EVERETT — Jessica Sobania’s stomach churned when the man who kidnapped her and her two young children drove away in her stolen van with the kids still inside.
“It was gut wrenching,” the Marysville mother said Monday after the man who was at the wheel was sentenced to nearly 28 years in prison.
Sobania could hear her 4-year-old girl crying for her and yelled for the people at a Marysville home to call 911.
The kidnapping happened in October 2006 when she was buckling the girl and her 2-year-old boy into their car seats in the parking lot of a Smokey Point pharmacy. She was forced to drive away and later sought help when she escaped from the van.
That’s when the assailant drove away with her kids.
It was eight more hours before an Amber Alert for the missing children ended. The kids were found unharmed in the van.
“It’s every parent’s worst fear,” said Sobania, 25, who appeared in court Monday with her husband. “Your mind goes through the list of things that could happen.”
The ex-con who carjacked her van and later drove away with the kids maintains he’s innocent. Timothy Sean Martin, 39, of Everett testified in a trial last week that he found the van and kids abandoned, and he stole only a purse that he found inside.
Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Richard Thorpe disagreed.
“Mr. Martin is a danger to society,” Thorpe said. “He caused a huge amount of terror in the heart of a mother.”
Deputy prosecutor Helene Blume noted that Martin was convicted of robbery in 1998 for accosting another woman and stealing a car.
He was out of prison only a short time before the assault on Sobania and her children, Blume told the judge. A jury found him guilty of three first-degree kidnapping counts.
“This man keeps reoffending,” said Blume, who asked for the high end of the sentencing range.
Defense attorney Mickey Krom told Thorpe that his client continues to maintain his innocence. He noted that the children were not harmed and said the van was abandoned in a location where the kids would be found.
He asked the judge for a term of about 16 years.
Sobania was accosted after she went to a church Bible study and stopped off at the pharmacy. Martin threatened “to cut her babies” if she didn’t comply with his demands, and forced her to drive off.
“The streets kept getting darker,” Sobania said. “I had no idea what his intent was.”
When he wanted to drive and the two started to change places, Sobania bolted to a fence outside a residence.
“When I had the opportunity, I took it,” she said.
She called for help, and Martin tried to drag her back to the van.
“I hoped he would run away,” she said.
He didn’t. He drove off with her children, setting off a night of anguish.
Now that Martin has been convicted and sentenced, Sobania feels relieved.
“We’re pleased with Judge Thorpe’s sentence,” she said. “We pray that (Martin) turns his life around.”
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.
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