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Two of the four defendants in the Feb. 10 torture of a 16-year-old boy in Portland pleaded guilty this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court to kidnapping, robbery and assault charges. A third was convicted in juvenile court. A fourth awaits an August court hearing.
(The Oregonian/File)
The night before four teens were accused of kidnapping and attacking a 16-year-old boy in a Southeast Portland shed this year, they plotted and wrote down just how they'd torture him, according to court documents.
They scribbled their ideas on separate slips of paper and shoved the slips into an empty soda can. They planned to select the slips randomly from the can, then carry out the torment against their target, they told investigators, according to the court records.
Three of the accused have entered guilty pleas to kidnapping, assault and robbery charges and have been sentenced. The fourth is due back in Multnomah County Circuit Court next month.
Jenna Montgomery, 15, and Jess Taylor, 17, pleaded guilty this week to first-degree kidnapping, first-degree robbery and second-degree assault, and apologized directly to the boy, Dustyn Murrain, for the Feb. 10 attack.
Under plea deals, Montgomery was sentenced to nine years and 11 months in custody and Taylor to seven years and nine months. Each will be in the custody of Oregon Youth Authority, followed by three years of post-prison supervision. They likely will be sent to the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility.
Shane Connell, 14, was previously sentenced in Juvenile Court to 10 years at MacLaren. Blue Kalmbach, who turned 16 in June, is to appear in court Aug. 21.
Jess Taylor, (left) 17, and Jenna Montgomery, 15, pleaded guilty this week to kidnapping, robbery and assault charges in a Feb. 10 attack of a 16-year-old boy. Blue Kalmbach, (right), who turned 16 in June, is due back in court in August.
Montgomery, police and prosecutors said, lured Murrain to the shed, where the other three boys confronted him. Police said Kalmbach struck him in the head repeatedly with a crowbar and hit him with a revolver numerous times.
"The gun was pointed at the victim and the chamber was spun to scare him,'' according to court records.
The defendants ordered Murrain to remove his shirt, then fired a BB gun at his chest, index finger and groin at close range. Kalmbach carved a swastika in Murrain's forehead with a box cutter-type knife while Taylor held a BB air rifle trained on Murrain, police and prosecutors said.
Kalmbach told Murrain he was going to cut a "smiley'' face in his chest next, and Murrain protested, pleading to know what it was that his attackers wanted, according to court papers.
They told him they wanted money and his long board.
Murrain was ordered to take his pants down and was hit on his buttocks six or seven times with a short cricket-type bat and forced to eat cat feces, according to a pre-trial supervision officer.
Montgomery walked Murrain out of the shed to the street and left him there.
Blood dripping down his face, Murrain stumbled to a nearby auto shop, where workers got him immediate help. He underwent emergency surgery that night at OHSU Hospital on his groin and got four staples to close the wounds on the top and back of his head.
The encounter occurred after Montgomery, via Facebook, had invited Murrain to hang out with her. Murrain told police that Montgomery invited him to meet her at Southeast 122nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard. When he did, she walked him to a nearby home in the 3200 block of Southeast 111th Avenue and he followed her into the shed in the backyard.
Murrain's mother, Kelli Murrain, said police told her that Connell was the alleged ringleader.
The defendants and Murrain had known each other from David Douglas High School.
Montgomery had been dating Kalmbach for two months, according to court papers, and told investigators that she felt Murrain had bullied her boyfriend, pre-trial supervision officer Chelsea Fonua wrote in court papers. Montgomery called Taylor her best friend and Connell her "bodyguard,'' Fonua wrote.
The home where the attacked occurred was where Connell lived with his grandparents, court records showed.
According to a relative, Connell was difficult to control and abused, threatened and intimidated his grandparents, "even though he depends on them for food and shelter,'' Fonua wrote in a court document.
Montgomery told Fonua after her arrest that "whatever I feel like doing'' she does and that she's smoked pot "all day, everyday'' for the past year and a half, Fonua wrote in a court report.
Montgomery's mother told Fonua that since her daughter met Kalmbach, she started "skipping school, was moody, angry and disrespectful,'' Fonua wrote in her report.
Murrain told investigators that he used to be best friends with Kalmbach until Kalmbach tried to assault his girlfriend, according to court records. Murrain "called Kalmbach out about it on Facebook'' and used the word "gay" to describe him. As a result, Kalmbach called Murrain a gay basher, according to court records.
"The victim believes he was targeted because Mr. Kalmbach was jealous of the victim's relationship with Mr. Kalmbach's previous girlfriend,'' wrote another pre-trial supervision officer, Bill Jeffreys, in court records. Murrain told investigators he wasn't a bully, and, in fact, had been bullied in school himself.
Once police located the shed where the attack occurred, they described it as a mess, covered with trash. A firearm, Murrain's burnt sweatshirt and his stolen iPod were found inside.
Taylor's mother told court authorities that her son had been suffering from her divorce from his father. "She also believes her son became friends with the wrong set of teens,'' according to court papers.
She said she removed Taylor from high school after he started skipping classes to spend time with a girlfriend. She was concerned about his poor choices and wanted him to complete his classes through homeschooling, pre-trial supervision officer Jeffreys wrote.
--Maxine Bernstein