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Michael Hayward Oregon Death Row

Michael Hayward was sentenced to death by the State of Oregon for a brutal murder committed during a robbery. Michael Hayward and three accomplices would beat to death a store clerk and severely injure another one during the course of a robbery. The three accomplices would receive lengthy prison terms Michael Hayward would be sentenced to death. Jason Van Brumwell was one of the accomplices and he would later be sentenced to death for a prison murder.

Oregon Death Row Inmate List

Michael Hayward 2021 Information

Offender Name:

Hayward, Michael James

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Hayward and three companions – including fellow Death Row inmate Jason Van Brumwell — were convicted of killing a convenience store clerk and severely beating another in 1994. Frances Walls died after a metal bar went through her skull. Donna Ream survived despite being hit more than 50 times with a metal bar and losing nearly half her blood. Hayward’s three companions were convicted of murder and sentenced to terms in prison. Brumwell was later convicted along with Gary Haugen in the killing of another inmate and sentenced to death.

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On April 10, 1994, four young men-Jason Brock, Daniel Rabago, Jason Brumwell, and Johl Brock-met at Brumwell’s house and discussed committing a robbery in order to get money to buy marijuana. They decided to rob the Dari Mart on Royal Avenue in Eugene. That afternoon, they went to the store to see how many people worked there and whether there were surveillance cameras. They returned to Brumwell’s house and continued to discuss the robbery. Jason Brock then went to work and played no role in the events that followed.

The other three drove to defendant’s house in Johl Brock’s car to ask defendant, Michael Hayward, if he would like to join them in robbing the Dari Mart. Defendant agreed to participate and got into Brock’s car to discuss plans for the robbery. They listened to “death metal” music ¹ while they made their plans. Rabago, Brumwell, and Brock, who considered themselves satanists, were members of a death metal band. Defendant was not a member of the band, but he enjoyed listening to death metal music. As Rabago testified, “we were all into evil and we were all pretty much deathers.” Rabago described a “deather” as “someone that has a lot of hate in them and sees * * * the morbid things in life.” During the discussions that took place in Brock’s car, the four young men decided to kill their victims. They also discussed whether they would carve satanic symbols on the victims’ bodies and whether they would leave a message written in the victims’ blood on the Dari Mart wall. During the afternoon, they drove to Rabago’s house to get weapons-a dumbbell bar, a thin metal bar about two feet long with one pointed end, a chisel-type hammer, and a knife. From Rabago’s house, the four drove to the Dari Mart. Defendant and Johl Brock went in, and defendant bought cigarettes. They left the store to wait until closer to its 11:00 p.m. closing time before committing the crimes.

Just before returning to the Dari Mart, the group listened to more death metal music to “kill time” and become motivated about the crimes they were about to commit. At about 10:35 p.m., Donna Ream, one of the two clerks on duty at the Dari Mart, saw defendant standing in front of a window outside the store. He smiled and waved at her. A few minutes before 11:00 p.m., Rabago, Brumwell, Brock, and defendant went into the Dari Mart. Each young man had an assigned “job” with respect to what transpired next.

Defendant, followed by Brock, went to the back of the store. Brumwell and Rabago remained in the front. Brumwell, holding the dumbbell bar over his head and emitting a deep growl, ran toward Ream, who was standing behind the check-out counter. Ream said the growl sounded like a growl she heard later on a death metal compact disc by a group called Cannibal Corpse. Ream jumped back in fright. Brumwell said he was just joking and asked her to give him the money in the cash register. Ream did so.²

Meanwhile, defendant and Brock encountered the second clerk, Frances Wall, stocking the cooler in the back of the store. Brock watched defendant strike Wall in the back of the head with the pointed, thin metal bar, knocking her to the ground. Wall attempted to protect her head from more blows by putting her arms in front of her face. Defendant struck her on the head with the bar five or six more times, striking her as hard as he could. The blows shattered Wall’s skull. Brock left the store, drove his car some 50 yards away and waited for the others to come out. Meanwhile, Brumwell handed Rabago the dumbbell bar and told him to watch Ream while he joined defendant in the back room. At some point, defendant shoved the pointed bar completely through Wall’s skull. She died at the scene.

