A judge has sentenced Sean Urbanski to life in prison following the 2017 murder of Army 2nd Lt. Richard Collins III.

“You committed the ultimate offense,” said Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence V. Hill Jr., addressing Urbanski during a remote sentencing hearing Thursday.

The judge is recommending that Urbanski, a 25-year-old man from Severna Park, serve his sentence at the Patuxent Institution, a mental health facility in Jessup, Maryland.

Urbanski, who is white, was convicted of first-degree murder in December 2019 after he was charged with fatally stabbing Collins, a Black Bowie State University student. Collins was waiting for an Uber with his friends when Urbanski, who attended the University of Maryland, approached the group and told Collins to step to the left. Collins said “no,” and Urbanski stabbed him in the chest.

Collins was 23 and days away from graduating when he was killed.

The murder prompted a national outcry and led the University of Maryland to announce a series of new steps to address hate-bias incidents on campus. Later, it led to a change in Maryland law to expand the hate crime statute.

Throughout the case, prosecutors argued that Urbanski targeted Collins because he was Black. They presented evidence to show that Urbanski had a documented history of participating in racism online; he had joined a white supremacist Facebook group and downloaded racist memes that endorsed violence against Black people.

But ultimately, a Prince George’s County judge dropped the hate crime charge, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to show the murder was completely motivated by race. The decision prompted Collins’ family to advocate for a law that expanded Maryland’s definition of a hate crime to include crimes that are partially hate-motivated. The new law, which was named after Collins, went into effect in October.

Derek Matthews, who spoke at the sentencing Thursday, described Collins as “basically a nephew.” Matthews’ son was a classmate of Collins’ and fellow ROTC member at Bowie State, and Collins frequented the Matthews home during his college years.

“The patriotism that he showed in the program … I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Matthews, who also graduated from Bowie State and was part of the ROTC program there. “We predicted him and my son to be General-like material, and I just cannot express the pain and the words to come up with what the Collins family has to deal with with the loss of their son.”

“Every murder victimizes more than just the deceased,” said Deputy State’s Attorney Jonathon Church, adding that murders affect people’s families, friends and communities, too. But Collins’ murder went beyond that, he added. “Murder borne out of hate has a ripple effect on the human race. Like a butterfly effect, that murder impacts the lives of others in society.”

Attorneys for Urbanski argued that he was “blind drunk” during the 2017 stabbing and it wasn’t motivated by racism, despite Urbanski’s affiliation with the racist Facebook group and the racist memes he kept on his phone.

“He’s just not a hate-filled, right-wing nut. He’s not that guy,” defense attorney John McKenna argued during the remote hearing.

In a statement before the court, Collins’ mother, Dawn Collins, said she hasn’t slept a full night since her son was killed in 2017.

“I often visit the location where my son was murdered at the University of Maryland at College Park. I often just sit on that bench and look to the heavens and ask, God, why? Why?” Collins said through tears. “My son’s greatest crime was that he said ‘no’ to a white man.”