Post by Scumhunter on Dec 14, 2014 7:55:28 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: fugitivekillers.com)
Fugitive Profile as of December 14th, 2014 (Based on website fugitivekillers.com):
Birth Date: March 5, 1945
Height: 5'8
Weight: 180 pounds
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black, Gray, or Graying
Sex: Male
Race: Hispanic
Who to call if you've seen him: Washington County Sheriff's Office (Oregon) at 503-846-2500
Petronilo Lopez-Lopez, even in his drunken haste, managed to stay one step ahead of the sheriff's deputies looking for him on a cold November night just before Thanksgiving.
He made two brief stops between the killing and his getaway. The cops missed him by minutes.
The first time, a deputy took another call. The second time, a deputy was parked a quarter-mile away.
And with that, he was gone.
Ten months from that night, the teenage victim's bones were found in the northwestern reaches of Washington County.
Ten years from that night, Lopez-Lopez remains a fugitive -- suspected of executing another man's son in a jealous fury.
After he vanished, the man known as Pete Sr. left his son behind to take the blame alone.
A trial that ended earlier this month found Petronilo "Pete Jr." Lopez-Minjarez guilty in the death of 18-year-old Darvin Lopez Jovel of Aloha.
Court records, witness testimony and interviews with investigators reveal how Pete Sr. got away – a combination of police missteps and the suspect's luck.
"All the stars lined up just perfectly for him," said lead Detective Murray Rau of the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
In a case filled with conflicting theories, discrepancies and loose ends, the disappearance has left the biggest question unanswered.
Where is Pete Sr.?
Pete Sr. lived in Hillsboro with his wife and several of their seven children. He had a temper and a drinking problem, family members said.
His children testified that he beat them often. He struck them with a vacuum cord and pounded their fingers with a hammer for punishment. He scarred his oldest son's scalp with a shovel. They remember their father pulling a gun on them. They feared him too much to call the police.
Days before the killing, Pete Sr. learned that his wife had been cheating on him for years with a coworker.
That man was the father of Darvin Lopez Jovel.
Darvin was born in Guatemala in 1986, and his family moved to the United States in 1994. He loved to draw and he loved cars. The recent Aloha High School graduate worked at an Acura dealership in Portland.
The eldest of three boys, he shared a room with one of his brothers. Glossy pictures of cars covered the walls. At night, his brother recalled, he fell asleep to the sound of his favorite tunes on the radio.
On Saturday, Nov. 20, 2004, Darvin was at home with his youngest brother, then 13. He spent the day watching cartoons and playing video games. In the evening, driving the car he'd just bought, he dropped his brother off at a school function.
He was alone when he headed back to the family's Aloha townhouse, on dead-end Southwest Pars Place.
Earlier that Saturday, Pete Sr. and Pete Jr. had gone to a nearby farm where they worked as tree-diggers and finished work in the afternoon.
Pete Sr., 57 at the time, showed up drunk at his son's doorstep in the evening, Pete Jr. testified. He was upset over his wife's affair. The father and his son, then 25, drank together, commiserating.
Pete Jr. lived in Banks with his wife and baby. He learned early in life that acquiescing to his father's violence brought the attack to a quicker end, according to his defense, so he didn't resist and he didn't fight back. The Hillsboro High School graduate was known for his quiet, passive demeanor.
Two beer runs and several hours later, both men were drunk. Prosecutors said Pete Sr. decided to go to the home of his wife's lover and confront him. Pete Jr. drove.
The two sat parked outside the other man's Aloha townhouse in Pete Jr.'s white GMC truck as Darvin pulled into the driveway in his new Mitsubishi Lancer. No one else was home. His parents and his middle brother were out of town that weekend.
With only Pete Jr.'s account, investigators don't know exactly what happened next.
Pete Jr. said his dad, armed with a pistol, opened the truck's passenger door and approached the teen, screaming and demanding to know where his parents were.
Pete Sr. charged into the house with Darvin, and a gun went off. Pete Jr. said he stayed just outside the house, by the garage.
Spooked by the commotion on Pars Place, a neighbor looked outside. He saw two men dragging Darvin out of the house. One had a gun.
Investigators aren't sure how badly Darvin was injured. According to the neighbor's testimony, the teen was alive when he was hauled away.
At 9:27 p.m., the neighbor dialed 911. The men had loaded the teen, he said, into a white pickup, license plate USD 176. As Darvin's captors made off with him, deputies traced the license plate to Pete Jr.'s address.
At the end of Pars Place, red and blue lights flashed as Darvin's little brother arrived home from his school event. He had caught a ride home with friends about 10 p.m. when Darvin hadn't picked him up as planned.
Darvin's dad told a jury that the boy called him in tears.
A deputy took the phone. "I have bad news for you, sir," he told the father. "Your son has been taken."
Deputies found the Aloha townhouse mostly undisturbed except for Darvin's blood on the carpet and wall along the stairway. Near the bloodstains, a bullet had pierced the wall leaving a tiny hole.
At 10:41 p.m., Deputy Brian Klostreich arrived in Banks, where Pete Jr.'s wife answered his knock at the door. Her husband had left with his father, she said.
Pete Sr.'s burgundy Toyota Camry was parked outside his son's house. Its license plate linked deputies to his address in Hillsboro. Another deputy was sent to the father's house.
Klostreich testified that he left Pete Jr.'s house and planned to patrol nearby Main Street for the white GMC truck. But then came a report of an ATV driving through someone's field. He responded to the trespassing call at 11:14 p.m., dropping the search for the suspects even though the violent abduction had mobilized the sheriff's office.