Brumwell and defendant returned to the front of the store. Defendant, Brumwell, and Rabago then led Ream to the back room. Defendant told the others to hit her. Defendant told Brumwell that he had “killed his” and wanted to know why Brumwell could not kill Ream. Despite Ream’s efforts to defend herself, defendant and Brumwell hit her with the dumbbell bar and the bar that defendant had used to kill Wall. They struck her more than 50 times on her head and on her arms, which she had raised to try to shield herself from the blows. They also kicked her and stabbed her with the knife. She ran into the Dari Mart’s bathroom and tried to shut the door, but was unable to, because both of her arms had been broken in several places. Defendant and Brumwell followed her into the bathroom, where they continued to beat her. At one point Brumwell paused and asked her, “Why won’t you just die, bitch?” Both men yelled profanities at Ream while they beat her. At one point, Brumwell shoved the dumbbell bar into Ream’s mouth, knocking out two of her teeth.

Sometime during the attack on Ream, the young men heard the bell that rings in the back room when someone comes in the front door. They stopped beating Ream and left the store. Ream threw herself against the bathroom door to close it. When she heard a boy’s voice in the front of the store, she called out to him to call the police. Then Ream ran from the store to a house across the street and collapsed on the floor when the residents let her in. A large portion of her scalp was torn off by the blows to her head, a disk in her neck was herniated, she lost almost half of the blood in her body, and she suffered permanent damage to her arms and hands. Nonetheless, Ream never lost consciousness, and some months later she was able to identify photographs of her attackers, including defendant.

Several months after the Dari Mart crimes, Rabago, Brumwell, and defendant camped in the woods outside the town of Curtin for an extended period of time. While there, they discussed committing another crime, and possibly another murder, after the 1994 Labor Day weekend. They were arrested at the camp just before Labor Day. Soon after his arrest, defendant told police that he was not a satanist, but that he believed that “God is weak and Satan is strong.” During his initial police interview, he showed no remorse for Wall’s murder or the assault on Ream. He declared that Wall’s was just another death, that “life ain’t worth shit,” and that Wall would have died anyway. Defendant seemed amused about the crimes and the fact that he had been arrested.

Rabago pleaded guilty to felony murder, attempted aggravated murder, first-degree assault, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary and first-degree kidnapping for the Dari Mart crimes. Pursuant to a plea agreement, if Rabago testified truthfully for the state at defendant’s trial, he would be sentenced to 12 years in prison. Johl Brock pleaded guilty to felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree robbery, and first-degree burglary. His plea agreement provided that if he testified truthfully for the state at defendant’s trial, he would receive a sentence of 9 to 11 years. A jury convicted Brumwell of aggravated murder, intentional murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder, first-degree assault, first-degree robbery, first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree burglary. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Rabago, Johl Brock, Jason Brock, and Donna Ream testified for the state at defendant’s trial. As noted at the outset, defendant was convicted of three counts of aggravated murder and many other crimes. During the penalty phase, defendant testified that he read the bible in prison, that he now believes in God, and that he cares about the victims’ families. The jury voted unanimously to impose the death penalty.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/or-supreme-court/1289405.html

Matthew Thompson Oregon Death Row

Matthew Thompson was sentenced to death by the State of Oregon for a double murder. According to court documents Matthew Thompson was kicked out of a tavern and would return later armed with a knife. Matthew Thompson would stab to death Andrew J. McDonald and would injure Deborah Oyamada Matthew Thompson would also stab to death Paul Whitcher later that night. Matthew Thompson was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Oregon Death Row Inmate List

Matthew Thompson 2021 Information

Offender Name:

