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boricuacherry-blog · 6 months

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The woman who was found murdered in her Redmond apartment had recently moved to the area and loved to ride her motorcycle and was, according to her supervisor at a Bellevue software-development company, "a shooting star."

Arpana Jinaga was a 24-year-old software-quality engineer from India who was building a circle of friends, exploring the region on her motorcycle, and reveling in the freedoms the United States had to offer her. She had attended Rutgers University, won an international software award, and was a rising star at the Bellevue company she worked for. Described as outgoing and friendly, she would try anything just to say she had attempted the experience. She had, on a whim, joined a motorcycle club after seeing a woman riding one on the street. She practiced Tae Kwon do, volunteered at an animal shelter and fire department, and she'd done all of this within only eight months of moving to Redmond, Washington.

From the Indian town of Hyderabad, Arpana's father was a professor of computer engineering and her mother a homemaker. She was close with her younger sister Pavitra and her family. Growing up, Arpana was creative, enjoying singing, dancing and gymnastics, described by everyone as a girl with a bright and bubbly personality.

When she was younger she entered a design hardware competition, doing so well, potential universities paid attention. She excelled in computer engineering, and in the specialty of embedded systems. She also sang in a band. When she was 21, in a microchip design competition against thousands of people, Arpana placed top twenty. Each contestant received their own design kit, and Arpana created a communications jammer with hers, attracting even more attention. In 2005, the Indian Express wrote an article about her, entitled "Young Inventors," in which she was interviewed on her love for computers and innovation. She dreamed of being a professor like her father.

Her father encouraged her to apply for the masters program at Rutgers in New Jersey. And she did, traveling to the U.S. to major in engineering. After arriving she began working at EMC as a software quality assurance engineer. In only 6 months, promoted to lead programmer, a testament to her work ethic.

In 2008, she was transferred to a new office in Redmond, Washington, a suburb just outside of Seattle - the tech town where Microsoft and Intendo were started - moving into the third floor of an apartment in the Valley View apartment complex.

Each floor in the complex only had about five or six rooms, but she quickly made friends there. This was when she bought a Suzuki motorcycle and began lessons on driving it and joining the Pacific Northwest Riders, a local motorcycle club. She also volunteered at the Redmond Fire Department and an animal shelter in Bellevue. She loved animals and would speak of one day opening one for endangered animals.

On the eve of October 30, she planned to host a Halloween party at the complex. Each room would have a different theme in the building, and her costume would be Little Red Riding Hood. Over a dozen people mixed with each other and people seemed to enjoy it, and at 9pm, Arpana and her friends were still having fun. She walked the halls with a glass of wine, posing with people for pictures. At around midnight, she had everyone come to her apartment to eat pizza. After that, they all made their way to the first floor and continued the party.

Just before 3am, things started to slow down. Her friend Jessica remembers a conversation they had shortly before they parted ways that evening. Arpana was telling her how lucky she was to be a woman living in the U.S., and how hard things were growing up in India. Jessica tried to tell her that things weren't always so easy in the U.S. either, to which Arpana began to cry, simply stating, "You have no idea."

Still slightly emotional, she retreated back to her own apartment around 3am, alone. But despite her leaving alone, for the next hour, her neighbor reported hearing what they thought sounded like consensual sex. They heard muffled moaning come from her apartment walls.

At 8am the next morning, her neighbor was woken up by what sounded like a growing sound that sounded like either someone having sex, or vomiting, coming from Arpana's apartment, followed by a loud thud - then the sound of running water.

When Arpana's family waited for her phone call that next day, they received no call. They texted her, and received no response. The family called someone they knew to check on her.

This person agreed and went to knock on her door, but surprisingly, the door just swung open. The door frame and the lock had been broken. When he and a neighbor entered the room, there were clear signs of a struggle. They walked into Arpana's bedroom -

and that's when they found her laying face down on the floor, under a sheet, naked, and covered with blood. When authorities arrived, the immediately knew this was a homicide. An overwhelming smell of bleach permeated the room, as if someone had tried to clean up, and Arpana's comforter was in the tub, soaking in water and bleach. Blood was still on it though. The rest of the sheets were missing. Police also found Arpana's tampon, which was presumably in at the time of the attack and was now on the floor of her bedroom. Bleach was on the furniture, and motor oil had been dumped all around the apartment, and around her body.

Arpana's body was taken for an autopsy, which confirmed she had been raped. Unfortunately no DNA was able to be gathered, likely due to a condom being used. She also had blunt force trauma to the head, several of her teeth had been broken, she had bruises on her stomach, thighs and wrists, and her own underwear had been used to gag her mouth. Duct tape had also been placed over her mouth. Death was determined to be asphyxiation, which was done with a bootlace. Her fingers were stained blue with toilet cleaner and she had bleach and motoroil over her from the waist down, as well as small burn marks. It appeared that someone had attempted to light her body on fire but failed, since motoroil isn't flammable. Her bloodstained bathrobe and bedsheets were found in a dumpster outside the apartment. Arpana's ID, her blackberry phone and her digital camera were missing.

