Court Overturns Exceptional Term -- Wife's Body Dumped In Canal

The state Court of Appeals has overturned the exceptional prison sentence given to a Magnolia businessman who killed his wife and dumped her body in Hood Canal.

George Gehrett received a sentence of almost 17 years based on the trauma his children suffered because he killed their mother. That's three years over the standard maximum sentence.

The appeals panel, in a unanimous decision released yesterday, sent the case back to King County Superior Court Judge Robert Alsdorf for resentencing.

Alsdorf had agreed with prosecutors in 1994 that Gehrett was motivated to kill his wife, Stephanie Rooks Gehrett, to take her away from the children and could foresee the devastation her death would have on them.

But the appeals court agreed with defense attorneys John Wolfe and James Lobsenz that there was insufficient evidence showing the children suffered extraordinary trauma.

"We argued to the judge that he was essentially establishing a new rule that when one parent kills another he or she will always get an exceptional sentence," Wolfe said.

Gehrett dumped his wife's body into deep waters near the couple's summer cabin at Hood Canal, and it has never been recovered.

Exceptional sentences have been imposed when a spouse kills another in the presence of children - such as in the case of Randy Roth, who drowned his wife in Lake Sammamish and rowed her body ashore, where her young children waited.

Gehrett's children did not witness their mother's death.