Thompson, Matthew Dwight

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bout 10:30 p.m. on November 18, 1994, Andrew McDonald and his wife, Debra Oyamada, were at the Driftwood Tavern in Portland. Defendant and his companion, Paul Whitcher, entered the tavern and ordered a pitcher of beer. Oyamada was sitting at a video poker machine and McDonald was sitting at the bar. Defendant was wearing a plaid shirt. Defendant and Whitcher approached Oyamada. Defendant asked Oyamada if she was from “the ‘samurai family’ ” or “from samurai blood.” She responded, “As a matter of fact, yes, I am.” Defendant continued, but Oyamada said she did not want to talk. Oyamada turned her back to defendant because she thought those were “weird questions” and that defendant was “overbearing.” Defendant persisted, saying, “I need to know about it. I’m a warrior and I want to know about this.” Oyamada replied that she did not want to talk about it. Defendant then sat next to Oyamada. She said, “You’re sitting in someone else’s seat.” After that, defendant got up from the seat and started to walk toward the door. As they walked, McDonald approached defendant and Whitcher and said, “Please leave her alone, she doesn’t want to talk about it.” Pat Disciascio, the bartender, became concerned, and he directed defendant and Whitcher to leave the tavern. When defendant and Whitcher did not leave immediately, Disciascio said “Good night, you guys,” and pointed toward the door. As defendant and Whitcher left the tavern, one of the two men said, “I feel like killing somebody tonight.” Defendant and Whitcher then stood outside, where defendant said to Whitcher, “I’m going to go back in there and kick that guy’s ass.” Defendant stated to Whitcher, “If we do this, you know, we’re going to jail.”

Between five and ten minutes after leaving, defendant ran into the tavern alone, grabbed McDonald from behind, began striking him, and dragged him outside. Oyamada tried to pry defendant off of McDonald. Defendant then turned on Oyamada, hitting her in the head, throwing her to the ground, and stabbing her in the head and neck. Bill Jones, another tavern patron, grabbed defendant. Defendant stabbed Jones six times. Defendant then ran away. Ambulances took McDonald, Oyamada, and Jones to the hospital. McDonald died as a result of his wounds.

Defendant and Whitcher went to defendant’s grandmother’s home, where defendant lived. Defendant introduced Whitcher to his grandmother, then she went to her room to sleep. About 1:30 a.m. that night, defendant’s grandmother awoke and went downstairs because she heard a lot of noise. She saw Whitcher cleaning up broken glass and defendant cleaning grape juice off the rug. She asked Whitcher to leave. Defendant said that he was going to see that Whitcher got home safely, and the two men left the house. When defendant returned shortly, his grandmother was still cleaning grape juice. Defendant said he would clean the grape juice and told his grandmother to go to bed, which she did. Before she fell asleep, she heard the washing machine running.

About 1:30 a.m. that night, Sally Woolley called “911” to report that she heard loud, angry, male voices outside her home. Woolley reported that a man was lying face down in the street. Another man, wearing a plaid shirt, was kneeling over him and rolled him partially onto his side. The man in the plaid shirt rummaged through the other man’s pockets, then ran away.

The police arrived. The man on the street was identified as Whitcher. He had been stabbed sixteen to twenty times and was dead. One pocket had been turned inside out.

About 2:00 a.m. that night, the police found defendant walking nearby. He smelled of alcohol and was nervous and evasive. His shoes were untied and, although it was a cold night, he was sockless. One eye was swollen. The police thought that defendant might have witnessed Whitcher’s stabbing and questioned him. After denying that the had been in an altercation, defendant stated that he lived nearby with his grandmother, but gave the police his mother’s address. He denied ever having been arrested or being on probation. After a record check indicated that he had been arrested and that currently he was on probation, defendant was taken into custody.

The police first contacted defendant’s mother, who stated that defendant did not live with her. She gave the police defendant’s grandmother’s address. The police contacted defendant’s grandmother at her home. She invited the officers into her home and gave them permission to look around. Defendant’s grandmother then led them to the washing machine in the basement and opened the lid. Blood was smeared on the outside of the machine. The washed clothing in the machine had stains consistent with blood. The grandmother told police that the clothing in the machine was defendant’s. The state’s criminologist concluded that the DNA recovered from the top of the washing machine, and from jeans, a shoelace, and a sock found in the washing machine, was consistent with Whitcher’s.

