Copyright The Oregonian
A man who gunned down a stranger over an off-putting remark after a night of drinking last year has been sentenced to six years and three months in state prison. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jenna Plank found Alex Brown-Golden, 24, guilty of second-degree manslaughter as part of a plea deal in the killing of 34-year-old Ozell Shepherd just before 2 a.m. on May 4, 2024. Brown-Golden, better known as “Chico,” and several friends were out drinking in downtown Portland the prior evening when they met up with Shepherd through a mutual acquaintance. The group merged and went back to a friend’s home on Northeast Beech Street, but the bonhomie was spoiled and “it became clear that the night should come to an end,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. At that point, Shepherd apparently objected to riding in the same car as a woman in the group, court documents say. Brown-Golden took offense and gunned the other man down. Investigators identified Brown-Golden in surveillance footage from his distinct tattoos. At a sentencing hearing, Shepherd’s mother, Vanessa Smith, said her son had recently moved to Gresham from Alabama in search of work. He was one of four brothers and had two children. “I’m going to try to raise his two boys the best way I can, and let them know that their father loved them so much,” she said. Former Beaverton P.E. teacher acquitted in sex abuse case involving student Matthew Knorr, a former physical education teacher at the Beaverton Academy of Science & Engineering, has been acquitted of three counts of first-degree sexual abuse by a Washington County jury. Knorr, now 49, was teaching an exercise class when he partnered with the 13-year-old girl on Nov. 16, 2021. She claimed he groped her. A vice principal at the school began investigating the matter three days later as rumors circulated, though charges were not filed until January 2023. He was acquitted in July. Prosecutors asked the jury to rely on the girl’s testimony and testimony from another student in the class, among other witnesses; a defense attorney asked jurors to discount her testimony and believes Knorr’s words. Jury finds 2 not guilty in drug deal slaying A Washington County jury acquitted two men — Erick Penalosa Hernandez and Josue Zarate Gonzalez — in an apparent drug deal gone wrong slaying outside Washington Square Mall. Hernandez, 22, of Auburn, Washington and Gonzalez, 36, of Kent, were accused of second-degree murder in the Dec. 18, 2023 killing of 29-year-old Ediel Ernesto Apodaca Sandoval. Sandoval had driven to the mall’s parking garage to sell illicit marijuana, according to prosecutors, when he was shot twice through the lungs. Prosecutors argued that Hernandez pulled the trigger on Gonzalez orders’ so they could take the pot without paying. The crucial five minutes when the slaying took place weren’t captured on video, and defense attorneys argued it was impossible to tell who was truly responsible for the killing.
