LEWISTON – A judge asked Ryan Muncey on Friday if he was guilty of manslaughter in last year’s stabbing death of Casey Stanley at Moulton Field in Auburn.

“Yes, ma’am,” Muncey said.

A sentencing is expected at the end of February.

The 28-year-old Lewiston man, charged earlier with murder, had been scheduled for a hearing to argue why evidence collected by police and statements he made to them shouldn’t be allowed at trial.

But his attorney never argued those motions. Instead, the case took several twists Friday morning.

First, the hearing was moved from Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn to 8th District Court for security reasons.

Muncey signed a document giving up his right to take the manslaughter charge to a grand jury.

Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea outlined for the judge her case against Muncey. She named witnesses she would have called at trial who, she said, would have put Muncey at the scene on the evening of June 11, carrying a knife, then fleeing shortly after Casey Stanley, 26, of Auburn was stabbed.

They would have described Stanley as a peacekeeper, someone who helped resolve a dispute earlier among congregants gathered near the Little Androscoggin River behind Florian’s Market.

Muncey’s cousin, Paul, would have testified that he phoned Ryan to come to his aid in case it turned violent, but later called him to report the argument had been resolved.

Zainea said witnesses would have testified that before Stanley died, he climbed a hill from the river and called out to friends with his dying breaths to stop the man who just stabbed him.

Muncey’s girlfriend, Alisha Turner, would have testified that he told her they needed to flee the state because he had stabbed a man at Moulton Field in self-defense after Stanley came at him with a rock.

But a police detective would have testified that a search of the area of the stabbing turned up no rocks like the one Muncey described.

Turner would have testified that she and Muncey drove to Illinois with their young children to stay with her family.

Police detectives would have testified that Muncey told them on his trip back to Maine: “I ruined my life. I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail.”

The detectives also would say Muncey talked to them, unprovoked, during a meal while on the trip. There, he said: “This happened because I went down there for family.” He told them is was self-defense, they would have testified.

Muncey’s attorney, Henry Griffin, said a jury could have convicted his client of manslaughter based on the prosecutor’s evidence.

Zainea said she would have called to the stand a Maine medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Stanley. That doctor would have said a single-edge knife pierced Stanley’s heart and the cause of death was a single stab wound to his upper left chest.

Muncey appeared in court dressed in a faded dark blue jail suit, a large white “P” printed on the back of the shirt.

During Zainea’s account of the killing, Muncey bowed his head. Some of Casey’s family members wept quietly as Zainea revealed details of the fatal stabbing.

As he exited the courtroom, Muncey waved with cuffed hands to his supporters. One of them called out, “We love you.”

Justice Joyce Wheeler told Muncey his plea was “a very, very important step you’re taking.”

Asked whether he wanted to speak, Muncey told the judge he would wait.

A court clerk said the grand jury’s murder indictment against Muncey likely would be dismissed at his sentencing.