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Turner and a team of deputies reached Rogers' home at
approximately 5:00 a.m. They saw no sign of the pickup on the
property, and they were subsequently told by a relative that Rogers
was not at home but could likely be found at his auto-repair shop in
the 11600 block of Pacific Court in Woodburn, a few miles south of
Canby. The relative told the sleuths that Rogers sometimes worked
odd hours at the shop.
It was 5:35 a.m. when Detective Turner arrived at Rogers' shop.
After a cursory glance around outside, he knocked on the door of the
shop until a man with bloodshot eyes answered. Smelling of alcohol,
the man identified himself as Dayton Rogers. After Turner told
Rogers that he and the deputies were there as part of a homicide
investigation, Rogers allowed them inside.
Although Detective Turner noted that Rogers' pupils were dilated,
he observed that the man had no difficulty walking and that his
speech was not slurred, prompting him to conclude that Rogers had
been drinking but was not drunk. When asked, Rogers told the
detective that he'd been at the shop all night and had been drinking
bourbon and strawberry mixer.
"Mind if I take a look around?" asked Turner.
"Go ahead and search the place," said Rogers.
"Search the truck, too, if you want to."
Rogers told the detective that his pickup had been at the shop
all night. Turner shot him a dubious glance, walked over to the
truck and raised the hood.
"Been here all night, huh?" asked Turner as he
attempted to place his hand on the engine's valve cover, which was
too hot to touch. "You haven't gone out at all, have you?"
Rogers, or somebody, had recently run the engine hard, thought
Turner, as he pulled his hand away from the hot engine.
"What happened to your hand?" asked Turner, observing
that Rogers' right hand was bandaged. "Cut yourself?"
Rogers explained that he'd been using a hacksaw a few hours
earlier, when it suddenly slipped and cut his hand. Turner asked if
he had left the shop for first aid; Rogers responded that he'd gone
to Willamette Falls Hospital in Oregon City that same morning to
have the wound treated.
So he had left the shop, reflected Turner, who also wondered why
the man had initially lied about it. If he didn't have anything to
hide, why was he acting so suspiciously?
There was no doubt that Rogers' pickup was the one seen fleeing
the scene of the crime. It matched in appearance and the license
plate identification was the same. Because of that and his
suspicious demeanor, Rogers was arrested a few minutes later and
taken to the Clackamas County Jail in Oregon City, where he was held
on suspicion of murder.
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Mugshot of Jennifer Lisa
Smith |
Meanwhile, the detectives identified the dead woman as
25-year-old Jennifer Lisa Smith, mother of two. Her last known
address was in the 4800 block of North Albina Avenue in Portland,
not far from Union Avenue. Additional background on Smith revealed
that she had an arrest record for prostitution and indecent
exposure.
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Background on Rogers revealed that he was no stranger to law
enforcement, either. In 1972, when he was 18, Rogers picked up a
15-year-old girl who had been hitchhiking in Eugene, Oregon. He had
convinced her to go to a remote area to have sex with him,
detectives learned. Risking a charge of statutory rape, Rogers
picked the girl up again a few days later and they went together to
a park to gather wood to make whistles for neighborhood kids. But he
took her into a wooded area to again have sex with her.
After lying down on the ground, Rogers leaned over as if to kiss
the girl. Instead, according to police reports, he stabbed her in
the abdomen with a hunting knife. After pulling the knife from her
stomach, the girl, bleeding profusely and in intense pain, convinced
Rogers to take her to a hospital for treatment. She survived and
later told authorities about the attack. On February 13, 1973,
Rogers pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and was placed on
four years' probation for that attack.
Less than six months later, the detectives learned, Rogers
assaulted two 15-year-old girls with a soft-drink bottle. Although
charged with one count each of second- and third-degree assault,
Rogers was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect,
Oregon's equivalent to an insanity plea; he was sent to the Oregon
State Hospital by Lane County Circuit Court Judge Helen Frye. He was
released from the hospital on December 12, 1974.
These incidents prompted Darryl L. Larson, Lane County Deputy
District Attorney, to write an after-sentence report on Rogers:
"This man is an extreme danger to the community, particularly
to young women. He is both sexually and physically violent and,
without question, is a murder case looking for a place to happen.”
In January 1976, Rogers was indicted on a charge of first-degree
rape in Clackamas County, but he was eventually acquitted of the
charge. In February 1976, however, while the Clackamas County rape
charge was still pending, Rogers picked up two Keizer, Oregon high
school girls, and at knifepoint allegedly raped one and threatened
to rape the other.
According to John L. Collins, Yamhill County District Attorney,
the two girls had skipped school and were walking down a Keizer
street when Rogers saw them and convinced them to go with him.
"He was a good talker and his method at the time was to pick
up girls, particularly blonde girls," said Collins. "They
got into the car with him, and they went to get some beer."
After drinking beer and smoking marijuana together, said Collins,
Rogers took a paring knife from the glove box of the car he was
driving and threatened the girls with it. He used coat-hanger wire
to bind the girls' wrists and ankles.
"Afterward he apologized and pretended like it was all some
kind of game," said Collins. Rogers was nonetheless indicted on
charges of rape and coercion; he pleaded not guilty by reason of
mental disease or defect. Rogers was convicted only on the coercion
charge and received a maximum five-year prison sentence.
"This was in a less-enlightened time," said Collins,
"when juries often felt that if the woman or girl contributed
to the rape in any way, they would not convict him. In this case, I
think it was because they drank beer and smoked marijuana with
him."
As the detectives probed deeper into Rogers' background, they
learned that he had been in and out of jail for a variety of
reasons, including parole and probation violations and for
kidnapping a local prostitute. All in all, the detectives learned,
Rogers spent 27 months in Oregon prisons. His parole was formally
terminated in January 1983.
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