The Portland Police Department says they have made significant progress in recent years with their investigations into unsolved homicides, with charges having in brought in four formerly unsolved cases in the last few years.
In a Thursday press release, Portland Police announced that earlier this week, 37-year-old Shane Hall pleaded guilty to and was sentenced for manslaughter in the 2008 stabbing death of Frank Williams.
Frank Williams was killed in Kennedy Park in the early hours of Aug. 16, 2008, when he was chased to the middle of the Fox Street soccer field where he was beaten and stabbed multiple times.
Hall was sentenced to served 25 years, with all but 15 years suspended, to be followed by four years of probation.
The guilty plea in the Williams case marked the fourth formerly unsolved homicide case being investigated by Portland Police in which charges have been brought since 2020.
In 2020, charges were brought against a suspect for the 2016 homicide of David Anderson, who was shot to death in an apartment on Gilman Street. That suspect was later acquitted after a jury found him not guilty.
Abdi Awad was charged and convicted of the 2011 homicide of Allen MacLean in 2021, who was shot outside of 4 Massachusetts Ave. and fled toward Congress Street where he collapsed and died.
Awad pleaded guilty to felony murder in September 2023, and was sentenced to serve 11 years of a 30-year prison sentence.
Two men were charged and convicted in 2023 for the 2012 homicide of Matthew Blanchard, 24, who was shot and killed on July 11, 2012, on India Street.
Portland Police say they never close unsolved homicide investigations, and are committed to seeking justice for the victims of homicide and their families.
There are currently 12 unsolved homicides in Portland and each one is actively under investigation by three detectives at the department assigned to work full time on open murder cases.
Portland Police say they have made arrests in four out of 16 of its so-far unsolved homicide investigations.
“Though we cannot share details of these murders, we want to assure everyone that we are working diligently to solve all of our unsolved cases,” the department wrote in a Friday statement.
“Portland Police urge anyone, who may have any information related to the remaining unsolved cases to please reach out,” they wrote. “Any detail, no matter how small, could be an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to solving these crimes.”
A full list of the department’s unsolved homicide cases and details of those cases can be found here.
By progress they mean changing all charges to involuntary manslaughter then waiting for the statute of limitations to expire. Good job boys, just like california not reporting certain crimes to the government during the biden nightmare.
There isn’t a statute of limitations on murder…. Not in any state in the country….