At 12:30 p.m. on November 19, 1994, detectives returned to defendant’s grandmother’s home with a search warrant. After finding no weapons, the police left. The returned around 5:00 p.m. that day. With defendant’s grandmother’s consent, the detectives searched her basement. A detective found a bloody knife on a cross-beam and a blood-smeared wallet inside a wood stove. The knife was consistent with defendant’s grandmother’s description of a knife defendant owned. The state’s criminalist concluded that the blood on the knife and wallet matched Whitcher’s blood type.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/or-supreme-court/1409219.html

Karl Terry Oregon Death Row

Karl Terry was sentenced to death by the State of Oregon for two murders. According to court documents Karl Terry was camping with the two victims, Jeffrey and Dale Brown, when while the two men were sleeping they would be attacked by Terry with a samurai sword. Karl Terry was sentenced to death. Karl Terry now goes by the name Tara Zyst

Oregon Death Row Inmate List

Karl Terry 2021 Information

Offender Name:

Zyst, Tara Ellyssia

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A Clackamas County jury sentenced Terry to die for hacking to death Jeffrey and Dale Brown with an 18-inch long Japanese sword as they slept Aug. 6, 1994. The three were camping in a Milwaukie park next to the Willamette River in celebration of Dale Brown’s birthday.

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Tara Ellyssia Zyst is Oregon’s only transgender death row inmate, perhaps the only transgender death row prisoner in the nation.

Born Karl Anthony Terry, she was convicted in 1995 on two counts of aggravated murder for the deaths of her boyfriend and his brother. Since that time, Tara has sat on Oregon’s death row, where she has consistently been denied requests for hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery for a diagnosed Gender Identity Disorder.

Allowing a convicted murderer the option of converting their external physical self from that given at birth to that of their internal wish may seem absurd. But as more light is shed on transgender concerns, agree with it or not, the courts have determined that they have this right.

“The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution makes prisons legally required to provide inmates with medically necessary treatment for medical and mental health conditions, including gender dysmorphia.”

That quote is not from a lawyer or the LGBT community. Rather, it is the statement made by a California Department of Corrections spokesperson, Terry Thornton, in response to recent news that they were providing gender reassignment surgery to a transgender person in their custody, one who also happens to be a convicted murderer.

Shiloh Heavenly Quine was convicted in 1980 for the killing of Shahid Ali Baig, a father of three. Having received a sentence of life without parole, she will spend the rest of her life behind California prison bars. She began life in prison as a man. Due to a 2016 ruling by the California Supreme Court, however, she did not have to remain that way. She underwent surgery this past week.

Quine previously wrote that her presence in the men’s prison creates “confusion and mixed emotions from the males that go from romantic thoughts to disgust and explosive turmoil reactions.” “I thought of myself as a female since the age of eight,” reported Quine. In her case, she came to prison with a gender dysmorphia.

Just as a prison system is required to provide dialysis to a prisoner diagnosed with kidney failure, the prison must provide treatment for mental disorders, including gender identity disorders. To disallow this amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. For Quine, that amounted to a daily fight to stay alive, including five failed suicide attempts.

Tara completely and painfully empathizes with what Quine went through. She has identified as a woman since she was a young teenager in Tennessee, at a time and place that was unprepared to handle such a phenomenon. Her fight is likewise a daily one, which she is failing.

The Oregon Department of Corrections currently provides daily dialysis to a death row inmate, costing tens of thousands of dollars annually. They’ve recently paid $80,000 for hepatitis C cure therapy for another condemned man. But they refuse treatment for Tara.

They have not ignored transgender issues altogether. They are currently relocating all male-to-female transgender inmates to a medium security prison, a male facility within its system. Tara, however, is not included in this transfer plan. Her classification as a death row inmate presents a unique challenge.

But according to Tara, the prison has avoided this challenge by simply ignoring her.

“They have responded to my request for therapy by insisting that gender identity disorders are excuses for homosexual prisoners to gain access to hormones that they believe will make them more desireable to the male population,” Tara writes. “I am offended beyond words.”

This has been the typical response from prison authorities over the years, says Kris Hayashi, Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center. “For too long institutions have ignored prisoners and casually dismissed medically necessary and lifesaving care for transgender people just because of who transgender women are.”

But now the law is on their side.

Tara has consistently and emphatically proclaimed her innocence over the crimes she has been convicted of. But after 22 years on death row those pleas have gone ignored as well. She is tired of the fight.

“I want to make it clear,” Tara recently wrote to her attorneys of her intentions to end her remaining death penalty appeals. “I’d rather be dead than to have to keep living this way.”

