Man arrested after 80-year-old woman found dead, left in suitcase on riverbank

MULTNOMAH COUNTY, Ore. (TCN) -- A 54-year-old man was taken into custody on suspicion of killing an elderly woman, putting her body in a suitcase, and leaving it on the bank of a river.

According to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, on Feb. 17, deputies and other law enforcement teams responded to the west bank of the Willamette River on Sauvie Island and found a body inside a suitcase. The sheriff’s office identified the victim as 80-year-old Judy Hurley, who was also known as Judy Fivecoats.

During their investigation, detectives arrested Michael Darwin Moody on a charge of second-degree murder.

KPTV-TV reports Hurley was reportedly sick and bedridden, and people had been squatting in her house without permission for several months.

One of Hurley’s friends told the news station, "There were people that would come to the house and essentially use it as a base of operations to commit crimes such as stealing cars, and there were cases of people squatting in the house that she didn’t know about because they were squatting on the upper floor and she was bedridden, so there were people living in the house that she didn’t even know were living here."

The friend said, "I believe that she was just a really kind person that just got taken advantage of."

The sheriff’s office did not reveal if and how Hurley and Moody knew each other or her cause of death.

Multnomah County Jail records show Moody is also facing charges of abuse of a corpse and failure to register as a sex offender.

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