Two accused in 1998 Portland killing
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 10:30 AM PDT
PORTLAND (AP) — DNA from a discarded cigarette helped detectives solve a decade-old murder, the Portland Police Bureau said.
The cigarette butt was found in the victim’s bedroom, and the DNA led to Saturday’s arrest of Michael Jump, 28, police said. The next day police arrested an alleged accomplice, Eva Lee Guzman, 27. Both were both charged with murder and police say more arrests are possible.
Jeremiah Hartman, 37, died of a gunshot to the head after four or five people posing as police forced their way into his place and demanded money.
When Hartman refused, one of the robbers shot him. After the shooting, Hartman’s fiance opened a safe and the intruders fled with cash, a court affidavit says. Five other adults and Hartman’s 3-month-old son were in the house at the time of the shooting. No one else was hurt.
Shortly after the homicide, police recovered the cigarette butt. Hartman’s fiance told detectives at the time that no one in the house smoked that brand of cigarette. In 1998, the state crime lab’s DNA technology would not have been able to extract sufficient DNA from the cigarette butt to obtain a viable profile of a suspect, said Randy Wampler, of the Oregon State Crime Laboratory. The technology has improved, and cold case Detective Dan McGetrick recently resubmitted the cigarette to the crime lab for analysis after reinterviewing a witness to the homicide.
The witness recalled seeing one of the robbery suspects with a cigarette and the cigarette butt still burning on the floor of Hartman’s bedroom, near his head, after the shooting, an affidavit says.
Jump, who turned 28 in jail Monday, and Guzman, who is pregnant, both pleaded not guilty in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Jump has prior convictions of felon in possession of a firearm and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Guzman, meanwhile, has struggled with a methamphetamine addiction and was in and out of jail between 1999 and 2007.