Tara sits on death row for two murders that she says she did not commit. Her biggest struggle, however, is the one that she’s lived with her entire adult life, the one she sees every time she looks in the mirror.

Even though the laws have changed to address Tara’s condition, they are not being applied to Tara.

Even if we are not be able to relate to Tara’s struggle, or agree that a murderer should be able to have a sex change, regardless of their condition, gender identity issues are real. The medical field has made this clear. The courts have laid the ground rules.

Death row is not an understanding place. It is a cruel environment for anyone. It is a place of torture for a transgender prisoner. The law states what must be done.

Bianca Clark is the executive director of Prison Lives, a non-profit organization established to educate and enable prisoners to be productive individuals while incarcerated for a positive existence both inside and outside of prison life. Prison lives also provides resources to the families of inmates.

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/317412-why-states-should-pay-for-inmates-sex-changes

Ernest Lotches Oregon Death Row

Ernest Lotches was sentenced to death by the State of Oregon for a murder. According to court documents Ernest Lotches and the victim were involved in a gun battle at a mall in Oregon. Lotches was being questioned for a minor assault with the security guard when he pulled out a gun. The two men engaged in a gun battle that ended with the death of the victim. Ernest Lotches was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Oregon Death Row Inmate List

Ernest Lotches 2021 Information

Offender Name:

Lotches, Ernest Noland

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Lotches was convicted of killing William G. Hall, 33, a downtown Portland security guard during a running gun battled that terrified Saturday shoppers in August 1992. Hall, a security guard for the downtown Economic Improvement District, had tried to question Lotches about a minor assault. Lotches fled, and the two exchanged gunfire. Hall died after pulling a 9-year-old child out of the line of fire as Lotches was trying to commandeer a car.

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At about 2:30 in the afternoon on August 22, 1992, Ernest Lotches approached Hedges in O’Bryant Square near downtown Portland. While bantering back and forth with Hedges, defendant pretended to be a police officer and frisked Hedges. While Hedges was bending over, defendant slapped Hedges on the back of the motorcycle helmet that Hedges was wearing. The slap was unprovoked. Hedges stood up and asked defendant what he was doing. Defendant then began shouting obscenities at Hedges. Hedges made an effort to calm defendant; defendant joined a friend sitting on a nearby retaining wall. Hedges kept an eye on defendant and, when defendant and his friend walked away, Hedges followed him. After a few blocks, Hedges saw a Portland Guide,² Cramer, and told Cramer that he wanted to file a complaint against defendant.

Cramer radioed to the Portland Guides headquarters and to other nearby guides that a man had been assaulted by an individual who was then near Pioneer Square. Cramer described defendant and asked for an officer to respond. Two other unarmed Portland Guides, Edwards and Calderon, spotted defendant walking down the street and began to follow him at a distance of about half a block. They signaled to Riley, another unarmed Portland Guide who happened to be nearby, and Riley, too, began to follow defendant. Ernest Lotches appeared to notice that he was being followed and increased his pace.

William Hall, an armed EID officer, approached defendant from the direction in which Ernest Lotches was walking. Riley also converged on defendant. Hall called out to defendant, stating that he would like to have a word with him. Defendant then threw his hand up toward Riley in an apparent effort to strike him. Riley blocked defendant’s swing. Defendant ran north toward Alder Street. Hall, Riley, Edwards, and Calderon began running in pursuit.

There is some dispute about precisely what happened next but, by all accounts, defendant slowed down and Hall began yelling, “He’s got a gun. Get down.” Shots were fired. Most of the witnesses to the episode could not say who shot first or even where Hall was when the first shot was fired. Riley testified that he saw defendant pull a gun out of a paper bag and that no shots had been fired before that moment. A bystander, Gates, testified that she heard a shot and then saw defendant pull a gun out of the back of his pants.

In any event, during that incident, defendant raised his gun, aimed it directly at Edwards, and shot at her. Bullets hit her in the left breast and in the right arm, fracturing a bone and requiring surgery and the insertion of a metal plate. Riley dragged the wounded Edwards into a nearby shop and ran for cover in the back of the store. Hall engaged defendant in an exchange of gunfire; two bullets fired from Hall’s gun later were recovered from inside the shop.

