A former Waynesboro man will spend 15 to 30 years behind bars for attempted murder after a jury convicted him in connection with a 2023 shooting that left another man wounded in the leg and hand on Chambersburg's South Main Street. Evan Lamar Sears, 48, was sentenced Wednesday, Oct. 7, following a trial that ended nearly two months earlier.
Franklin County Judge Todd Sponseller handed down the sentence, according to Chambersburg Public Opinion. A jury had found Sears guilty of attempted homicide, four counts of aggravated assault, two counts of tampering with evidence and one count of illegal firearm possession, while acquitting him of theft by unlawful taking.
Consecutive Terms Add Up to Decades
The sentence was built from several consecutive terms: 10 to 20 years for the attempted homicide charge, five to 10 years for the firearm offense, and one to 11 months for each of the two tampering counts, per the same report. On top of the prison time, Sears must serve one year of probation once he's released.
Sponseller also attached conditions to that post-release period. The judge ordered Sears to have no contact with the victim and to undergo a mental health assessment, along with any other programs that prison or probation officials determine he needs.
A Shooting That Sent Sears Fleeing to West Virginia
The case traces back to Oct. 30, 2023, when the shooting happened in the 700 block of South Main Street in Chambersburg. The victim told authorities he was shot during a confrontation, suffering gunshot wounds to the leg and hand, the news organization reported.
Sears fled the scene but was later arrested in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and extradited to Franklin County that November. He was a Waynesboro resident at the time of the shooting, though court records now list his address as Martinsburg — a detail that underscores how far the case traveled between the night of the crime and this month's sentencing.
Other Shootings and Sentencing Context
Sears’s case was separate from a Sept. 9, 2023, shooting near 29 Garber Street. ABC27 reported that a teenager later arrived at a hospital with a gunshot wound to his back and that a 15-year-old was charged as an adult in connection with the shooting; the report describes a charge, not a conviction. Broader county figures do not represent Chambersburg alone: a 2026 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency data sheet, using Pennsylvania State Police crime data, counted 41 firearm-violence offenses in Franklin County in 2025, up from 32 in 2019. The category includes all murders, aggravated assaults by firearm and robberies by firearm, so it is not a count of Chambersburg shootings alone. The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing says its guidelines recommend a minimum-sentence range based on offense seriousness and a person’s prior criminal history. That guidance does not establish which factors the judge applied in Sears’s case or explain the specific consecutive terms and post-release probation order.
