In a case with the killer's confession but no body, Washington County jurors took about nine hours to decide Eloy Vasquez-Santiago was guilty of murdering the woman who vanished after their date.
Maria Bolanos-Rivera, a 55-year-old Hillsboro mother of six, never returned from the outing on Aug. 26, 2012. The two had met working in the nearby berry fields.
Shortly thereafter, Vasquez-Santiago and his family moved to California and he continued on to Mexico.
When police arrested his father and brother a month later and held them as key witnesses in the case, Vasquez-Santiago turned himself in.
He told detectives that he had stabbed Bolanos-Rivera because she had insulted him and had worn on his nerves. He urged the police to let his family members go, but prosecutors kept them in custody to guarantee their appearance at trial.
Vasquez-Santiago's case was pending for more than two years in part because his original defense attorneys raised concerns about his mental competency. He spent time at the Oregon State Hospital before a judge found him fit for trial.
Last year, a new set of lawyers took on the case after his original attorneys withdrew citing a conflict of interest.
Throughout the delays, Vasquez-Santiago's father and brother remained in jail, becoming some of the longest-held witnesses that legal experts can recall.
In Last September, about two years after the men were arrested, lawyers agreed to take sworn statements from the father and brother on video in lieu of holding them until trial. The brother, Moises Vasquez-Santiago, who suffered a psychotic break in jail and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, testified then and was released.
But the father, Benito Vasquez-Hernandez, insisted he was innocent and wouldn't answer questions. His attorney said the Vasquez-Hernandez didn't understand court procedure well enough to comply.
The 58-year-old father remained in lockup until last week, when he came to court on his 905th day in custody and testified that he knew nothing about the case. The judge then ordered his release.
The victim, a shy woman who was devoted to work and her family, rarely socialized with outsiders, her children testified.
Vasquez-Santiago was an exception.
On the last morning she was seen, Bolanos-Rivera met the younger man in the morning. Investigators believe he drove her somewhere scenic, perhaps to Henry Hagg Lake. During their trip, Vasquez-Santiago, then 29, killed Bolanos-Rivera and likely left her somewhere in the woods.
When he returned home, prosecutors said, he cleaned her blood out of his brother's minivan that he was driving and told his family they had to leave.
After the disappearance, police searched forested areas including those around Hagg Lake and the Dixon Mill area, where cellphone towers picked up a signal from Bolanos-Rivera's phone for three days until the battery died. They never found her remains.
As the trial wrapped up last Friday, defense attorney Timothy Bowman argued that without physical evidence there was no proof of a murder.
But Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeff Lesowski said the case was simple and strong.
Vasquez-Santiago cleaned up the physical evidence and fled the jurisdiction to evade detection, he argued, and then told police why.
"He came back to the U.S., thankfully, and turned this unsolved homicide into a solved case," Lesowski said.
The victim's children and other relatives were in the courtroom Tuesday when the judge read the verdict shortly before 4 p.m.
Jurors declined to comment on their decision as they left the courthouse. One said he wanted to comment but could not.
"We were told not to talk to anybody," he said.
Sentencing in the case was set for Monday.
-- Emily E. Smith
esmith@oregonian.com
503-294-4032; @emilyesmith