Man found guilty after 1980 death of Mt. Hood Community College student

Michaela Bourgeois
·2 min read

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – A Troutdale man was found guilty of several charges on Friday in connection to the 1980 murder of a Mt. Hood Community College student, according to court documents.

Multnomah County Circuit Court found 60-year-old Robert Plympton guilty of one count of first-degree murder, and two counts of second-degree murder.

He was found not guilty on two other counts of first-degree murder, but guilty of the lesser included offense of second-degree murder.

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Plympton was taken into custody by Gresham police in June 2021 and was initially charged with the rape and murder of Barbara Mae Tucker, who was a 19-year-old business student at Mt. Hood Community College.

Authorities said the break in the case came from DNA technology that was not available over 40 years ago.

On the night of January 15, 1980, Tucker was seen running onto NE Kane Drive from a wooded area on the west edge of the campus, authorities said. Multiple witnesses saw her but thought she was waving at someone. Another witness saw a man come out from the shrubs and led her back to campus.

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The next day, a student found Tucker’s body in nearby bushes. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death.

Physical evidence from the scene was maintained and a recent DNA profile match led investigators to Plympton.

In a statement, former Gresham Police Department Chief Claudio Grandjean previously said, “These ‘cold cases’ are not lost or forgotten for our department. Each one represents a person to our officers, and their tragic stories are passed down through the generations in hopes of one day bringing honor to their names and a sense of justice and closure to their cases.”

He noted the efforts of Detective Aaron Turnage and criminalist Deanna Grossi who worked on the case for years.

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