Woman who killed two in 2003 drunken crash goes back to prison

vrentas 2013Former Edmonds resident, Yost Park Pool employee and repeat drunken driving offender Dawn Vrentas was sentenced Friday in King County Superior Court to 22 months in prison and an additional year of community custody during which she must wear a monitoring device.

This latest conviction stems from a traffic stop on Interstate 5 in the early hours of Saturday, July 27, 2013. Returning to her Edmonds residence from the Capitol Hill block party, she was stopped by a Washington State Trooper for speeding.

The trooper noticed a “strong odor” of alcohol, and administered a field sobriety test. The test indicated a blood alcohol level of 0.14 (the legal limit in Washington State is 0.08). Vrentas was taken into custody at the scene.

On July 31, 2013 she was charged with one count of felony DUI. Previous convictions for vehicular homicide while under the influence of intoxicating drugs and two more recent speeding convictions (March 9, 2012 and April 14, 2013) were cited as factors in determining this charge.

She initially pleaded not guilty. She was released on $750,000 bond and under the conditions that she “not use or possess alcohol or non-prescribed drugs, not enter any business where alcohol is the primary commodity available for sale, participate in 24/7 alcohol monitoring, and not drive any motor vehicle.”

At her next court appearance, a pre-trial hearing on April 29, 2014, she changed her plea to guilty.

Vrentas has a long history of impaired driving offenses, including speeding, DUI and vehicular homicide, dating back to her teens.

As previously reported on My Edmonds News, Vrentas served time in prison for causing the deaths of two friends — Kyle Hutchinson, 20, and Walter Corman, 21– in a drunken crash in Eastern Washington in August 2003.

She was released on bail while awaiting trial, but according to Pend Orielle County Prosecutor records was rearrested for violating the conditions of her release by drinking at a party. In June 2004, she was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison, which she served at the Washington Women’s Correctional Center at Gig Harbor. She was released in 2007.

In court Friday, King County Superior Court Judge Barbara Linde sent Vrentas back to prison, this time for 22 months. Upon her release, she must wear a monitoring device for an additional year.

— Story and photo by Larry Vogel

  1. Why!? Why does someone like this get so many chances, only to get their hand sort of slapped…repeat offender AND she’s killed people! Why is this lack of proper punishment acceptable? It is a travesty to me.

  2. Incarceration has never shown to work for TREATMENT for the DISEASE of ALCOHLISM and ADDICTION……80 percent of the people incarcerated in our jails and prisons are alcoholics or addicts…..They need treatment…..(banishment and shaming Proven to make it WORSE)……THIS is a medical disease., and TREATMENT……..is the proper medical choice for this DISEASE….and EDUCATION for people that don ‘t get that. THIS is not a character flaw….Watch the documentary Anonymous People……THIS is NOW the number one health problem in the United States……..ADDICTION…….whether sex, food, drugs……ALL the same ……ADDICTION……and also connected to genes.for many…..many countries around the world KNOW this now and are acting accordingly…..and by the way, two years in jail these days in the U.S. is not a cake walk……RAPE is the number one threat in prisons and jails across the country now……Ive never heard that rape cures ANYTHING either………shame on this paper again for posting her picture

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