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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 29, 2016)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN MONDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2016 OREGON WOMAN’S DISAPPEARANCE New mystery replaces the old Detective thinks car went over JXDUGUDLOÀLSSHG By CHELSEA GORROW The Register-Guard EO Media Group Samuel Valdez listened to testimony during his trial in Wahkiakum County Superior Court last week. Valdez was charged with trying to hire a hitman, illegally pro- ducing and selling marijuana products, and burning down a neighbor’s home. Former Altoona man awaits sentencing in murder-for-hire plot jury reached a verdict. Val- dez’s mother, sister, and girl- friend, Katie Commons, of Altoona, sat in the front By NATALIE ST. JOHN row. Robbins, her son and EO Media Group their supporters sat two rows behind them. The courtroom CATHLAMET, Wash. ZDV VLOHQW DV D FRXUW RI¿- — A jury found a former cial read the verdicts. Valdez Altoona man guilty Friday was found guilty of arson, of murder for hire, arson and ¿UVWGHJUHH VROLFLWDWLRQ WR marijuana-related charges commit murder, delivery of in a plot that targeted his marijuana and marijuana pos- ex-wife. session with intent to manu- Samuel Fredrick Valdez, facture or deliver. 64, was arrested last July fol- As the convictions lowing a Cowlitz-Wahkia- piled up, Robbins and her kum Narcotics Task Force friend gasped and gripped investigation and subsequent each other’s arms, but Val- raid on his home that uncov- dez’s stunned relatives sat in ered large quantities of mari- silence and Valdez sat erect in juana and marijuana byprod- his seat and remained stony- ucts with an estimated street faced. It was not until he was value of more than $100,000. led from the courtroom that Key to the investigation he began to show any sign of were three recordings made emotion. E\ D FRQ¿GHQWLDO LQIRUPDQW A bailiff stood between who told the task force that the Robbins family and Val- Valdez had asked him for dez as he was ushered back KHOS ¿QGLQJ D KLWPDQ ZKR to his jail cell. His family and could murder his ex-wife, attorney quickly left without Elizabeth Robbins, and pos- making any comment. sibly others, too. Robbins and her compan- In court, Valdez’s ions quickly left the court- defender, Tacoma-based room to meet with Dep- attorney Wayne Fricke, cast uty Prosecutor Sue Bauer, doubt on the informant’s who handled the state’s case credibility and motives. Wit- against Valdez. nesses for the defense said the “We were so relieved, informant’s real interest had because we were going been in edging Valdez out of to move if he wasn’t con- the lucrative business of pro- victed,” said Kathy Cantrell, ducing marijuana concentrate one of Valdez’s Pillar Rock for a growing market. Road neighbors, whose home Whatever the informant’s burned to the ground a week motives, they weren’t enough DIWHUVKHWHVWL¿HGDJDLQVW9DO- to make the jury disregard the dez during his divorce trial. damning recorded conver- Elizabeth Robbins sations, the testimony of his emerged a moment later with ex-wife and others, and evi- tears of relief in her eyes, and dence that suggested Valdez gave Cantrell a long hug. printed out photographs of “We’re free,” she said. Robbins’ house and face right A close friend of Robbins around the time the informant added, “And safe!” said Valdez made a down Valdez’s sentencing hear- payment on the hits with a jar ing has been tentatively of marijuana oil. scheduled for March 14 After deliberating for in the Wahkiakum County seven hours, the 12-person Courthouse. Found guilty of four crimes Judge rules inmate not responsible for restitution By KYLE SPURR The Daily Astorian The two inmates who tried escaping from Clatsop County Jail last summer have each been on the hook to pay off more than $2,100 in res- titution for the damage they caused. Kevin Michael Burnham and Anthony Craig Osborne were accused of breaking off a shower drain grate, tying it to a bedsheet and swing- ing it against a window mul- tiple times until the window shattered. Both are serving prison sentences related to the escape incident and other previous charges. Osborne, 25, of Seaside, successfully argued in Clat- sop County Circuit Court Friday that he should only have to pay for damage he caused to a smaller window a few days prior to the escape attempt. He claims he was not involved in damaging the larger window. “That’s what I was accused of, but I was never convicted,” Osborne said via video link from prison. Judge Philip Nel- son agreed, and ruled that Osborne will be responsi- ble for paying $673 for the smaller win- dow. Burn- ham, 26, of Seaside, will be responsi- ble for pay- ing off the r e m a i n i n g Anthony Craig Osborne restitution. T h e $2,154.73 restitution amount covers the temporary and SHUPDQHQW ¿[HV WR WKH WZR windows involved. Burnham pleaded guilty WR ¿UVWGHJUHH DWWHPSWHG escape for the jail incident. Osborne pleaded no con- WHVW WR ¿UVWGHJUHH FULPLQDO mischief. During the escape DWWHPSWWKHLQPDWHVÀRRGHG a toilet in a cellblock and DGGHGVRDSWRPDNHWKHÀRRU slippery for any responding FRUUHFWLRQVRI¿FHUV Their plan was foiled RQFH D FRUUHFWLRQV RI¿FHU VWDUWHG KHDULQJ WKH PXIÀHG thumping sound of the grate