Two men arrested in teen murder case set for arraignment
MILWAUKIE, Ore. - Two arrests have been made in the murder of a 15-year-old Texas girl found strangled in a Milwaukie apartment.
Alejandro Emeterio "Alex" Rivera-Gamboa, 24, who was already in jail on an unrelated drunken driving charge levied against him the night the teenager's body was found, now faces an aggravated murder charge in connection with her murder, as does his cousin, 23-year-old Gilberto Javier Arellano-Gamboa.
Both men were expected to be arraigned in court Tuesday afternoon at about 3 p.m.
Authorities said U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials also interviewed the pair, who will undergo a hearing on their immigration status after the murder investigation concludes.
Dani Countryman's body was found two weekends ago in an apartment at the Balboa Apartment Complex located at 2717 S.E. Courtney Road where a party had been taking place. An autopsy showed she died of strangulation. Countryman, who was from Kaufman, Texas, had been in town visiting her sister, Ashley Countryman, and the pair had gone to a party at the Balboa Apartment Complex the night of July 27. "I thought she was sleeping and when I pulled the blanket over her head, she wasn't sleeping," Ashley told reporters at the time. "She was cold. She was very cold." Ashley also said she believed her sister was killed outside and then carried back into the apartment, otherwise, someone would have heard the attack. A witness even reported that she had seen two men carry someone into the apartment that night. "Whoever did this had the (guts) to carry her body back in there, pull a blanket off somebody and pull it over her face and lay her in there with everybody inside," Ashley said. Whether what the witness saw that night is related to the two men arrested and charged with Countryman's murder remains to be seen. "It's just this gamut of emotions," she said. "It's like a total, total relief. I hope to h*** these are the right guys. I hope they've got an airtight case. I hope they've got forensics and everything they need to make sure these guys don't walk." KATU News also spoke to Dani's grandmother, Sandra Wright, by telephone. Wright, who had been raising Dani, lives in Texas. She said that while it does not bring her granddaughter back, hearing the news that two people are in custody is a huge load off her mind. "They have told me that they have a lot of evidence and that's a good thing," she said. "Dani probably solved her own crime when it comes down to forensic evidence because she's a little tiger and would not have gone down easily. And she had to have left some damage on them." After making the arrests, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office issued a statement about the case: The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office wishes to thank the community and media for their generous support of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office during this complex murder investigation. The Major Crimes Unit investigators recognized early on that they would be investigating a large pool of individuals - a task demanding a large number of difficult interviews and the tedious collection of critical forensic evidence. It is very satisfying for the Sheriff's Office to announce the arrest of these murder suspects, which will hopefully bring a modicum of relief to the community, the victim's family and friends. Young said she was thankful for all that the detectives had done to try to solve the case. She said she had worried that the case would go cold and the family might never learn what happened that night. "We're really getting answers really fast and the detectives, I can't say enough about them," she said. "They've just worked so hard and they've been so diligent."
Ashley found Dani dead the next morning when she went to check on her. The 15-year-old was on a mattress in a back bedroom and two other people were sleeping just a few feet from her.
KATU News spoke with Ashley Countryman's mother, Jan Young, who was understandably emotional over the news that arrests had been made.