Billy Lee Oatney spent 17 years in prison,
appealing his murder conviction
and death row sentence.
The wheels of justice turned slowly,
but in 2015 the Court of
Appeals agreed with him.
His lawyer did not do a good
enough job on his behalf,
and he deserved a new trial.
The wheels continued to turn slowly,
but in January of 2023
the trial was underway.
Mindy Bush, Susie Larson's sister,
is astonished to find herself back in
Hillsboro for the retrial of the man.
Convicted of ****** and killing
her sister back in 1996.
I I thought it was a joke.
Couldn't believe it, it was.
We were in shock.
Now the family relives the horror
of that crime all over again.
It's hard to put into words,
but it's. It's devastating.
It's it's really hard.
We thought this was in bed gone.
We were just starting to get to
the point where we could talk
about Susie with joy. And not cry.
And now here we are again.
So it's been really tough.
It's been really tough on the family.
Susie Larson was 34 years old,
a graphic designer who lived in Lake Oswego,
and was engaged to be married to
her boyfriend Keith, a Hot Wheels
engineer for Mattel in California.
But on August 27th, 1996,
just 2 1/2 weeks before the wedding,
she disappeared.
A frantic search began with friends
putting up Flyers all over Tualatin.
Investigators later learned
she'd gone to the apartment of an
acquaintance who promised to make her
earrings for the wedding instead.
The acquaintance, Billy Lee Oatney junior.
And another man were charged
with her gruesome murder.
Here's a report I filed then
after Oatney was arrested.
It helps fill in the blanks here.
Billy Lee Oatney junior walked
into a Washington County courtroom
to face the charge of murder.
The prosecutor says Oatney strangled
Susie Larson here in his Tiger Department,
then dumped her body on
the edge of Shampooer Park.
Investigators offered no motive
and would not say why Larson
was at Oatney's apartment,
but the two were acquaintances.
They'd met through a circle of friends
that included Susie's roommate.
At a news conference this morning,
Susie's family learned for the first time.
About a chilling piece of Oatney's past.
He had been in the United States Navy,
and during that time he was
arrested and convicted for attempted
murder and assault after
apparently slitting the throat
and stabbing another man who
was in the Navy with him.
The attack apparently happened in Japan.
Oatney was sentenced to 22 years in prison,
but after just 13 years,
he was out and living in Portland.
Investigators believe DNA
evidence found at the crime scene
and in Oatney's apartment link
him to the crime the arrest.
On speculation that a strange
encounter on Goat Mountain played
a role in Susie's murder,
investigators tracked down youths
who ran into Larson on the mountain
the weekend before she disappeared
and decided they had nothing
to do with her death,
which came at least four days later.
The investigation eventually focused
on Oatney and led to his arrest.
The other man charged with Oatney took
a plea deal back then to avoid the
death penalty and agreed to testify
against Oatney in his first trial.
A jury convicted out Neon 8 counts of murder
and the judge sentenced him to death.
Susie's family felt relief and anger.
Here's Susie's sister,
Mindy Bush, all those years ago,
speaking to oatney during the sentencing.
I hate you for what you did to my sister,
and I hate you for what you did to my family.
My hope is that you will feel one ounce
of the pain and fear that Susie felt,
and every day to the day of your execution,
your life is a living hell.
Oatney went off to prison,
and the family thought it was all done.
But they were wrong. In 2015,
the State Court of Appeals reversed the
conviction in an opinion that spans 39 pages.
The justices ruled that Oatney's defense
attorney had not done his job well enough,
did not fight hard enough to keep some
of the testimony out of the trial.
It involved a promise of immunity early
in the investigation as police tried
to figure out what happened to Susie.
The prosecutor at the time offered oatney
immunity if he told them everything he knew.
And so he told them his friend
had killed her while he was away.
When detectives shared that information
with the friend, the friend said no,
no, no, no.
It was oatney who raped and killed
Susie Larson at OD's apartment.
The friend told that to the jury
as well and helped convict oldie.
But the Court of Appeals found the
friend would have never testified
against Odney if Ottney had not
talked with police in the 1st place.
And since Oatney had immunity
when he did talk to the cops,
the information the friend offered up
after hearing what Oatney said about.
Him well, the court ruled.
That should have been blocked
and kept from the jury.
It was enough to toss the conviction.
Mindy Bush, Susie sister,
is still angry at the prosecutor
from back then,
yes.
Yeah, it was a it was a mistake.
Everybody makes mistakes, but it was,
it was a life and death mistake.
Even though the conviction was tossed,
the initial murder charge stood.
Oatney stayed in jail and is
now getting a second trial.
And no, that's not double jeopardy.
Let's talk about that for a moment.
Double jeopardy would happen,
in theory, if someone was found not
guilty at the end of their trial
and then the prosecutor wanted
to charge them again to see if a
different jury would convict them.
Our system does not allow double jeopardy.
But Oatney was convicted and then
the conviction was overturned.
So it's like that first trial never happened.
He's again charged with murder.
But with much less testimony allowed
than during that first trial.
It's really tough because the because
of the overturning the conviction,
they were not allowed to bring a lot
of the evidence in and so it's been.
A needle pulling thread, you know.
You get on the stand.
You can't answer completely
because you can't expose certain
things that have been forbidden.
And it just feels.
Wrong. I mean it you want a fair
trial for everybody involved,
but a fair trial is having the, the.
Jury here, all the evidence.
And then and this time around,
it's not the case.
Mindy Bush says she has faith in
the prosecutors handling the case
this time, but it's agonizing to
go through this all over again.
Because we know too much.
We, you know, the first time around
we were all learning what happened.
Now we know what happened.
And the frustration?
Is tough. Because we can't.
I just want to shout to the jury and say.
This is who this guy is.
This is who he really is.
Of course you can't do that.
The jury got the case last Wednesday
afternoon after 2 1/2 days.
Still no verdict.
They will begin deliberations again tomorrow.
Mindy Bush is terrified over the
possibility that the man convicted
of killing her sister could go free.
It's gonna be heartbreaking.
It'll be heartbreaking.
We'll be keeping tabs on those
jury deliberations for as long
as they last, and we'll bring
you the verdict once we know it.