Drunken Driver Gets Maximum Jail Term In Death -- Wrong-Way Crash On I-5

TACOMA - A drunken driver from Lakewood has been sentenced to a maximum prison term for killing an Olympia woman while driving the wrong way on Interstate 5.

Robert Boeder, who has been arrested five times for alcohol-related offenses, was sentenced to five years and eight months by Pierce County Superior Court Judge D. Gary Steiner. The term, for vehicular homicide, will be added to a one-year sentence imposed in an earlier drunken-driving case.

Boeder apologized in court Monday to Glenn Zanetti, whose 29-year-old wife, Janiel, was killed instantly when Boeder's car struck hers head-on near DuPont in March.

Janiel Zanetti, mother of two daughters, was driving a car home to Olympia, following her husband, Glenn, driving separately in a van. Her husband was able to swerve off to the left before Boeder plowed into her car.

Authorities said Boeder's blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit. Boeder never has had a valid Washington driver's license, according to the state. He was just days away from a court hearing on his fourth drunken-driving charge when the crash occurred.

Glenn Zanetti met with Gov. Mike Lowry and legislators in March to seek tougher sentences. He said a man with multiple drunken-driving convictions shouldn't have been free to roam the highways.

Lawmakers responded with a new law, which includes stiffer penalties but leaves the state's blood-alcohol level at 0.10. Some sponsors had wanted to reduce the level to 0.08, as 21 Washington cities and 11 other states have done. But other lawmakers said the killers almost always have extremely high readings and that clogging the courts with less severe cases could slow prosecutions.