Another deputy alerted him at 11:37 p.m. that Pete Jr.'s truck was now parked outside his Banks house, but his father's Camry was gone. Klostreich, who hadn't found the trespasser, headed back.
At the same time – 11:37 p.m. – Deputy Al Roque was just arriving at Pete Sr.'s house in Hillsboro. He spoke to the suspect's wife and daughters. The father and son, he learned, weren't there. So, at 11:50 p.m., he left and parked in a church parking lot on a different street. He went there to await further instruction, but was too far away to see what was going on at the house.
While Roque was parked, he heard that Pete Sr. might be somewhere between his son's house and his own home. The deputy headed back to Pete Sr.'s, arriving at 12:14 a.m.
But by the time Roque pulled up, Pete Sr. had already come and gone. He had left his Camry at the house and taken off in a Ford Explorer. His family gave up no information on his whereabouts.
Meanwhile, Klostreich had returned to Pete Jr.'s home. It was close to midnight when Pete Jr. came to the door, yelling profanities and telling the cops to shoot him. Klostreich soon had the son in handcuffs.
By daylight, a vast team of investigators had responded. Search warrants were written, signed and served. One suspect was in custody, sleeping it off at the county jail. The sheriff's office put out a news release seeking clues. Its subject: "Eighteen-Year-Old Missing and Feared Dead."
Pete Jr. said his dad dropped him off at a North Plains McDonald's on the night of the kidnapping. Pete Sr. then drove away with Darvin in the truck. Pete Jr. waited at the fast-food restaurant. When his father returned, Darvin was gone. He said he didn't ask what his dad had done to Darvin.
Pete Sr. told his son to clean the blood-soaked truck, Pete Jr. testified.
"If you don't see me no more," his dad said, "don't worry about me."
Roughly 10 months from that night, in September 2005, some hunters stumbled upon a skull in a field. Deputies went there, and off a remote gravel road they discovered Darvin's remains.
The site was a shooting range and a dumping ground. Access to the spot comes by way of a spur road splitting from Johnson Road, off Oregon 47.
Deputies followed a deer trail off the spur road. The area had been clear-cut in recent years. Vegetation grew low around the remaining tree stumps. There on the ground lay Darvin's skull, his mandible, his spinal column, his ribs – his skeleton, surrounded by grass.
Up a hillside from the bones, the teenager's jeans were draped over a tree stump. His red T-shirt, the last one he wore, was inside-out on a slash pile of logging debris waiting to be burned.
Last month, the details of the killing and investigation again made headlines as Pete Jr. faced a second trial on aggravated murder charges in Darvin's death.
It also revived the mystery of Pete Sr.'s escape.
In the hours following Darvin's kidnapping, Detective Rau was called in to spearhead the investigation. Deputies launched an exhaustive search for the fugitive, he said, with no luck.
"We took measures to try to find him that I had not taken before that and I haven't taken since then," he said.
Rau wouldn't discuss the specifics, he said, because although deputies have no new leads, the case remains open.
Prosecutors said they believe some of Pete Sr.'s children drove him to the Oregon coast, where one of his daughters lived. After that, Rau said, his children may have driven him south to a Greyhound station in San Francisco.
He still has relatives in his native Mexico. He could be there, but investigators have never been sure. He's wanted on an aggravated murder warrant.
As for Pete Jr., prosecutors have twice accused him as an accomplice to his dad.
In 2006, a jury found him guilty of all charges, including aggravated murder and felony murder. On appeal, the state Supreme Court ruled that a jury instruction had misstated the law on accomplice liability. The high court granted the defendant a new trial.
This time, a jury on Nov. 4 acquitted Pete Jr. of aggravated murder, instead finding him guilty of the lesser crime first-degree manslaughter. They still found him liable for felony murder.
In effect, the new verdict gives him a chance at freedom, allowing a possibility for parole after 25 years, where he used to have none.
In opening statements, Deputy District Attorney Jason Weiner told the jury that deputies shouldn't have left the suspects' homes to respond to a trespassing call and to idle in the church parking lot.
"Mistakes were made," Chief Deputy District Attorney Roger Hanlon said during closing arguments. "We were pretty up front about that. A murderer got away."
Klostreich testified that he responded to the trespassing report because he was the nearest deputy to help state police and he thought another deputy was going to keep watch at Pete Jr.'s home.
Roque, who went to the church, testified there was nowhere to park outside Pete Sr.'s house.
Sgt. David Shook, who was giving orders that night, testified it wouldn't have been good strategy to wait for the suspects right outside their homes, plainly visible in marked patrol cars.
After the trial, Rau agreed. "That could have worked against us," he said.
Throughout Pete Jr.'s three-week retrial, Darvin's family filed into Judge Rick Knapp's courtroom each day. They sat shoulder to shoulder in the front row, a few relatives in between Darvin's parents, who are now divorced.
On the first day, Darvin's dad cried when the prosecutor showed a picture of the 18-year-old, his young face staring into the camera with a slight smile. Later on, the prosecutor showed a picture of a skull.
"That's Darvin," the prosecutor said, pointing to the teen's remains. Sobs came from the front row.
The retrial came as a disappointment to the family, Hanlon told the court. It brought fresh heartache.
After all these years, there was only one more trial they would have wanted. It's the trial they still want: the trial of Petronilo Lopez-Lopez.
www.oregonlive.com/aloha/index.ssf/2014/11/mistakes_helped_prime_murder_suspect_to_disappear_in_aloha_revenge_killing_case.html
www.co.washington.or.us/news/sonews/upload/112104-eighteen-year-old-missing-and-feared-dead.pdf
www.fugitivekillers.com/west/revenge-killing.php
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