Eric Christopher Petersen received a life sentence Wednesday for killing his ex-girlfriend, but it was the Washington County Community Corrections Center that drew the most heated denunciation from the prosecutor handling the case.
The gruesome beating and stabbing of Aimie Zdrantan in 2014 wouldn't have happened if the corrections center had focused more on inmate accountability, Senior Deputy District Attorney Bracken McKey told the court.
"It was the result of a broken system that places complete trust in convicted offenders and does so at the expense of community safety," McKey said.
Petersen, 25, killed the mother of his toddler daughter while he had permission to be away from the Community Corrections Center.
He pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated murder and Judge Eric Butterfield sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dismissed additional charges of aggravated murder, first-degree sodomy, sex abuse and burglary.
Petersen, who stared down at the table in front of him for much of the hearing, didn't address the court.
His attorney, Jane Claus, said her client didn't agree with each fact recited by the state. But Petersen, she said, takes responsibility for his actions and wanted to spare Zdrantan's family from going through a trial.
While laying out the details of Zdrantan's killing, McKey took the unusual move of focusing much of the blame on the Community Corrections Center. The 215-bed minimum-security center is across the street from the county jail in Hillsboro.
Its operations, which allow inmates to leave on passes to go to work, classes, appointments and social visits, played a role in what happened to Zdrantan - and in a second homicide that occurred a year later involving another inmate, McKey said. He likened the center to a hotel - where people can come and go as they please.
The center didn't follow its own practice the day Zdrantan died, he told the court, and it generally doesn't do much to check up on inmates who leave on passes.
Center staff take steps to verify employment and release information, Director Steve Berger said Wednesday in an email. He stressed that the center is not a jail, but rather is designed to help offenders transition back into the community.
"This was a horrible act of violence & I wish to express my sincere sympathies," Berger said of the Petersen case. "We take these types of incidents seriously and while I can't speak to the details of the specific event based on advice of counsel, we are part of a criminal justice system enforcing the orders of the court and take our responsibility of holding offenders accountable very seriously."
>>> Read more on Berger's response to the criticism of the corrections center
On the morning of Aug. 28, Petersen received a pass, good from 9:45 a.m. until noon, to go to a nearby job search service, according to court documents. Instead, he skipped out and went to the Minter Bridge Square Apartments in Hillsboro.
At the time, Zdrantan, 24, had a restraining order against Petersen. Records show Petersen had already violated the order and terms of his probation, which involved a 2013 unlawful use of a weapon conviction. The victim in that case was Zdrantan's father.
Days before the killing, a judge had revoked Petersen's probation and sentenced him to 60 days in custody, records say. Petersen was serving that time at the Community Corrections Center.
When he arrived at the center, Petersen was angry at Zdrantan, McKey said. Weeks earlier, she had told him she didn't want to see him anymore because he had pawned a family ring that belonged to their daughter.
"The defendant went from shock to sadness to anger," McKey said. "I'm going to kill the (expletive)," he told people at the corrections center in the days before the slaying, according to McKey.
Just before noon, on the day Zdrantan died, Petersen called the corrections center to say he was at Clackamas Town Center, not at Labor Ready, McKey said. Investigators believe that Petersen, at the time of the call, was at Zdrantan's apartment complex.
McKey said Petersen beat Zdrantan - hitting her over her head with a plaque that read "God bless this home" and with a porcelain coffee mug. Petersen placed a plastic bag over Zdrantan's head to try to quiet her during the attack. The couple's 2-year-old daughter was inside the apartment at the time.
Following protocol, the corrections center tried to call Zdrantan after staff learned Petersen wasn't where he was supposed to be, McKey said. But Zdrantan couldn't answer the phone.
The center's next call was supposed to be to Zdrantan's father, McKey said, but staff members became distracted and never called him. Steve Zdrantan lived five minutes from his daughter, the prosecutor said.
Between 1 and 1:30 p.m., a neighbor heard screaming coming from Zdrantan's apartment, the neighbor later told police. Investigators believe Petersen killed Zdrantan around that time, by stabbing her in the back of the neck with a butcher knife.
Afterward, Petersen fetched their daughter, who was inside a bedroom, walked her outside past her dead mother and dropped her off at a neighbor's home before fleeing to Washington state, McKey said.
The neighbor notified the apartment manager the next day that no one had come to pick up the child, and the manager called Zdrantan's father. Steve Zdrantan discovered his daughter that morning naked from the waist down and with the knife sticking out from her neck, according to court records.
Steve Zdrantan called police and immediately named Petersen as the presumed killer, records say. Two days later, police caught up with Petersen in Clark County and arrested him.
After the killing, the corrections center came under fire when a grand jury inspecting it found that it had policies that were too lenient and posed public safety risks. In the months afterward, the center made changes, including eliminating all 24-hour passes for inmates, adding GPS tracking for domestic violence and sex offenders on release and extending the orientation time when inmates cannot leave the center from one week to two.
But in September, the center made headlines again. Andrew Guy Moret, 32, an inmate at the center, was charged in a fatal shooting that occurred while he was on a work-release pass.
McKey referenced the case in court Wednesday. He said in the weeks before the killing, Moret hadn't gone to work when he was supposed to and had tested positive for methamphetamine.
Moret, McKey said, received only a written reprimand and was still allowed to go to work for his next shift. Moret has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge and his case is pending in court.
Berger, the director at the corrections center, wouldn't discuss details about Moret's case. He said the center will be looking into whether it should require GPS tracking for all inmates out on release and will be evaluating when law enforcement are notified that an inmate has not returned to the facility. Under current practice, if an inmate hasn't returned after being three hours overdue, police are notified and an arrest warrant request is issued.
McKey told the court that his comments about the corrections center don't take away from holding Petersen accountable for what he did to Aimie Zdrantan. Petersen will spend the rest of his days in prison, he said.
Throughout the prosecutor's statements, several of Aimie Zdrantan's family members who filled the courtroom gallery cried. Her mother and father addressed Petersen.
Steve Zdrantan gave a brief, emotional statement from the witness stand. He told Petersen that another final judgment day awaits him.
Her mother, Alice Alinger, through tears told Petersen that she's sorry for the life he'll miss -- the holidays and birthdays he could have spent with his daughter and family.
"You have lost so much," she said. "Because of one moment, of one terrible choice to take such an amazing person's life who you claimed to love with all of your heart.
"So, I'm sad for you," she said. "But I forgive you."
-- Rebecca Woolington
503-294-4049; @rwoolington