A 54-year-old man, from Oregon, Michael Darwin Moody, was arrested after the body of 80-year-old Judy Hurley was found inside a suitcase in an Oregon river. Reportedly, the couple who found the body were acquaintances of Hurley and revealed that, while she was bedridden, other people were living inside her house without her permission.
Videos by Wide Open Country
According to a Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to reports of a body found inside a suitcase on Willamette River. A medical examiner determined that the cause of death of the individual was homicide. The victim was subsequently identified as 80-year-old Judy Hurley, who also goes by Jude Fivecoats.
Evidence gathered by authorities led to the arrest of Moody on February 20 in a North Portland, Oregon, apartment. He was charged with murder in the second degree and additional offenses as per the sheriff's office press release. Additionally, according to KPTV, Moody was charged with abuse of a corpse when he was arraigned on Friday, February 21.
Couple Heartbroken
The couple who found Judy Hurley's body inside the suitcase, Leslie Ortiz and Justin Misner, spoke with KPTV. Misner stated that Hurley was "in a pretty bad spot." Moreover, other individuals were living inside her house and stealing from her while she was bedridden.
"There were people that would come to the house and essentially use it as a base of operations to commit crimes such as stealing cars," Misner told the outlet. "There were cases of people squatting in the house that she didn't know about because they were squatting on the upper floor."
The outlet reported that Hurley didn't have family members close to her. That meant that both Ortiz and Misner were the closest people to her at the time of her death. They helped Hurley get out of his home and into a retirement home. However, they never heard back from Hurley after she had to move out of the retirement home due to "medical reasons."
"We grew really attached. She would tell us that she loved us and told us that she thought we were family," Misner added. "She told us we were the only ones that like actually helped her the last couple of years." Ortiz said that she was "disgusted" and described Hurley's death as "horrible." "Nobody deserves to go that way regardless of your history," Ortiz added.
Michael Darwin Moody will appear in court on March 3.
