Original article no longer available
Sacramento Bee
June 19, 1992
Author: By Wayne Wilson Bee Staff Writer
She was sitting in her car, waiting for an opening in the traffic on Sunrise Boulevard, when a hand with a knife in it shot through the partly open window next to her head and began stabbing.
Jacquelynn Obos barely survived the unprovoked assault that left her with multiple stab wounds to her breast, abdomen, hand and thigh. But she was in court Thursday to see her attacker, 23-year-old Brian Keith Thomas, sentenced to 13 years in state prison.
Thomas had been convicted by a Sacramento Superior Court jury of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a concealed weapon.
In all my years on the bench, I don’t believe I’ve seen a more senseless crime, Judge Jeffrey L. Gunther commented as he imposed the maximum sentence available to him on Thomas.
Thomas, who broke his ankle and was captured by witnesses as he tried to flee the crime, apologized to Obos Thursday and told the court he has no recollection of the events of that day. He was drunk and mixing alcohol with depression medication, according to evidence produced at trial.
Obos, 43, told the court she is a grandmother, a sister and an aunt, and said it is impossible to describe the impact the assault has had on her family.
In a statement to probation department investigators, Obos said she had never seen her attacker before and was trying simply to return home from a grocery shopping trip when her life was changed forever by a complete stranger.
It’s very scary, she told probation investigators.
Record Number: 008