Waverly boy enters plea to attempted murder for stabbing teenager
A 17-year-old Waverly boy has pleaded no contest to attempted first-degree murder for stabbing a 15-year-old in a random attack at a Waverly park in 2022.
Shane Moore had been set for a jury trial this week before entering the plea late last week to the attempted murder charge and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony.
He will face up to 70 years in prison at his sentencing next month.
Moore, then four days short of turning 15, called 911 to Wayne Park shortly before noon Oct. 13, 2022, telling the dispatcher he needed "to report a murder," according to court records.
"I did it, by the way, just so you know. I'm not going to lie to anybody," he said in the 911 call, where he said he stabbed the victim and offered to lead police to "the body."
When asked if it was his plan to stab someone, he responded, "Oh yeah. Been thinking about it for a long, long time," according to a Court of Appeals decision affirming a Lincoln judge's decision to keep Moore's case in adult court.
After the stabbing, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said the teen told deputies he "was going to be famous."
According to court records, Moore had gone to several stores that day in Waverly, where his family had moved a month earlier, "looking for a potential victim to kill." He waited in one store's bathroom for someone to walk in, but no one did. Then, he talked to an employee at a car wash before spotting the victim walking by and following him.
Moore approached the other teen, saying he wanted to be friends, but the victim said he wasn't interested and started to walk away. When he turned to walk away, Moore stabbed the boy in the back several times.
But the victim, Kyle Punko, was able to tackle Moore and hold him down, only letting him up after Moore apologized and promised not to stab him again.
When Punko began to walk away, he collapsed because of his injuries, and Moore jumped on top of him and stabbed him twice more, leaving him on the ground bleeding.
Punko suffered a cut to his heart that required an emergency surgery at a Lincoln hospital.
Both teens were students at Waverly High School, which had been on fall break, but they weren't friends or even acquaintances.
Moore had moved to Nebraska in September 2022 from Colorado, where he had been hospitalized the previous year because of previous suicidal and homicidal ideations for threatening to kill relatives.
In Waverly, he regularly missed classes and, during the whole time there, had completed only one whole day of school, according to his mother.
One minute Kyle Punko, 15, was walking through Wayne Park. The next, he was falling head first into a creek with multiple stab wounds from a classmate.
Lincoln's homicide victims of 2024Reach the writer at 402-473-7237 or .
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