Bob Atrops: Cold Case Murder, DNA Fight, Trial, and Appeal

Bob Atrops is an Oregon man convicted in April 2025 of murdering his estranged wife, Deborah “Debe” Atrops, in 1988. A Washington County jury found him guilty of second-degree murder on April 17, 2025, more than 36 years after Deborah was strangled and left in the trunk of her car near a Beaverton construction site. On July 8, 2025, he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.¹²

The 1988 Killing

Deborah Atrops was 30 and working at an industrial energy firm called Wellons when she was killed. She and Robert had married in 1987 and adopted an infant daughter, Rhianna, in March 1988. The marriage deteriorated within months. Deborah told a coworker that Robert had been physically violent, and by June 1988 the couple had separated, with Deborah moving to a Salem apartment while Robert stayed in their Sherwood home. During the separation she began a relationship with a coworker, John Pearson, and told friends she feared Robert would kill her if he found out.³⁴

On the evening of November 29, 1988, Deborah left a hair appointment in Tigard and drove toward Robert’s Sherwood home to pick up Rhianna. She never arrived. Robert reported her missing to Tigard police around 9:30 p.m. Two days later, officers found her body in the trunk of her 1988 Honda Accord, abandoned on a dead-end street near a Beaverton construction site. The license plates had been removed, a window was down, and the keys sat on the front seat. The state medical examiner determined she had been assaulted and manually strangled. There were no signs of sexual assault.⁵⁶

Why the Case Went Cold

Investigators suspected Robert from the start. He said he had made urgent long-distance calls the night Deborah vanished, but detectives found no record of those calls on his home phone bill. FBI analysis of mud on the Honda’s front passenger tire found it “indistinguishable” from soil at Robert’s Sherwood lawn, and broad “clothing swipes” on the car’s hood suggested someone had tried to wipe fingerprints away.⁵¹

It wasn’t enough to charge him. Police also looked at John Pearson and another former boyfriend, Jeff Freeburg. Both were interviewed and cleared, and Pearson passed a polygraph in 1988. By the fall of 1990, the investigation had gone cold.⁵⁷

How the Case Was Reopened

In 2020, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office secured a $470,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance under a program called “Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA.” The money funded the county’s first dedicated cold case detective, Kevin Winfield, who was sworn in on February 9, 2021.⁸

Winfield reopened the Atrops file, tracked down new witnesses, and resubmitted original 1988 evidence, including Deborah’s clothing, for updated forensic testing. He also uncovered records showing that Robert had sold roofing materials at construction sites near where Deborah’s body was dumped, giving him familiarity with the location.¹

The DNA Evidence and the Fight Over It

The reinvestigation’s forensic centerpiece was Deborah’s blue coat. After a June 2021 meeting between the DA’s office and the Oregon State Police Crime Lab, DNA analyst Heather Feaman swabbed skin cells from the coat’s cuff, collar, and shoulder. She ran the analysis three times using probabilistic genotyping software called STRmix. The first two tests effectively excluded Robert Atrops. After she consulted her supervisor and adjusted the software’s parameters and inputs, the third test produced a “likelihood ratio” of 132, meaning the DNA mixture was 132 times more likely if Atrops was a contributor than if he was not. Analysts acknowledged this was one of the weakest results on the lab’s internal scale.⁴⁹

At trial, Feaman testified the lab could not determine how or when the DNA was deposited on the coat, saying, “DNA can’t tell you that.” She confirmed the result could not be called a “match.” Judge Oscar Garcia ruled the evidence admissible under the Daubert standard but barred attorneys from using that word. In closing, Senior Deputy District Attorney Allison Brown nonetheless told jurors, “We know that his DNA was found on her neck … on her collar, and other area of her coat,” and argued it represented “physical contact with her that’s directly connected to her murder.” Defense attorney Janis Puracal said the prosecution had “used unreliable DNA evidence” and misrepresented it. The judge reminded the jury that closing arguments are not evidence.⁹

The 2022 Interview That Changed His Story

In 2022, Detective Winfield interviewed Atrops and identified what prosecutors called “significant discrepancies” from his 1988 statements. The sharpest contradiction involved those long-distance calls. In 1988, Atrops said he had called Deborah’s parents, her boss, and a babysitter from his home phone, using his home long-distance service, yet none of the calls appeared on his phone records. Confronted with that gap in 2022, he changed his account and said he had used an MCI calling card from his employer, Allied Building Products.⁵

