A Marion County judge on Friday sentenced a Salem man to 15 and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to hitting and killing a 16-year-old with his car on Christmas Day in 2021 and hiding the teen boy’s remains in his car.
Marion County Circuit Judge James Edmonds also sentenced Armando Rodarte Jr., 27, to four years and eight months of post-prison supervision and revoked his driver’s license for life, court records showed.
The victim, Samuel Lannigan, lived about a block from the crash and was walking to his grandmother’s house for Christmas when the crash occurred, according to a sentencing memorandum.
The sentencing comes nearly two months after Rodarte pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter, failure to perform duties of a driver to injured persons, reckless driving, second-degree abuse of a corpse and driving while suspended.
A sentencing memorandum by Marion County Deputy District Attorney Braden Wolf provided an account of the crash and frantic effort by Rodarte to hide the teen’s body.
Police responded at 2 a.m. that Christmas Day to a report of a hit-and-run at the intersection of Northeast Ward Drive and Lancaster Drive, near the unincorporated area of Hayesville.
The caller reported that “body parts were scattered” on the road. Police arrived to find on Lancaster Drive a pair of sweatpants and two legs “clearly torn from a human body.”
Police found evidence of the crash over about a half mile long with clothes, car debris and human parts scattered along the road. That indicated the car was driving at a high rate of speed when the crash occurred, according to the court filing.
Surveillance video from local businesses showed a red Honda Civic around the time of the crash driving over 90 miles per hour down Lancaster Drive, running through several red lights and passing a gas station near the crash scene.
Dash cam video from a parked car facing away from the intersection captured clear audio of the crash and showed the Honda speeding away and continuing down Lancaster.
A 911 call around 3:30 a.m. reported a Honda parked at Wheatland and Brooklake Roads in Keizer with a body in the front passenger seat. Deputies arrived to find the car parked with a smashed-in front hood and window, a human torso in the front seat and the inside of the car covered in blood.
Deputies determined that the caller was Rodarte’s roommate, who reported that Rodarte arrived home around 2:30 a.m., woke her up and told her he had just killed someone. His roomate noticed he was covered in blood and could smell alcohol on his breath.
She reported that Rodarte said he needed help moving the car and suggested pouring bleach on the body to “get rid of his fingerprints,” the memorandum said. The roommate told deputies that she knew Rodarte owned a gun and was scared to say no. She followed Rodarte in her car as he drove to the intersection of Northeast Brooklake and North Wheatland Roads, parking the car with the torso still inside.
Rodarte’s roommate then took him to his girlfriend’s apartment at a different location. The roommate said she felt guilty for helping him and decided to call 911.
She gave deputies access to her Ring video, which showed Rodarte pulling up outside their home, leaving his car idling outside and bloody with bruising starting to form on his face “from an obvious crash,” according to the court filing.
Around 6:15 a.m., deputies found Rodarte and his girlfriend outside her apartment.
Rodarte was taken to a hospital and a blood draw showed no signs of impairment.
“When speaking with law enforcement (Rodarte) showed no signs of remorse,” the memorandum said. “It was later learned that the victim of the crash was 16-year-old Samuel J. Lannigan.”
Grand jurors heard testimony from a witness who said she saw Lannigan walking in the crosswalk, “heard a very loud noise (a car engine), and ‘poof,’ it was as if Mr. Lannigan had disappeared, she simply no longer saw him,” according to the memorandum.
Sgt. Casey Burnham of the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, a crash expert, testified that the crash scene was the worst he had ever seen, and that based on the impact of the car, the teen’s body was “stretched” to death, the court filing said. “Furthermore, there was no evidence that the defendant attempted to slow, swerve, or stop before or after the crash.”
“Sam had a natural way with people, especially in conversing with adults and his friends,” Lannigan’s obituary said. He enjoyed reading books, skateboarding, eating popsicles with his younger brother and playing with his cats.
“Sam was a generous soul, affectionate with his family, sociable, persistent at challenges, and strong-willed. He was a student at McKay High School and a member of Cub Scouts for a time, where he made some very good friends. Sam tried sports like basketball and soccer and even earned his brown belt in karate. Quiet moments in nature were a favorite of Sam’s, especially during summers at Detroit Lake,” the obituary said.
At the time of the crash, Rodarte was on release for driving while suspended imposed after he rear-ended a vehicle two months before the fatal crash, according to the memorandum. He pleaded guilty to that charge on Dec. 21, 2022, and was sentenced to a year in the Marion County Jail on Friday.
He was also on probation for driving under the influence of intoxicants in January 2021 after a breathalyzer showed his blood-alcohol level was .19, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08. He was sentenced to an additional year in jail on Friday for that Marion County case.
In 2018, Rodarte pleaded guilty to driving while suspended, court records showed.
He pleaded guilty in 2017 to unlawful possession of a firearm after he carried a concealed gun, and was sentenced to 20 days in jail.
Rodarte also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and failure to perform duties of a driver when property is damaged in 2016. He entered a diversion program and was sentenced to a year of probation, and prosecutors dismissed a charge of reckless driving as part of his plea deal.
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Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