Defendant fled down Fourth Avenue with Hall in pursuit. Defendant ran up to a car stopped at a traffic light in which Keaton and her 9-year-old grandson were riding. Defendant came up from behind Keaton, pointed a gun at her head through the half-open window, and said something to the effect that “You are going to take me somewhere.” Keaton responded, “No way,” and stepped on the accelerator. The car stalled and Keaton immediately began trying to unfasten her grandson’s seatbelt and shove him out the car door. While Keaton was fumbling with the seatbelts, she looked up and saw Hall standing in front of a pillar along the street on the opposite side of her car, yelling at defendant, directing him to get away from the car and “leave the innocent alone.” According to Keaton, defendant then ceased his efforts to get into her car and directed his attention to Hall. Meanwhile, the grandson unlocked the car door, got out, and ran toward where Hall had been standing. Keaton took the keys out of the ignition and threw them down a sewer grate, and then closed her eyes and waited.

Defendant began shooting in Hall’s direction. Hall left the relative cover provided by the pillar and pulled Keaton’s grandson to safety. He also shot out two of the tires on Keaton’s car and pushed two transients out of the line of fire. In the skirmish, defendant shot Hall twice. One shot entered and exited Hall’s wrist. The other, fatal, shot entered Hall’s arm, traversed his lungs, and penetrated his heart.

Defendant, himself uninjured, then fled down Stark Street, hiding his gun behind his back. He approached a pickup truck stopped at a traffic light on Washington Street. Reaching through the window of the truck, he pointed his gun at the driver’s head and ordered the occupants out of the vehicle. They immediately complied. Defendant then drove off, heading the wrong direction down Third Avenue, a one-way street. He sped down that street, swerving to avoid oncoming cars. He then drove over the Burnside Bridge and turned onto Martin Luther King Boulevard. Defendant next attempted to turn onto Southeast Ankeny, but he was driving too fast and was unable to negotiate the turn. The truck jumped the curb, hit a parked car and, ultimately, came to a stop after crashing into some other parked cars in an adjacent used-car lot.

A customer at the car lot who saw the crash went to aid defendant. He forced open the driver’s-side door of the truck and asked defendant if he was hurt. Defendant answered no and made an effort to get out of the truck from the passenger side. The customer asked defendant if he was going to run, and defendant replied, “Hell, yes, I got to get out of here.” The customer stepped aside, and defendant slid back to the driver’s side to get out. By that time, several marked police cars had arrived at the scene. One of them, driven by Officer Elliot, pulled up in the vicinity of the truck after having been flagged down by an individual in front of the car lot. After Elliot had stopped his car, defendant reached back into the truck and pulled out his gun. Defendant turned and aimed the gun in Elliot’s direction and began walking toward him. Defendant then stopped, assumed a combat stance in which he squared off and held the gun in front of him with two hands. When Elliot realized what was happening, he leaned away from defendant and put his car in reverse. Defendant fired at Elliot as he was backing up. Defendant then aimed and fired a second shot at Elliott that narrowly missed him and struck the driver’s seat of the police car.

After shooting at Elliot, defendant began running toward the corner of Ankeny and Grand Avenue. He attempted unsuccessfully to commandeer one vehicle, and then succeeded in getting into a second one, which someone apparently had abandoned in the middle of the street. While defendant tried to start that car, Elliot, now armed with a shotgun, approached defendant and ordered him to drop his gun. Defendant again briefly appeared to consider fleeing. However, by this time, he was surrounded by other officers. He threw down his gun and surrendered.

After he was taken into custody, defendant agreed to give blood and urine samples. Experts later extrapolated from those samples that defendant probably had a blood-alcohol content of approximately .17 percent at the time of the crimes.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/or-supreme-court/1023264.html

Clinton Cunningham Oregon Death Row

Clinton Cunningham was sentenced to death by the State of Oregon for a sexual assault and murder. According to court documents Clinton Cunningham would pick up the victim, Shannon Faith, hitchhiking. The woman would be sexually assaulted and murdered by being stabbed thirty seven times. Clinton Cunningham was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Oregon Death Row Inmate List

Clinton Cunningham 2021 Information

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A resident of Poteau, Okla., Cunningham was convicted of raping and murdering 19-year-old Shannon Faith of Vancouver, B.C., in 1991. He picked her up hitchhiking near Coos Bay. They spent the day driving on the beach and drinking beer before he agreed to give her a ride to Eugene. After stabbing her 37 times, Cunningham dumped Faith’s partially-clothed body by the side of a logging road near Elkton.

