ERIN RENOLDS - 16 yo (2/1990) - / Convicted: Conrad Engweiler - Cedar Mill, OR

Family of 1990 murder victim, killed by Sunset High School classmate, speaks out to keep killer in prison


By  Emily E. Smith |
on March 19, 2012 at 8:55 PM, updated May 13, 2014 at 7:37 PM

Motoya Nakamura/The Oregonian

Pam and Earl Reynolds, stepmother and father of murder victim Erin Reynolds, want to keep Conrad Engweiler in prison for as long as possible. Engweiler's latest appeal to the state Supreme Court won him a hearing before the parole board on Tuesday.

On a cold February day in 1990, Earl Reynolds watched from inside his Cedar Mill home as two homicide detectives in plain clothes approached the house.

"You could tell when they got out of the car, they didn't want to knock on the door," Reynolds said. "And we didn't want to open it."
His daughter, 16-year-old Erin T. Reynolds, was dead. Her body was found behind a house on Northwest Skyline Boulevard, they said.
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Reynolds family photoErin Reynolds, age 15.

The details of Erin's death play out in Reynolds' mind constantly.

At 15 years old, Conrad Robert Engweiler sexually assaulted Erin and strangled her to death with a rope. He was convicted of aggravated murder, rape and sodomy in 1991. His young age made him ineligible for the death penalty; he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Unclear sentencing laws and a persistent prisoner have led to frequent court activity. All the while, Reynolds and his wife, Pam, who is Erin's stepmother, have been fighting to keep Engweiler in prison. Grief, even 22 years later, has been "delayed, interrupted," the Reynolds say.

Engweiler, 37, will appear before the Oregon Board of Parole Tuesday for his first chance at freedom granted by a 2011 Oregon Supreme Court ruling, which said he should have had this hearing years ago. In 1999, the parole board said he needed to serve 40 years before it would consider his release.

The 2011 ruling addresses a void from 1989 to 1995, when sentencing laws for juveniles convicted of aggravated murder prohibited mandatory minimum prison terms and parole board guidelines on the issue did not exist.


DOCConrad Robert Engweiler

The ruling applies to five men, known as the "Oregon Five," convicted of aggravated murder as juveniles during that time. In addition to Engweiler, Shane Sopher, Sterling Cunio and brothers Laycelle and Lydell White will appear before the parole board to possibly receive new prison terms and projected release dates.

To the Reynolds, every day that Engweiler has spent in prison is a day he's tried to get out. And in all that time, across all the appeals, the message the Reynolds have perceived is that Engweiler has not accepted responsibility, felt regret or expressed remorse for his actions and their consequences.

Instead, the Reynolds said, Engweiler has cast himself a victim of the justice system. For 22 years, Pam Reynolds said, Engweiler has made this case about him.

"It's still about her to us," she said.
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Erin's body was found in a yard debris pile outside Engweiler's home on Feb. 22, 1990. A Washington County sheriff's deputy discovered Erin's body after Engweiler's father called to report that his son was missing and a strange car was parked outside. The car, a 1980 Chevrolet Monza, was Erin's. Police believe she was killed late afternoon the day before.

By the time she died, Erin had known Engweiler for four or five months. She met Engweiler at Sunset High School at the start of the school year. Both were transfer students, Erin from Grant High School, Engweiler from Lincoln.

Engweiler appealed to Erin's nurturing nature, the Reynolds said. They bonded over their status as new students and the fact that they shared the same birthday –April 1, one year apart.


Reynolds family photo
Erin Reynolds, age 7, and her younger brother, Robert Reynolds. Erin was close with her younger brother and took on a motherly role after her parents' divorce. She had four older stepsiblings.

Her parents remember Erin as a good student who loved to write poetry. She was levelheaded, "an old soul," always concerned for her friends and motherly toward her younger brother, Robert.

When she was diagnosed with malignant melanoma at 14, she was brave, Pam Reynolds said. Ten days before her death, Erin had her last surgery and was given a clean bill of health.

Erin talked about wanting to be a nurse, a marine biologist, a teacher, a clown and sometimes an architect, like her dad.

Erin had stopped seeing Engweiler before her death, Pam Reynolds said. Engweiler had been getting into trouble at school, and he was going through substance abuse counseling.

When Erin didn't make curfew on Feb. 21, the Reynolds knew instantly something was wrong. They reported her missing within an hour. Engweiler was arrested the next day.

Engweiler's defense attorney told Multnomah County jurors his client was so high on LSD that he didn't know what was happening when he killed Erin.
At the teen's sentencing hearing in 1991, prosecutors conceded that state law did not provide "clear guidelines" for sentencing juveniles convicted of aggravated murder.

Engweiler was sentenced to life in prison, with a 30-year minimum, which Oregon law didn't allow. In 1994, his sentence was amended to remove the minimum term, leaving the state parole board to determine the actual length of his sentence.

Five years later, the parole board gave Engweiler a minimum term of 40 years.

In its 2011 ruling, the state Supreme Court said the parole board overstepped its authority, and the board should set Engweiler's release date now, not after he's served 40 years.
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Engweiler's appeals to obtain a "prison-term hearing" have landed before the state Supreme Court numerous times.

In the lulls between court filings and decisions, Earl Reynolds said he tries to push the murder from his memory. But it surfaces often.

"You think of it over and over and over," he said. "I imagine the last few minutes of my daughter's life in an endless loop. And it's a little different every time, but she always dies at the end."

The Reynolds' commitment to speaking on behalf of Erin at every possible hearing has remained unwavering through the years. They explain simply that they are fulfilling their promise to Erin.

"If you have to value your child's life in someone else's years, you want as many of those years as possible," Earl Reynolds said.

But their determination to have a say in Engweiler's fate keeps the loss of their daughter fresh. The pain hasn't lessened over time, Earl Reynolds said.

"It's the same. It's worse at times," he said. "It's like it happened yesterday. It's that raw."

The Reynolds sense that with this latest ruling from Oregon's highest court, Engweiler's time in prison is running out. And for them, it's not enough.

Fighting for more time is how they fight for Erin. How they fight to heal.

"The only thing to heal the wound to a family's psyche like that is time," Earl Reynolds said.


http://www.oregonlive.com/north-of-26/index.ssf/2012/03/family_of_1990_murder_victim_k.html