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A self-appointed landlord was sentenced Friday to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 35 years. Phillip L. Nelson claimed self-defense in the double killing in 2020, but a Multnomah County jury disagreed last month — in the death of Cassy Leaton and first-degree manslaughter in the death of Najaf “Nate” Hobbs.

Nelson blamed his misunderstanding of the law for the brutal stabbings in the basement of a Portland fourplex during a sentencing hearing before Circuit Judge Eric Dahlin. “If I’d had a better understanding of the law, as I do know, my decisions leading to the death of Najaf and Cassy would have been very different,” Nelson said, “There is nothing that can be done to fill this void in your lives.” At his three-week trial, Nelson testified that he purposely parked his distinctive purple van far away from the fourplex at 1403 N.



E. Davis Street on June 16, 2020, and then went down into the basement and turned off the water for the couple’s unit. Hobbs, 39, and Leaton, 22, sawed through a wooden lattice leading to the basement, went back to their apartment and returned to try to turn on the water valve, not knowing that Nelson was lying in wait, armed with a 12-inch blade he’d fashioned out of a He stabbed the couple repeatedly during the ensuing confrontation.

Hobbs collapsed on the wooden stairs leading outside, while Leaton crawled into the street and cried for help, but neighbors frightened by the early days of the pandemic approached ca.

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