Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : Man Gets 15 Years to Life in 4 Drunk-Driving Fatalities

Robert F. Trueblood, whose family was killed by a drunk driver in 1984, told an Orange County judge this week that he wasn’t “asking for blood” in requesting a stiff sentence for the killer.

But attorneys for the driver, Michael W. Reding, 28, of Fullerton argued that their client was being used as a “sacrificial lamb” to send a message about the consequences of drunk driving. “Symbols do not go to prison; human beings do,” one attorney said.

Superior Court Judge James L. Smith rejected the argument that Reding was being singled out as a warning to the public, and on Friday sentenced Reding to 15 years to life in prison.

Reding was the first drunk driver in Orange County to be convicted of murder since the state Supreme Court ruled four years ago that prosecutors could seek such convictions. Until then, drunk drivers had been convicted of vehicular manslaughter, at most.

“He is not a whipping boy who has been selected to make a point . . . he is not a sacrifice on an altar of justice,” the judge said. “His conduct was grossly reprehensible. He killed four people.”

On Oct. 23, 1984, Reding, then an engineer at Northrop Corp. in Hawthorne, veered across three lanes on State College Boulevard in Fullerton and crashed into an oncoming car driven by Pamela Trueblood.

Reding had consumed five beers and four vodka drinks at a Brea bar just before the collision, according to testimony. He left after the bartender refused to serve him again and suggested that he go home.

Mrs. Trueblood, 36, of Fullerton and her children Eric, 11, Kerry, 9, and Scott, 8, were killed in the crash. Two other children in the car, Brian Rector, 12, and Shawn Ratcliff, 2, were injured but survived.

Robert Trueblood, 39, has since rebuilt his life. He remarried and has a stepdaughter and a 4-month-old son.

“It’s tragic that the young man has to go to prison,” Trueblood said. “But it’s also tragic that four people had to lose their lives because of what he did.”