommendations laid out in the plea agreement, sentencing Glass to two decades at the Montana State Prison, giving him credit for 759 days of time served and ordering him to pay $8,487.50 to the crime victim compensation fund for the negligent homicide case.
In the 2017 case, which was reopened after the murder, Allison ordered Glass into the care of the Department of Public Health and Human Services for three years with credit for 759 days of time served and 13 months of street time. The two sentences are to run consecutively.
Glass' defense attorneys unsuccessfully sought to see restitution waived, but Allison agreed to drop court fines and fees.
At the behest of County Attorney Travis Ahner, Allison also added a stipulation that Glass abstain from drugs and alcohol if released back into the community.
Ahner argued that drugs put Glass on the path to the fatal stabbing.
"I would ask the court recommend and make explicit that Mr. Glass should be prohibited from consuming any drugs or alcohol including legal marijuana," Ahner told Allison. "That's what sort of pains me in this case. What we’re dealing with is, I believe, a societal attitude toward drugs that is not only letting people down but causing real harm, causing real damage. In this case, it caused real damage to Mr. Glass and led to the death of Lukas Davis."
Glass began using marijuana at age 11, synthetic marijuana at 15 and methamphetamine at 16, Ahner said. Glass suffered his first psychotic break at 15, he said.
"I've grown weary of people referring to drugs as a victimless crime. They're not. And this is where they lead," Ahner said. "As a result, that’s why we’re left with the loss of Lukas Davis and that’s a permanent hole for Jodie Davis and her family that can never been filled, and the best we can hope for, for Mr. Glass, is that he can get mentally healthy."