Who’s going to wade through garbage to find your body after the police are gone?
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The body of a missing woman was found in a Corvallis landfill Tuesday morning, according to Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities identified the woman as 27-year-old Kaylee Birdzell, who was reported missing on Friday. WCSO said they received information on Sunday that Birdzell’s body was put into the garbage of a local apartment complex near SW 180th in Aloha.
Detectives tracked the trash to Benton County and worked with waste management teams to comb through the landfill and found her body in the Coffin Butte landfill in Corvallis. On Wednesday, officials determined her cause of death as homicide.
“Deputies spent several hours combing through the garbage and were able to locate the body of Ms. Birdzell yesterday morning, said Danny DiPietro, Communications Sergeant for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Birdzell’s boyfriend has been arrested in connection with the murder.
Authorities identified the suspect as 31-year-old Fabian Albert Hernandez, who police said was in a relationship with Birdzell. WCSO said he was arrested on Sunday for unrelated charges of identity theft and fraudulent use of a credit card.
I wonder if the identity theft charge indicates Hernandez is here illegally.
The sheriff’s office added Hernandez now faces additional charges including second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse.
“As you can imagine, when you hear a story like this, it’s unfathomable. But they made sure that they were as detailed as possible and followed up on the leads, and unfortunately, the information that they heard was true,” DiPietro said.
Police abolitionists never address the problem of criminal investigation–who and what replaces police detectives and crime solving? The reality is the restorative justice model–and a large part of the population is served by a district attorney adhering to the philosophy–that prioritizes keeping criminal convicts in the community has no interest in solving mysteries that end with Black! and brown perps in jumpsuits.
For the time being crime is still being investigated by capable, serious people–until they’ve been mostly replaced they are the fumes on which order is running.
“ Detectives tracked the trash to Benton County and worked with waste management teams to comb through the landfill and found her body in the Coffin Butte landfill in Corvallis”
Seems appropriate.
As an aside, my 25-year-old daughter and her boyfriend are planning a move to Oregon – hopefully to Corvallis and not Eugene (definitely not Portland). Any advice I could pass on?
Also, reading these stories – how much would you say your city of residence has changed since “Portlandia” stopped production a few years ago?
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Anywhere outside of Portland is probably good. I bet there are a few more bodies in Coffin Butte.
Since I moved here in 2013 the city’s gone from Portlandia to a sinister version of Portlandia. Of course the show never satirized our real problems, racial demagogy and homeless drug addicts and crazies. So the show is about a progressive utopia without black people. Lots of silliness, but no one is seriously harmed.
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