hitting the window. A cou- ple of more swings and the inmates could have broken through the window, which is large enough for them to climb out. 7KH RI¿FHUV GHWDLQHG WKH inmates and placed them in a more secure part of the jail. vehicle spun counterclockwise, landing on the embankment, then continued into the pond, investigators have concluded. Damage consistent with theory body was discovered, Silano said. Detectives found no evi- dence to suggest that any other person or vehicle was involved in the crash. Silano said he does not have any evidence to suggest Perry was suicidal and, even if she had been, “no one would have fore- seen that they could have pulled that off,” he said, referring to the way in which her car sailed over the onramp and guardrail. “There’s no guarantee that it would have happened like this. No one would have thought, µ2K,ZLOOMXVWÀ\RYHUWKLVDQG land in this pond,”’ Silano said. “So there’s nothing suspicious and we don’t think she was try- ing to hurt herself. “Why it happened, we just don’t know.” The vehicular damage is consistent with that theory, EUGENE — An observant Silano said, as the front of Per- driver, a summer drought and ry’s car had pop-up headlights two rear tires peeking out of a that were not damaged, but pond. would have been had she hit That’s all it took last fall to anything head-on. put one big mystery surround- The windows were shat- ing the disappearance of Linda tered, consistent with hitting the Lee Perry — and her remains tree with the top of the car, and — to rest. the roof of the car was caved Perry, who had vanished in from the front to the back, eight years earlier, was an acci- further suggesting that the car dent victim, police concluded. struck the tree vertically, Silano No foul play. Case closed. said. But a new mystery emerged If a car had simply traveled WRUHSODFHWKH¿UVWRQH+RZGLG off the road at a normal speed, Perry wind up in the pond with- out damaging a guardrail and ‘Why it happened, without anyone witnessing the crash? we just don’t know.’ How does a person go miss- ing all those years, only to be David Silano found near a busy interchange in Lane County sheriff’s detective an urban area? It would take several weeks of investigation before detec- it would have lost speed on the The Pond WLYHVIHOWFRQ¿GHQWLQSURYLGLQJ grassy median, so Perry’s foot ,W ZDV SP RQ 2FW their theory on how the accident presumably would have had to 26 when a driver passing the occurred. have been pressed on the gas pond on Northwest Express- “We believe the car went air- pedal — hard — to launch the way noticed something odd. borne over the guardrail,” said car over the onramp, Silano said. Two rear tires were sticking up Lane County sheriff’s Detective There was some rain or driz- out of the water on the pond’s David Silano. “We go back to zle that day, and the indicators east end. look where she went in at, and on her recovered car show that A Lane County sheriff’s there is only one way we can her windshield wipers were on deputy arrived to investigate. surmise she could have done it.” “low.” Still, it’s probable that He in turn called in a sheriff’s the grassy median was mostly dive team member to see if any- Where to look? brown and dry at that time of one was inside the vehicle. When Perry, 59, a resident year, thus making it easier for A little more than an hour of Junction City, disappeared a car to maintain or gain speed later, the dive team member, in 2007, no one quite knew while traveling over the median. Matt Conrad, was in the water where to look for her — until It’s unclear exactly when but unable to see inside the car an unusually dry year revealed Perry left her friends’ home in because of the pond’s silt and those tires peeking out of the 6SULQJ¿HOG EXW LW PD\ KDYH lack of clarity, a sheriff’s report water off Northwest Express- been late afternoon or early eve- states. way near Randy Papè Beltline ning. However, her car’s head- So, a tow truck was called to last October. lights were not turned on when haul the Honda out of the water. Perry was headed west on she plunged into the pond. She Meanwhile, a record’s check Belt Line Road — as the high- was wearing a seatbelt. of the license plate revealed way was known at the time — who the car belonged to — when her car went off the road. Never know with Linda Lee Perry, missing since She had left home that day to certainty 2007. YLVLWVRPHIULHQGVLQ6SULQJ¿HOG Detectives will never know Just before 7 p.m., the tow and go shopping in Eugene. with certainty that Perry didn’t truck pulled the car to the north Detectives believe Perry’s fall asleep or suffer a medi- side of the pond. The skeletal car, a blue 1987 Honda Prelude, cal problem, such as a stroke UHPDLQVZHUHYLVLEOHIRUWKH¿UVW must have left the roadway and or heart attack, right before the time. crossed onto a grassy median, crash, Silano said. Other human bones were and then a highway onramp Nor will they ever know found on the bottom of the pond, berm, before vaulting over the if drugs or alcohol were fac- mixed with dirt and gravel, the onramp and clearing the guard- tors, or if Perry died as a result report says. They were collected rail that protected the pond. of drowning, a medical issue or and taken to a hospital for iden- The car then “pitch-poled” from the impact of her car strik- WL¿FDWLRQ E\ WKH /DQH &RXQW\ ²ÀLSSHGHQGRYHUHQG²LQWR ing the tree and then the pond. medical examiner. D¿UWUHHGHWHFWLYHVEHOLHYH That’s because only skeletal Prior to having gone miss- Once striking the tree, the remains existed by the time her ing, Perry had undergone back surgery to fuse two of her ver- tebrae together. The serial num- ber on the plate used to connect the vertebrae is what the med- ical examiner used to identify the skeletal remains found in the pond. The disappearance A missing person report issued by Junction City police shortly after Perry had gone missing sheds some light on her personal situation. She was in ill health at the time she disap- SHDUHG ZKLFK RQO\ LQWHQVL¿HG family and friends’ concern for her well-being. Perry’s husband, Gerald Ballard, “said Linda had prob- lems keeping weight on,” Junc- tion City police detective Corey Mertz said in the report. Ballard said Perry had weighed as little as 80 pounds in the past. In fact, Perry was on daily medications for health prob- lems, she wore dentures, and had previously battled a drug addiction to heroin, on which she had overdosed multiple times, the report states. Perry’s son, William Perry, feared his mother had gone somewhere, overdosed and died, the report said. William Perry this month did not return messages seeking comment on his mother’s disappearance and the recovery of her remains. Perry was last seen between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Sept. 30, 2007, by Ballard. She was not reported missing until more than a month later, on Nov. 4, by KHUVRQ¶V¿DQFqH.LOD+RZDUG according to Mertz’s report. Ballard, who could not be reached for comment, was not initially concerned about Linda Perry’s absence, Mertz wrote in his report, because she “had a history of leaving relationships without giving notice. ... He VDLGDW¿UVWKHWKRXJKWµVKHOHIW me,’ but she did not take any of her clothing.” Ballard told Mertz, the report states, that a year prior to her disappearance, Perry had left without telling him and was gone for three days. Ballard also told detectives that, on the day his wife went missing, he had given her his debit card for her shopping trip in Eugene, and later learned she had withdrawn $80 from the U.S. Bank in Junction City that day. Ballard canceled the debit card a week later. It was found in the bottom of the pond with Perry’s remains. State Senate approves banking for pot dealers earlier this month in the House, 56-3. It will remove criminal lia- bility for providing banking ser- SALEM — The state Sen- vices under Oregon law, though ate approved legislation Friday it gives no protection against that removes criminal liability federal prosecution. The bill IRU SURYLGLQJ ¿QDQFLDO VHUYLFHV now awaits Gov. Kate Brown’s to marijuana-related businesses. signature. The bill, by state Rep. Entrepreneurs who have taken advantage of the state’s Tobias Read, D-Beaverton, also new legalized recreational pot allows the Oregon Liquor Con- laws have had to rely on cash trol Commission and the Ore- transactions, raising security gon Health Authority to provide issues and concerns about how ¿QDQFLDO LQVWLWXWLRQV ZLWK FRQ- to collect taxes on sales without ¿GHQWLDOLQIRUPDWLRQRQOLFHQVH the convenience of a checkbook and permit holders in the mar- ijuana industry. The informa- and a bank account. State and federal laws largely tion would otherwise be exempt restrict banks and credit unions from public disclosure. The liquor control commis- IURP SURYLGLQJ ¿QDQFLDO VHU- vices to pot-related businesses sion regulates recreational pot, because the federal govern- while the health authority over- PHQW VWLOO FODVVL¿HV PDULMXDQD sees the medical program. Read said the bill would as a Schedule 1 drug. That clas- VL¿FDWLRQLVGH¿QHGDVWKHPRVW reduce the risk and liability to dangerous drugs at high risk for ¿QDQFLDO LQVWLWXWLRQV DQG GLUHFW abuse in the Controlled Sub- the Department of Consumer and Business Services to study other stance Act of 1970. The emergency bill passed ways to overcome obstacles to Friday in the Senate 18-6, and DFFHVVLQJ¿QDQFLDOVHUYLFHV By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau 6RPH ¿QDQFLDO LQVWLWXWLRQV such as Maps Credit Union in Salem, have already taken the risk of serving marijuana busi- nesses. Maps serves cannabis dispensaries, said Kevin Cole, WKH LQVWLWXWLRQ¶V FKLHI ¿QDQFLDO RI¿FHU The legislation still can’t protect banks and credit unions from lawsuits leveraging fed- eral statutes against organized crime. Such lawsuits have sought to stop the cannabis industry in other states such as Colorado. The Legislature passed a resolution last year urging Con- gress to lift restrictions on pro- YLGLQJ ¿QDQFLDO VHUYLFHV WR the marijuana industry and to declassify marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and U.S. Rep. Earl Perlmutter, D-Colorado, last year introduced the Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act to allow legal marijuana businesses to access banking services. The legislation found some support in the House but has yet to receive any action in the Senate. The Capital Bureau is a col- laboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. 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