Next hearing for lifer will be in 2037

A 28-year-old Las Vegas man who shot and paralyzed a Panguitch real estate agent during an unprovoked attack in August 2007 will spend at least 30 years in prison, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has decided.

Jasson Hines, of Las Vegas, who pleaded guilty to first-degree felony attempted murder with injury and is serving up to life in prison, appeared before the parole board earlier this month. He will not get another hearing before August 2037.

Hines shot then-45-year-old Tracy Armstrong on Aug. 3, 2007, at some Panguitch Lake cabins owned by Armstrong.

Hines' father was checking the family into the cabins when Hines, then 24, walked up to the check-in counter and began shooting.

Armstrong — who had never before seen the gunman — was hit twice in the chest and once in the neck, leaving him a paraplegic.

"When he shot me he called out something like, 'I'm God and you're dead,' " Armstrong recalled in a 2008 interview. "Then he stood over me and said, 'God has killed the evil one.' "

Hines also tried to kill Armstrong's 16-year-old son by firing twice into a nearby trailer, then tried to abduct a child and attempted to steal a car at another campground, according to police.

It took three sheriff's deputies and a Utah Highway Patrol officer to subdue Hines.

After mental evaluations, Hines was found competent to stand trial. Defense attorneys had filed notice they would seek an insanity defense at trial, but resolved the case with a plea deal.

Armstrong, the father of nine children, said Hines had destroyed his life.

"He has put me as a prisoner in my body now, and I don't believe he ought to be let out of jail for the rest of his life," Armstrong said at the time.