Prosecutors argued the calling-card story was invented. They contended he did not have such a card in 1988, and that it made little sense for a frantic husband to key in a long card number and access code. The theory they built: Atrops was not at home that night but was disposing of his wife’s body and car, placing calls from elsewhere to manufacture a paper trail.⁵

On March 2, 2023, a Washington County grand jury indicted him on one count of second-degree murder, and he was arrested at his home in Newberg, Oregon.¹⁰

The Trial and the Defense’s Alternative Suspect

The trial began April 1, 2025, before Judge Oscar Garcia and ran roughly three weeks. Prosecutors Allison Brown and Chris Lewman presented a circumstantial case built on the domestic violence in the marriage, the FBI soil match, the roofing-sales connection to the dump site, the missing phone records, the DNA on the coat, and the fact that on the night of the disappearance Atrops called law enforcement four times but never once called Deborah’s Salem apartment. A close friend of Deborah’s testified that she had warned her never to reveal her new relationship or Robert would “get revenge.”³⁵

Defense attorneys Janis Puracal and Stephanie Pollan argued the investigation suffered from “tunnel vision” and pointed to John Pearson as the more likely killer. In 1988, Pearson gave police “very specific and accurate details” about the contents of Deborah’s car and trunk, including the brand of fast-food trash inside, and correctly predicted that items would have needed to be moved for a body to fit. When the case was reopened, DNA from a vaginal swab taken during the 1988 autopsy confirmed Pearson and Deborah had been sexually intimate. Prosecutors said that reflected their consensual relationship, not assault, noting Deborah was found fully clothed.⁴¹¹

The defense also stressed that the first two DNA tests excluded Atrops, that the likelihood ratio of 132 was extremely weak, and that the missing 1988 phone records could be explained by the mechanical telephone switches of the era, which were prone to outages. They reminded jurors that Robert had voluntarily let police search his home and car without a warrant.³

John Pearson’s Suicide

Pearson never testified. After investigators contacted him in 2024, he repeatedly ignored voicemails from Detective Winfield, though phone records showed he listened to them minutes after they arrived. On October 17, 2024, when Bullhead City, Arizona, officers arrived at a Fort Mohave trailer park to serve a material witness warrant, Pearson refused to comply and shot himself. He was 72. His death forced Judge Garcia to dismiss the seated jury and delay the trial, which had been set to begin on October 22, 2024.⁴¹²

Prosecutors said Pearson’s suicide reflected his declining health and his fear of an unrelated pending case in Crook County, Oregon, involving charges of eluding a police officer and unlawful use of a weapon. The defense called it consciousness of guilt. Court records ultimately stated there was “no evidence linking his suicide to the murder case.”¹¹

Verdict, Sentence, and Appeal

After roughly six hours of deliberation, the jury found Robert Atrops guilty of second-degree murder on April 17, 2025.⁹ On July 8, 2025, Judge Garcia sentenced the 70-year-old to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. He will not be eligible for parole before 2050.²

Rhianna Stephens, the daughter Bob and Deborah adopted months before the murder, maintained her father’s innocence throughout. She was eight months old when her mother was killed, and Robert raised her as a single father. “We all crumbled,” she said after the verdict. “We are grieving someone that is still alive.”⁵

Defense attorney Stephanie Pollan said the defense team plans to appeal the conviction.¹³

1
Washington County DA. Robert Atrops Found Guilty in 1988 Cold Case Homicide of Deborah Atrops
2
KPTV. Washington Co. Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Wife’s 1988 Murder
3
The Oregonian. Witness Who Died on Eve of Murder Trial Raised as Alternate Killer in 1980s Cold Case
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OPB. Deborah Atrops Cold Case Trial DNA
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CBS News. An Oregon Woman Was a Baby When Her Mother Was Murdered
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Forest Grove News-Times. Estranged Husband Sentenced to Life for 1988 Murder of Deborah Atrops
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OPB. Oregon Man Convicted in 35-Year-Old Cold Case
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Hillsboro News-Times. Washington County’s New Cold Case Detective Gets to Work
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OPB. Washington County DNA Evidence Murder Robert Deborah Atrops Cold Case Evidence Crime
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Washington County Sheriff’s Office. 1988 Cold Case Murder Suspect Arrested
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KCBY. Key Witness Who Committed Suicide Before Trial Was Lover of Murdered Woman
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The Oregonian. Suicide of Key Witness Halts Washington County Cold Case Murder Trial
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KOIN. Husband Robert Atrops Sentencing Murder Deborah Lee 1988