During the evening of Sept. 15, 2011, Laura Jean Wenke entered the office of the Redwood City construction company she co-owned with her estranged husband. She was dressed in a coverall over a peculiar suit made of bubble wrap. He was huddled over his computer and did not see her approach. She attacked him with a stun gun and then stabbed him repeatedly in the upper torso.
He survived. She did not flee. When police showed up at the crime scene, she was calm as she was led away into a waiting squad car.
What was the motive for this strange crime? There were two theories. The couple, who shared custody of a young son, was going through a bitter divorce and some reporters believed that Laura was furious that her husband had already found himself a new girlfriend. The other possible reason was the $2 million life insurance policy on the husband that still listed Laura as the beneficiary. It could have been either of these reasons or a combination of both.
There was never a question as to who attacked the man, and in 2014 Laura found herself in the San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City on counts of attempted murder, felony domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon and inflicting great bodily injury. She initially pleaded not guilty but later changed that plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. Her lawyer described her as “profoundly mentally troubled” and stated she had been on psychiatric medications for a year previous to the crime. Because she changed her plea in the course of her trial, the judge declared a mistrial and the process had to start all over again.
The subsequent jury did not buy the insanity defense and after deliberating for a mere four hours found her guilty and she was sentenced to 11 years to life.
Laura and her defense team didn’t give up on the insanity defense, however. In 2020, they attempted to sue the makers of the psychiatric medication Lexapro for allegedly contributing to her unbalanced mental state at the time of the crime. This attempt was rejected by the courts.
As a last puzzle of the case, I have to note that while all of the newspaper articles I consulted in researching this posting mentioned the bizarre presence of Laura being encased in bubble wrap at the time of attack, no theory or reasoning for this strange outfit was ever put forth.
