2 Women's Slayer Sentenced To Life -- `How Could You Do This To Me? ' Mother Asks

Diana Kermen had already spoken to Gary Ackley, the man convicted of killing her daughter.

She had stood inside the crowded courtroom yesterday, looked him in the eye and told him, as only a mother could, how he broke her heart when he killed her daughter, Stephanie Dittrick.

And when she uttered to him, "It's not my place to judge you, it's God's," it appeared that all she wanted to say to him had been said.

But minutes later, after King County Superior Court Judge Norma Huggins had sentenced Ackley to life in prison without the possibility of parole, she admitted outside the courtroom she wanted to say much more.

`I'd just like to know how he killed her," Kermen said. `"hat happened to my daughter is every mother's fear, and I just want to know that she didn't suffer."

It's unlikely she will ever know.

Ackley, 29, was convicted Sept. 14 of aggravated first-degree murder for the death of Dittrick, of Redmond. He also was convicted of killing Arlene Jensen, 53, of Kingsgate, the mother of his longtime girlfriend.

Jensen was slain May 26, 1997, and Dittrick was killed July 5, 1997.

Yesterday, moments before he was sentenced, a tearful Ackley proclaimed his innocence.

But Huggins, who listened as Ackley pleaded that the victims' relatives believe he had been wrongfully accused, sentenced him to 26 years and eight months in prison for killing Jensen.

She then rendered the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing Dittrick, prompting Ackley to rub his face with his right hand while using his left hand to wipe away tears.

James Konat and Roger Davidheiser, King County senior deputy co-prosecutors, had argued during the trial that Ackley killed Dittrick, a childhood friend, after confiding in her that he'd killed Jensen.

"Gary, I have known you all my life," said Kermen. "How could you do this to me? To Stephanie? Stephanie stood up for you time after time after time. . .Oh why, Gary? Why?"

Another relative, Todd Dittrick, said: "The rest of my life I'm free. The choice you made to kill my sister ended your life."

Because the jury found him guilty of aggravated first-degree murder - committing one murder to conceal another - Huggins was required to sentence him to life without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors alleged during the two-month trial that Ackley wanted Jensen dead for meddling with his two children and interfering with the relationship between him and his girlfriend.

Ironically, Ackley married Jensen's daughter last week. The daughter has said she believes in Ackley's innocence.

Ackley's attorneys argued he did not kill either woman, and that he was elsewhere when both disappeared. They also argued that the prosecution, lacking physical evidence, relied on scant circumstantial evidence to build its case.

Jeff Ellis, one of Ackley's defense attorneys, told Huggins he planned to appeal the conviction.

But relatives of Jensen said earlier that the system had worked.

"What it comes down to is we have choices," said David Jensen, son of Arlene Jensen, speaking to Ackley.

"We have to be responsible for our choices and live with the consequences. Today, my choice is to say goodbye to you. You are gone . . . The jury wasn't fooled."