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The jury found Clinton Cunningham guilty. We therefore view the evidence in the light most favorable to the state. State v. McDonnell, 313 Or. 478, 480, 837 P.2d 941 (1992).

On October 19, 1991, Larry Moyer drove his friend Shannon Faith to a place north of Coos Bay, from where Faith intended to hitchhike to Eugene. On that date, Clinton Cunningham, Travis Allison, and Troy Johnson were traveling in the Coos Bay area in a truck driven by defendant. Defendant displayed a knife to Johnson. Defendant and Allison discussed not having enough money for gas. The three men decided to drive to the nearby sand dunes. On the way, they saw Faith hitchhiking and offered her a ride. Faith agreed to accompany the men to the dunes. Between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., the group drove to Johnson’s house in Coos Bay. Johnson and Allison remained at Johnson’s house.

About 7:30 p.m., defendant and Faith went to Larry Moyer’s house in defendant’s truck. Faith introduced defendant to Moyer. Faith told Moyer that she was going to Eugene with defendant. Moyer tried to talk her out of leaving and wrote down defendant’s name and truck license number. Moyer observed empty beer cans in the truck and noticed that Faith was slurring her words and was unable to walk straight. Faith and defendant left.

On October 20, about 5:30 a.m., defendant returned to Johnson’s house. When Allison asked defendant if he “got him some last night,” defendant grinned. He told Allison that he had taken Faith to a friend’s house. After breakfast, defendant and Allison departed for Roseburg. On the way, they stopped at a store. At that time, defendant threw his knife into a nearby creek, telling Allison that he did not need it anymore.

About 11:30 a.m. the same day, a motorist found Faith’s body in a remote wooded area about nine miles west of Drain, Oregon. The body had been rolled about five feet down an embankment overgrown with blackberry bushes. The victim was lying on her back, her legs spread somewhat apart and flexed in a “froglike position.” She had on a long-sleeved shirt and some socks, but no pants or underpants. Tests of samples taken from her body revealed the presence of spermatozoa and seminal fluid in her vagina. Medical examiners later found an abrasion near the victim’s perineum, as well as series of four abrasions along the inside of her thigh, about six inches from her vulva, suggestive of fingernail scratches. A criminalist who helped the medical examiner swab the victim’s mouth, vagina, and rectum, in order to test for the presence of seminal fluid or sperm, testified that she was “most anxious to get some vaginal swabs since it looked like a rape had taken place since [the victim] had no pants or panties on and her legs were apart.” From the location of various bloodstains, it could be inferred that the victim had not been wearing pants at the time she was stabbed. An autopsy later revealed that she had been stabbed about 37 times, on her face, neck, breasts, back, abdomen, and hands, causing her to die from loss of blood. Some of the wounds were “defensive wounds,”[1] indicating that she had tried to ward off the attack, and some of the wounds may have been inflicted at a point when she no longer was able to offer any significant resistance. Some of the wounds above and around her breasts suggested “the possibility of sexual mutilation in a perimortem or postmortem context.”

The victim’s pants and underpants were later found stuffed inside a tote bag that had *434 been thrown into some blackberry bushes near the victim’s body. Her pants had been turned inside out. Although the victim’s legs were covered with blood, the outside of her pants had little or no blood on them. That led the state’s criminologist to conclude that the victim’s pants were down or off at the time of the knife attack. Neither the victim’s pants nor underpants had sperm or seminal fluid on them.

After hearing a news report that a body had been found, Moyer contacted the police and gave them defendant’s name and truck license number. Soon thereafter, on seeing a picture of the victim on television and recognizing her as the hitchhiker that he, Allison, and defendant had picked up, Troy Johnson also contacted the police.

