TIGARD, Ore. — A Washington County judge has sentenced a man to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1998 rape and murder of a Tigard teen.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports Martin Allen Johnson was sentenced Thursday in the death of 15-year-old Heather Fraser.
Earlier this month, a jury found Johnson guilty of drugging, raping and killing Fraser and driving her remains to Astoria. He threw her body off a bridge into the Columbia River.
Fraser’s body washed up on the shore of the Columbia. The Washington County District Attorney’s Office says Johnson fled and was arrested in Florida over a year later.
He was convicted of aggravated murder in 2001, but in 2017, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, citing inadequate representation from the defense during the trial. The Oregon Supreme Court upheld the decision.
Johnson’s case was sent back to Washington County for a new trial.