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ROGERS Dayton Leroy

1953

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Molalla Forest Killer

1987

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Verdict/Urteil:

The youngest of three children, Rogers was born in Moscow, Idaho, in 1954. His parents moved frequently, adopting four more children along the way, and Rogers turned to petty juvenile crime after losing his favored place as the baby of the family. In seventh grade, he was arrested for shooting a BB gun at passing cars, but serious violence was postponed until his late teens, with females singled out as his victims of preference. On August 25, 1972, Rogers drove his 15-year-old girlfriend into the woods near Eugene, Oregon, for a sexual interlude, and wound up stabbing her in the abdomen with a hunting knife, telling her, "I just couldn't trust you anymore." Instantly remorseful, he first proposed marriage, then drove her to the hospital, where police were summoned. Pleading guilty to second-degree assault in February 1973, Rogers was sentenced to four years probation. A year after his first escapade, on August 1, 1973, Rogers attacked two 15-year-old girls with a pop bottle, drawing charges of second -and third-degree assault. He was acquitted by reason of mental disease or defect the Oregon equivalent of insanity - and was committed to a state hospital, winning release on December 12, 1974. In January 1976, he was indicted for first-degree rape in Clackamas County, but a jury found him innocent in May. While still awaiting trial, on February 24, he raped one high school girl and threatened another with a knife, apologizing afterward as if, in the words of one victim, "it was all some kind of game." Rogers pled innocent by reason of mental defect, and in August he was convicted on a reduced charge of coercion, drawing the five-year maximum jail term. The prosecutor referred to Rogers as "a murder case looking for a place to happen," but he still won parole after 17 months, hauled back for another ten on charges of parole violation. In the predawn hours of August 7, 1987, Rogers was found in a Portland parking lot, crouching over the nude, mutilated body of prostitute Jennifer Smith. Witnesses gave chase at speeds topping 100 mph, recording his license number and a description of his pickup truck before Rogers gave them the slip. Arresting him at home, police found bloodstains in his truck, along with latent fingerprints from Smith. Witnesses fingered Rogers as the slasher, and several other prostitutes came forward, volunteering tales of brutal sex and torture at knifepoint, spanning the past year. On August 31, with Rogers safe in jail, a woman's decomposing body was discovered on a sprawling timber farm near Molalla, in Clackamas County. Deputies were summoned, and by sundown on September 1, remains of four more victims were discovered. The body-count hit seven by September 5, each victim killed by multiple stab wounds, their nude bodies bearing the marks of torture and mutilation. The six identified victims included: Lisa Mock, age 23, a Portland prostitute and addict missing since July; another Portland junkie, 26-year-old Maureen Hodges, who vanished around the same time; Christine Adams, 35, also of Portland; 26-year-old Nondace Cervantes, from Tempe, Arizona; Portland high school student Reatha Gayles, 16; and 21-year-old Cynthia DeVore, also from Portland. A prime suspect in all seven murders, Rogers escaped indictment on grounds of insufficient evidence . Charged in the murder of Jennifer Smith, he went to trial in January 1988, with a lame plea of justifiable homicide. According to Rogers, Smith had disrobed before pulling a knife and attempting to rob him, thus compelling him to stab her eleven times in "self-defense." Jurors convicted him of aggravated murder on February 20, and Rogers was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 30 years to serve before consideration for parole.

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