Dorenbos Sentenced In Wife's Murder -- Woodinville Man Ordered To Serve Nearly 14 Years

A Woodinville man who killed his wife with a power grinder and a day later drove the body to a police station was sentenced today to almost 14 years in prison.

Alan Dorenbos, convicted in late October of second-degree murder, appeared dazed as King County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Bever sentenced him to 13 years and eight months of incarceration.

Bever's sentence was the maximum allowed under the Sentencing Reform Act.

Dorenbos, a 41-year-old computer-sales consultant, struck his wife, Kathy, about 10 times with the heavy tool while the two were arguing in the garage of their home Aug. 2.

Kathy Dorenbos' cousin, Stephen Whitehead, urged Bever to be harsh, saying Alan Dorenbos had manipulated the family and siphoned money from household finances.

Whitehead also said Dorenbos would read books about Hitler so he could control the minds of his three children.

Dorenbos' co-workers gave a different picture. They said he had been a responsible family man and a good friend.

Dorenbos testified at his October trial that he killed his wife in self-defense after she became hysterical and menaced him with a hammer. The argument, he said, was over their oldest son's request to drive the family van to Bellingham for a baseball tournament.

But Deputy Prosecutor Rebecca Roe suggested that the fight erupted when Kathy Dorenbos confronted her husband about an affair she believed he was having. Witnesses said Dorenbos was infatuated with another woman and told her he and his wife were separating.

According to prosecutors, Dorenbos placed his wife's body in the trunk of his car and gave a son a ride to baseball practice before driving to the King County police Bothell station.

Their children, who range in age from 12 to 17, sat through the trial.

As a final condition, Bever ruled that Dorenbos must inform any future wife of his murder conviction.