Man sentenced for death of Washington State Patrol trooper

EVERETT — A Snohomish County Superior Court judge sentenced a man who killed a Washington State Patrol officer last year to more than 10 years in jail.

Officers from the Washington State Patrol, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and other agencies filled the courtroom Wednesday afternoon.

In June, a jury found 34-year-old Raul Benitez Santana guilty of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault.

On March 2, 2024, Benitez Santana was involved in a crash that killed 27-year-old Trooper Chris Gadd.

Just before 3 a.m., Gadd was on patrol, parked on the southbound shoulder of I-5 near Marysville. Benitez Santana, on his way back from a bar in Mount Vernon, merged his black SUV into the shoulder, slamming into Gadd’s patrol vehicle. The impact killed Gadd nearly instantly, prosecutors said at the trial in June.

On Wednesday, Judge Karen Moore heard statements from Gadd’s wife and mother, who both urged her to sentence Benitez Santana to the maximum term.

“Chris did his job that night,” Gadd’s wife, Cammryn Gadd, said in a statement read by a victim advocate. “He got one more dangerous driver off the road. He lost his life doing it. Please keep Raul responsible for his actions and please keep everyone on the road safer for longer and pass down the maximum sentence.”

Moore sentenced Benitez Santana to 125 months for vehicular homicide and 14 months for vehicular assault. Benitez Santana will serve sentences concurrently. Moore ordered an additional 18 months of community custody for the vehicular homicide count.

The standard sentence for vehicular homicide is 95 to 125 months, state prosecutors said.

“It’s the facts of this case that require the high-end sentence,” Moore said. “Anything less does not begin to address the seriousness of this particular event.”

The defense argued for a 95-month sentence, citing his lack of felony history and a number of character statements submitted to Moore from his friends and family.

“Raul now has two children, and in jail, he has attempted to do as much as he possibly can to mitigate both the impact that he has had and in what he can control at this point,” defense attorney Emily Hancock said.

In Cammryn Gadd’s statement, she spoke about navigating the grief of losing her husband with their 2-year-old daughter.

“I wish my daughter and I could still have Chris, she said, “but I get some comfort knowing that if Chris didn’t stop this drunk driver, it would have been another family going through this unbearable pain.”

Gadd joined the Washington State Patrol in 2021. He was stationed in Yakima County. He is survived by his daughter and his father, who is also a trooper. Last year, hundreds of law enforcement officers attended his public memorial in Everett.

“He was introspective and always striving to be better,” said Gillian Gadd, Chris Gadd’s mother. “He was gentle and kind. He was fairness himself. He was slow to anger and quick to contemplate his own actions, always seeking to be a better person. Christopher’s coworkers, leadership, the deputies, the police officers, the firemen at that crash scene, all bear the burden of his loss, as do the brave citizens who stopped to do the right thing.”

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.