A Los Altos woman who stabbed her estranged husband at the couple’s workplace while wearing bubble wrap was sentenced Thursday to 11 years to life in prison, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
Laura Jean Wenke, 53, was convicted in June of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with a stun gun and domestic violence.
Wenke and her husband Randy were going through a bitter divorce at the time, and he had a new girlfriend. Wenke carried out her plot to kill him so she could collect on his $2 million life insurance policy, which still listed her as the beneficiary, according to prosecutors.
On Sept. 15, 2011, she went to the couple’s construction business in Redwood City dressed in a mechanic’s jumpsuit with bubble wrap underneath. Randy Wenke was on a computer when she shot him with a stun gun and then stabbed him several times in the neck and chest, according to the district attorney’s office. The injuries put him in the hospital for several days.
Her defense team argued that Wenke suffered from mental illness, including a dissociative stress disorder that left her disconnected from her actions on the night of the stabbing. The jury rejected that defense.
In court Thursday, Judge Stephen Hall denied a motion from Wenke’s attorneys for a new trial and sentenced her to at least 11 years behind bars. The maximum sentence he could have imposed was 13 years to life,
The judge said the “jury got it right … the psychiatric issues did not amount to a legal defense,” District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.
The couple has an 8-year-old son.
Wenke will be eligible for parole in about nine years, Wagstaffe said.
Email Bonnie Eslinger at beslinger @dailynewsgroup.com; follow her at twitter.com/ bonnieeslinger.
