(Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
An Albany man pleaded guilty Jan. 11 to abusing a dead person after Salem police said he put a body in a suitcase and hid it in a car.
Linson Lavell Johnson, 51, pleaded guilty to second-degree abuse of a corpse in Marion County Circuit Court, admitting to carrying away a dead body on Nov. 30, according to an indictment.
A state judge sentenced Johnson to six months in prison and a year of post-prison supervision, court records showed.
The Salem Police Department said in a Dec. 3 news release that they did not suspect foul play in the death.
Salem officers responded just after 10 a.m. Dec. 2 to Claxter Crossing, an apartment complex on Northeast Claxter Court, after a resident reported they saw an unknown person remove a large suitcase from another apartment and put it in the trunk of a car parked in the complex’s parking lot. The witness said the resident of the apartment, Richard Eugene Flennory, 59, hadn’t been seen in several days, the news release said.
Officers found Flennory’s car in the the complex parking lot and opened the trunk to find a suitcase with a body inside. The department’s Violent Crimes Unit investigated the death, and detectives later identified the body as Flennory’s.
Police found two people were living inside Flennory’s apartment, one being Johnson, who they took into custody on an outstanding warrant for a parole violation.
Detectives learned that Flennory had “multiple health issues” that may have contributed to his death, the news release said. When Johnson found Flennory dead, he put Flennory inside the suitcase and in the trunk of the car “to avoid a police response,” Salem police said in a news release.
The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy and determined there was no indication of foul play in Flennory’s death.
Forensic administrator Kelsey Evans said in an email Dec. 6 that the office wouldn’t release any details beyond what Salem police provided. She said the office generally releases cause and manner of death for homicide cases, and that “this case doesn’t meet that criteria.”
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
