Her Deserted Automobile Sat with the Window Down. What Was within the Trunk Haunted Cops for A long time

An Oregon man was convicted final week of killing his estranged spouse, whose loss of life remained a chilly case for many years.

On April 17, a jury discovered Robert Atrops, 70, responsible of second-degree homicide in reference to the 1988 killing of Deborah Atrops, the Washington County District Legal professional’s Workplace mentioned in a press release. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Might 20.

Prosecutors mentioned Robert strangled Deborah to loss of life and left her physique within the trunk of her automotive at a distant building web site. On the time of her killing, Deborah had separated from Robert resulting from alleged bodily abuse and deliberate to divorce him. 

In keeping with prosecutors, Deborah had additionally began relationship somebody new and instructed buddies that Robert had confronted her in regards to the relationship and that “she was frightened he would kill her.” Nonetheless, a long time handed earlier than proof led authorities to determine Robert because the killer.

Deborah went lacking on Nov. 29, 1988, after leaving a hair salon appointment round 7 p.m. that day. Prosecutors mentioned she deliberate to go to Robert’s home in Sherwood, Ore., to select up their toddler daughter, whom they’d lately adopted.

About two hours and a half hours later, Robert known as 911, in addition to family and friends, claiming Deborah was lacking.

“He claimed he made these calls from his house cellphone, however there was no document of the calls,” the assertion reads. “Investigators consider he was not at house when he made these calls.”

On Dec. 1, police responded to a distant building web site in Beaverton, Ore., on a report of a suspicious automobile. There, they discovered a automotive — later proved to be Deborah’s — with no license plates and an open window with the keys nonetheless inside. Her physique was discovered contained in the trunk coated in mud, prosecutors mentioned.

A medical expert decided Deborah was killed by handbook strangulation.

Robert claimed to police that he by no means noticed Deborah that evening, however “his alibi was not totally confirmed,” per the assertion. The case finally went chilly as investigators cleared folks near Deborah of being potential suspects, together with the brand new particular person she was relationship.

In 2020, the Washington County Sheriff’s Workplace took a brand new have a look at the case with assist from Chilly Case Detective Kevin Winfield. They discovered new witnesses and submitted further gadgets for forensic testing, together with Deborah’s garments and soil samples collected from the crime scene and Robert’s house in 1988.

“Finally, the defendant’s DNA was related to the coat the sufferer was carrying when she was murdered,” the assertion reads. “As well as, the FBI lab concluded that the mud collected from the sufferer’s automobile was indistinguishable from the mud collected on the defendant’s house.”

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When Robert was interviewed by authorities in 2022, prosecutors mentioned there have been  “vital discrepancies from his model of occasions in 1988.” Robert was arrested in March 2023 and indicted on a second-degree homicide cost in reference to the case.

Deborah was 30 on the time of her loss of life and married Robert in 1987, based on her obituary, which was revealed within the Statesman Journal. She labored as a secretary and bookkeeper and was remembered as somebody who liked tenting and mountain climbing, per the obituary.