photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Brandon Snow appears on June 5, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A jury on Thursday found a 34-year-old man not guilty of one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon stemming from a July 2023 incident on the Kansas River levee trail, according to a news release from the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office.

In that encounter, Brandon Eugene Snow was accused of chasing a Lawrence couple with an ax near the city-sanctioned homeless camp in North Lawrence.

Snow was originally charged in Douglas County District Court with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, but Judge Stacey Donovan ordered him to stand trial on a single count, finding no probable cause to believe that an alleged victim, Steve Evans, felt threatened specifically by the ax. The count related to the other alleged victim, April Evans, is the one that went to trial this week. April had testified in a preliminary hearing last summer that when Steve was walking back to meet her, she saw a man behind him waving an ax. She said she told Steve that they were being chased, and he advised her to run.

Thursday’s acquittal is the second in three weeks for the DA’s office. A jury on July 10 found that the state had not proved its case against a convicted drug drug dealer who was accused in a Lawrence teen’s fentanyl death.