PORTLAND, Ore. — Police believe they have the suspect in a Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood homicide in custody after arresting him for an unrelated stabbing last week, according to an update from the Portland Police Bureau.
Officers responded shortly before 4:30 a.m. on Thursday to reports of an assault on Southeast 26th Avenue near Division. They arrived to find 46-year-old Traves D. Barisich dead at the scene. The county medical examiner later confirmed that his death was a homicide, the result of blunt force trauma.
Barisich's family provided a photo of him, but have otherwise requested privacy in the wake of his death.
At the time, PPB said that the suspect was gone by the time they arrived and there were no immediate arrests. The agency's homicide unit responded to take over the investigation.
But according to a Monday update from officers, the man now suspected of killing Barisich was in custody just over 24 hours later — they just didn't know right away that he was involved.
Isaac L. Woodward, 44, was taken into custody Friday shortly after a stabbing at an apartment complex in the Multnomah neighborhood. According to police, a woman was in the laundry room of her building on Southwest Dolph Court when a man stabbed her. She fought back until the man ran away, and she suffered multiple injuries in the process. Police later arrested Woodward nearby based on the description they'd received, seizing two knives as evidence.
While Woodward was in custody for the knife attack, PPB said, detectives tied him to a robbery near Southeast 20th Avenue and Division shortly before Barisich's death, and then to Barisich's killing itself.
On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted Woodward on charges for second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon, first-degree robbery, second-degree attempted assault, fourth-degree assault and attempted strangulation. Another grand jury is expected to convene later this week on the stabbing incident from Friday, PPB said.
Barisich's death was the first homicide in Portland in a month, the longest otherwise-unblemished stretch in the city for several years.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to email Calvin Goldring at calvin.goldring@police.portlandoregon.gov, Brad Clifton at brad.clifton@police.portlandoregon.gov, or John Russell at john.russell@police.portlandoregon.gov.
