A 60-year-old Española man who told police he killed his mother, will spend six years in prison after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, a downgrade from the charge of second degree murder, with which he was charged.
Steven Dobberowsky pleaded guilty on Aug. 8 to a single count of voluntary manslaughter.
District Judge Anastasia Martin sentenced him to six years, the maximum for voluntary manslaughter and the sentence agreed upon in the plea deal. She sentenced him the same day the plea was accepted. He received credit for the 215 days spent in jail before the case was settled.
Dobberowsky’s attorney, public defender Jennifer Burrill, signed the plea deal on Jan. 16, while Prosecutor Kent Wahlquist signed it on Aug. 8, the day it was accepted in court, by the judge. Dobberowsky’s signature does not have a date attached.
The plea deal and sentencing documents were scanned and entered into the court record on Aug. 26. A trial had been tentatively set for Sept. 8.
Before the plea deal, almost nothing had happened in the case, aside from his arraignment.
Dobberowsky was initially bound over to district court, Jan. 24, on a charge of second degree murder, after he waived his right to a preliminary hearing in exchange for prosecutors dropping the charge against him to second degree murder. Burrill signed that agreement on Jan. 16, the same day she signed the plea deal entered and filed with the judge on Aug. 8. Dobberowsky has been held without bail since his arrest.
He told police that his mother suffered from dementia and he tried to kill himself after killing her, according to charging documents.
According to the plea agreement, Dobberowsky admitted to killing his mother “following a sudden quarrel, did cause the death of Susan Coatney-Larkin,” the language in the voluntary manslaughter statute.
The killing happened two days before Dobberowsky called police, on Jan. 4, according to the charging documents. The day of his arrest, he told officers she died that day, the day before, or two days before, but he wasn’t sure, according to court documents.
Coatney-Larkin
Española City Police were sent to Susan Coatney-Larkin’s trailer in Cook’s Mobile Home Park the night of Jan. 6 for a possible overdose, called in by Dobberowsky, Española Police Detective James Mayers wrote in court documents.
Dobberowsky told officers there, and at the hospital, the same story multiple times: he believed his mother had dementia and he had been her caregiver for the past five years, but in the past six months, she started being mean to him and trying to hit him, Mayers wrote.
That night, he was trying to feed or dress his mother and she was being mean to him. He told her he forgave her for physically abusing him as a child and asked her why she was being mean, Mayers wrote.
“Steven stated he didn’t remember any answer and remembered her kicking him or trying to kick him in the nuts when he was trying to help her,” Mayers wrote. “Steven stated he didn’t remember much after that.”
Pathologist Mariah Hukins told Mayers following the autopsy that she found “significant” bruising on the face, a “broken neck which she described as being consistent with a high-speed car crash and bleeding around the neck break,” Mayers wrote. She also had split lips.
When asked where she was, Dobberowsky pointed to a pile of laundry, Mayers wrote.
He told officers he “just lost it and snapped” and didn’t remember hitting his mother, but did remember she was unconscious, and then he tried to perform CPR on her. After realizing she was dead, he tried to overdose on Tylenol, cocaine and vodka, Mayers wrote.
“Steven stated his mom used to beat him from the back of his legs all the way up to the back of his neck leaving bloody welts,” Mayers wrote.
Asked if he blacked out a lot, Mayers theorized that “maybe his mind went back to when his mom used to beat him,” he wrote.