On October 21, defendant and Allison were stopped in Roseburg, where defendant was cited for violation of a city ordinance and Allison was arrested on an outstanding warrant. Later that day, the officer who stopped them discovered that defendant was a potential homicide suspect. Defendant’s truck was located later by the Roseburg police, who discovered that defendant had traded it for a car.

On October 26, defendant was arrested in Oklahoma. Defendant initially admitted to having been in Oregon, but denied having owned a truck and also denied having had any contact with Shannon Faith. Defendant later admitted that he had driven the truck in Oregon. He told the police that on October 19 he had been drinking with Johnson and Allison, that they had picked up a female hitchhiker on the way to the dunes and that, after he had dropped off Johnson and Allison, he had met Moyer. He said that, about 20 minutes after he and the hitchhiker began driving to Eugene, they pulled off the road, she pulled down her pants, and they had consensual sexual relations. He denied forcing her to have sex with him at any time. He said that he and the hitchhiker then drove several more miles, that she kept turning up the radio, and that he kept turning it down. He then pulled his truck off the road to urinate and told her to get out of his truck. He stated that she grabbed his knife from the dashboard or glove box and came at him. He stated that he took the knife away from her, cutting her hand, but she continued coming at him and he kept pushing her away with the knife. He recalled making another wound that cut her throat and another wound in her back. He recalled stabbing her a total of three or four times. He stated that she fell to the ground and was having difficulty breathing and that some of her clothing came off as he dragged her to a ditch. He said he then threw her bags into the bushes and later threw his knife into a creek and disposed of his bloody clothing in a dumpster in Roseburg. He agreed to perform a videotaped reenactment of what had happened.

The pathologist who performed the autopsy on the victim testified at trial that he had viewed defendant’s videotape reenactment and found it to be inconsistent with the victim’s injuries, because defendant had acted out the infliction of only a few of the victim’s actual wounds.

Defendant’s knife was recovered from the creek, and his clothing was recovered from a dumpster in Roseburg. The victim’s bags were recovered from the bushes near where her body was found. The pants that she had been wearing on the day she died were found in one of her bags.

Defendant was indicted on two counts of aggravated murder. The first count alleged that the murder was committed intentionally in the course of and in furtherance of the crime of rape in the first degree. ORS 163.095(2)(d);[2] ORS 163.115(1)(b).[3] The second *435 count alleged that the murder was committed intentionally in an effort to conceal the crime of rape in the first degree. ORS 163.095.[4] Defendant also was indicted on one count of intentional murder, ORS 163.115(1)(a),[5] and two counts of rape in the first degree, ORS 163.375, see n 14, infra.

https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/1994/320-or-47.html

Age:	45	DOB:	06/1975	Location:	Oregon State Penitentiary
Gender:	Male	Race:	White Or European Origin	Status:	AIC
Height:	5′ 11”	Hair:	Blond	Field Admission Date:	03/04/1996
Weight:	185 lbs	Eyes:	Blue	Earliest Release Date:	Death

Age:	50	DOB:	11/1970	Location:	Oregon State Penitentiary
Gender:	Male	Race:	White Or European Origin	Status:	AIC
Height:	5′ 10”	Hair:	Brown	Field Admission Date:	07/15/1992
Weight:	155 lbs	Eyes:	Green	Earliest Release Date:	Death

Age:	47	DOB:	09/1973	Location:	Oregon State Penitentiary
Gender:	Female	Race:	White Or European Origin	Status:	AIC
Height:	5′ 11”	Hair:	Blond	Field Admission Date:	11/24/1995
Weight:	150 lbs	Eyes:	Blue	Earliest Release Date:	Death

Age:	66	DOB:	08/1954	Location:	Oregon State Penitentiary
Gender:	Male	Race:	Amer Indian Or Alaska Native	Status:	AIC
Height:	5′ 10”	Hair:	Brown	Field Admission Date:	06/30/1992
Weight:	165 lbs	Eyes:	Brown	Earliest Release Date:	Death

Age:	53	DOB:	11/1967	Location:	Snake River Correctional Institution
Gender:	Male	Race:	White Or European Origin	Status:	AIC
Height:	5′ 10”	Hair:	Brown	Field Admission Date:	10/28/1992
Weight:	212 lbs	Eyes:	Brown	Earliest Release Date:	Death