Police were suspicious of one of Arpana's neighbors - Cameron Johnson. There were some discrepancies in his timeline to police, and police found printed out maps for pawnshops in his car, printed at 10am, but he claimed he woke up at 10am. He also said he went to Denny's that morning then drove two hours to the Canadian border but wasn't let through because he didn't have a passport with him. When asked about this, he said he was just in the mood to explore. Canadian officials, however, stated that he tried to "blow through the border gates."

One neighbor said he came home at 3am the night of the murder and saw a man at Arpana's door who was between 5'11 and 6'3, with olive skin - a description that matched Cameron - talking to someone in the apartment. But since Arpana's door had been kicked in, it's hard to know if these two incidents are connected.

It was also discovered that someone had been using Arpana's computer at 3:29 that morning.

To everyone's surprise though, the man police ended up arresting was 27-year-old Emanuel Fair.

Emanuel Fair had been going by the name 'Anthony Parker.' According to Detective Coats, he was looking at photos from the Halloween party, when he noticed Fair, who was dressed as a construction worker, in the background of the photos. He stood out as the only black man at the party. He also appeared to be an outsider. He started sending the photos out to other officers, asking if anyone knew him. Turns out they did - there was a warrant out for his arrest.

Emanuel Fair had a criminal record. He had gang affiliations and had been arrested many times before for various crimes - robbery, gun possession, drug possession - and, what caught Detective Coats' attention - a rape charge.

Only four years earlier, he had been charged with raping a minor, after that minor called 911 and reported it. The 15-year-old reported him violently raping her at gunpoint. When apprehended, he claimed the encounter was consensual, which legally it wasn't, since she was a minor. He took an Alford plea and pled guilty to third degree sexual assault, where the max imprisonment is only five years.

Because he was considered a level 1 offender, he only served two years of his sentence and got out.

There was a warrant out for his arrest because he had broken his probation and failed to update his sex offender status in the registry for the second time.

After he had been released from prison in 2006 he was couchsurfing, and ended up on the couch of Leslie Potts, who lived in same complex as Arpana. Leslie had met Fair over MySpace.

Apparently, Fair and Cameron Johnson had spent a lot of time together at the Halloween party the night Arpana was murdered.

And it turned out that Fair's DNA was found at the crime scene, and specifically, on the duct tape found over Arpana's mouth. His DNA was also found on her neck, and mixed in with the blood found on the robe in the dumpster. He was also interviewed multiple times, and found to have inconsistencies in his story. Leslie didn't see him until the morning, so she couldn't confirm where he was. Also, he claimed to have been asleep between 1 and 2am, but during that time he had made 20 different calls to people. Leslie also said she found an empty condom wrapper on the table that hadn't been there before.

The tape that was found on Arpana's mouth had strands of her hair on it, as well as a lot of Fair's DNA - this meant it couldn't have been transfer DNA, and Fair did touch this piece of tape. It's also believed she was wearing the robe when she was attacked, which is why Detective Coats found it compelling that Fair's DNA was found mixed in with the blood on it. His DNA was also found on toilet paper in the bathroom. Cameron's DNA was on the can of motoroil - an amount of DNA that meant he had at some point physically touched it. A forensic DNA analyst stated that the evidence pointed to Fair committing the crime, and that Cameron might have been apart of the clean-up. Fair's DNA appeared to be the one tied to the crime though.

Fair was charged with first degree murder and rape, and transferred to King County to await trial. Detectives did not, however, have enough evidence to charge or convict Cameron with a crime.

Fair's defense attorneys claimed he was only looked at due to racism. They also questioned the legitimacy of the forensic technology used. This hindered the case going to court for several years, in order for detectives and prosecutors to prove the legitimacy of the technology. At the time it wasn't as commonly used [although now it is]. The DNA technology company refused to give over the source code that ran the program [he didn't want it stolen by other companies], so that held up the case going to trial for years. In the end, it was verified that the DNA technology was very reliable.

Seven years after Fair's arrest, the trial began, but it was a hung jury. They were deadlocked. Another trial was held. Because Cameron was possibly also implicated in the crime, Fair's defense attorneys used that as a cause for reasonable doubt that Cameron could have been the one responsible. This was enough reasonable doubt for Fair to get off. That, along with the fact that Fair's previous rape charge and criminal convictions could not be disclosed in the trial.

This case is still left without a conclusion, as a result.

#true crime #arpana jinaga #redmond #washington #emanuel fair #cameron johnson #homicide #unresolved #2008

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