A man living in suburban Portland, Oregon, has been convicted of the unsolved murder of a 19-year-old college student in 1980.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Amy Baggio on Friday found Robert Plympton, 60, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Barbara Mae Tucker, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office said in a press release on Monday.
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Plympton was not convicted of rape or sexual abuse because prosecutors could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it occurred while she was still alive, the judge said. A medical examiner determined that Tucker had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death.
In 2021, a Parabon Nanolabs genealogist using DNA technology identified Plympton as likely linked to DNA in the case. Gresham Police Department detectives who found Plympton living in Troutdale began conducting surveillance and picked up a piece of gum he had spit on the ground, according to prosecutors.
Police arrested Plympton after the Oregon State Police Crime Laboratory determined that the DNA profile developed from the chewing gum matched the DNA profile developed from swabs taken from Tucker's body, which had been preserved.
An Oregon man has been found guilty after DNA technology linked him to a cold case murder of a college student in the 1980s. His sentencing is scheduled for June. (FoxNews)
Tucker was expected to attend a night class at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham on January 15, 1980. Witnesses said they had seen her run out of a thick, wooded area of the campus and that a man left the area and He guided her. back to campus. A student found Tucker's body the next day near the campus parking lot.
Multnomah County Deputy Prosecutor Kirsten Snowden said there was no evidence that Tucker and Plympton knew each other, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
Plympton said she was innocent and did not match the description of a man seen pushing her into bushes.
His sentencing is scheduled for June.
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