By Holly Danks
The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
Copyright 2006 The Sunday Oregonian
All Rights Reserved
ALOHA, Ore. — Ten years after 11-year-old Ray DeFord set his Aloha apartment building on fire, the boy once known as Oregon’s youngest murderer is an adult.
Eight of DeFord’s neighbors, five of them children, died June 28, 1996, in the state’s second-deadliest fire in the past century. A judge found him guilty of felony murder, arson and criminally negligent homicide and sentenced him to state juvenile custody up to age 25.
Based on what they saw a decade ago, people in the criminal justice system say they’d prefer DeFord — described at his trial as a borderline mentally retarded boy who threatened other children with knives — be transitioned into society before he’s released without supervision.
Although he must be freed in four years, he could be released tomorrow if a judge decides the 21-year-old is ready. What’s unclear is whether one of Oregon’s most notorious young criminals has received the treatment he needs to rejoin society — and whether society will be safe.
Oregon’s juvenile correctional facilities provide education, training and therapy. But Oregon Youth Authority officials, his psychologist and his attorney refuse to discuss DeFord’s progress, citing confidentiality laws.
It’s up to the youth authority to ask a judge for his release and prove he is ready to get out. At a status hearing in October, a Washington County juvenile judge ruled that DeFord’s “social, educational and developmental needs continue to be best met by Oregon Youth Authority custody.”
“Ray is a special-needs youth,” said Mike Conzoner, acting superintendent of MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn, where DeFord has been since April.
“He’s older and that’s about it.”
Washington County District Attorney Robert W. Hermann, the prosecutor who argued against putting DeFord back into the community 10 years ago, says that’s what scares him.
“I’d like to think their ability to work with this kid for nine or 10 years would have significantly dealt with some of his issues,” Hermann said. “The fact that they are not recommending ‘release him now’ — either they didn’t structure a very good program for him or, lo and behold, he needed to go there in the first place.”
Troubled childhood
Raymond Martin DeFord’s father beat him over the head with a clipboard at age 1-1/2 because he wouldn’t stop crying. Experts at his murder trial said this damaged the boy’s brain. Besides being slow for his age, DeFord was diagnosed as hyperactive, and he missed a lot of school with migraine headaches.
When DeFord set the fire in a hallway outside his Oakwood Park Apartments door, he functioned academically and socially at the level of a 7-year-old.
His father, Tom Martin, now 55 and living in Hillsboro, was a drug user, convicted robber and prison escapee. Martin refused to talk about his son for this story, except to confirm that he’s received his education and “he’s ready to get out.” DeFord’s mother, Carolyn, who died of cancer in late 2000 at age 52, also was mentally disabled.
The family lived on welfare and scrounged cans and bottles to recycle. Partly paralyzed by a stroke, Martin didn’t work or drive. Instead, he spent time with his son, showing him pornographic movies and teaching him how to make cyanide gas from bleach, detergent and Coca-Cola.
When DeFord disobeyed, his father shot him in the legs with BBs and made him hold his arms up for hours on end. He was not disciplined for terrorizing younger children, using racist epithets or setting fires on the kitchen counter.
“Sooner or later, something significant would have happened to cause him to be arrested or taken out of the home,” said Washington County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Mike O’Connell, who persuaded DeFord to confess four days after the fire.
“It’s just tragic that it didn’t happen sooner, before eight people died, or that we didn’t realize the bizarre nature of his family dynamic sooner.”
Playing with fire
DeFord started the fatal fire at 17235 S.W. Heritage Court with newspaper, a book of matches and rubbing alcohol. He put it out several times before it grew too big to control; then he went to sleep on his living room floor.
Authorities grew suspicious about the boy when he practically bragged that he knew details about the fire. The clincher was when DeFord was caught playing with matches and pulled the hallway fire alarm in the motel where survivors from the Oakwood Park Apartments were staying.
During his trial, defense psychologists said DeFord was compulsive, immature and unable to understand the consequences of his actions.
Washington County Circuit Judge Timothy P. Alexander ruled that although DeFord didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he was responsible for eight arson murders. In 2001, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned the murder convictions on the basis that DeFord did not set property of value on fire when he burned discarded newspaper. DeFord remains convicted of criminal negligent homicide.
A decade later, Alexander said DeFord could “probably do good in a group-home setting, where he has some supervision” and would get the structure needed to control his impulses.
“If he does OK in that, he may be able to live on his own,” the judge said.
O’Connell also says DeFord needs to be transitioned into society between now and age 25, while the Oregon Youth Authority still has control over him.
“It would be a real tragedy to open the door and say, ‘See you later, kid,’ ” O’Connell said. “You are just setting him up for failure.”
Move to MacLaren
Karen Andall of the Oregon Youth Authority confirmed that DeFord was in Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility in Salem from September 1997 until this past April 6. Then he was moved to MacLaren, which houses older male youths and the majority of teenage boys who have been convicted as adults.
DeFord was not moved from Hillcrest, a place for girls and younger boys, until two months after he turned 21. Conzoner, MacLaren’s acting superintendent, refused to comment on DeFord’s functional age level. “He’s doing well here, that’s all I can say,” Conzoner said.
DeFord declined repeated requests for an interview.
In general, Oregon Youth Authority offenders are given an education, employment training and mental health counseling, Andall said.
“What we are trying to do is plan for eventual return to the community,” she said. “It depends on what’s in the best interest of public safety.”
Both Hillcrest and MacLaren give offenders the chance to work in the kitchen and on yard maintenance. MacLaren, which is larger, also offers training in skills such as welding, iron work and construction, Andall said.
Keeping a youth offender until age 25 gives the system a longer time to create a program “specific to the offender’s case and all of their issues,” Andall said. “We work hard to address who they are and reduce the potential for them to commit further crime.”
The transitional programs favored for DeFord by Alexander, O’Connell and Hermann are available to all youth offenders, Andall said. The Oregon Youth Authority runs camps in Florence, Tillamook and La Grande that allow offenders to attend school, get jobs in town or work on community service projects, while continuing treatment, she said.
“It depends on the youth offender and what’s best for him and what progress is being made,” she said.
On the other hand, Andall said, keeping an offender locked up until age 25 “in a very serious case is a very real consideration.”
Andall acknowledged that because the youth authority has no legal stand to hold anyone past the age of 25, “we could be in the position of knowing that an offender is not ready to get out when we have to let him out. But we do our best along the way.”