EUGENE, OREGON, USA – JUNE 6, 1984 Kathryn Ann Martini-Lissy was a 26-year-old woman, a graduate of Yale University and an employee of a bank, who was found dead on June 6, 1984 in hotel room number 305 at the Valley River Inn in Eugene. According to the investigation, she was strangled, and signs of both physical and sexual assault were found on her body.
Kathryn Ann Martini-Lissy
The case soon began to be investigated as an organized contract killing. Police focused on her husband, Michael David Lissy, who became suspected of ordering the murder. Investigators found that shortly before her death he changed her life insurance policy so that he would be the sole beneficiary, and there were also witness statements from people around him who linked him to the search for a hitman.
Michael David Lissy
A key turning point in the case was witness testimony and police wiretaps, which led to the identification of the person who was supposed to carry out the act. According to the investigation, the hired man was sent from Portland to Eugene to carry out the murder exactly according to instructions.
Michael David Lissy was eventually arrested, brought to trial, and convicted of aggravated murder. The court concluded that it was a planned act motivated by financial gain from the insurance policy.
The entire case became one of the most publicized criminal cases of the 1980s in Oregon, mainly because it involved a murder-for-hire within a marriage and the extensive investigation that uncovered it.
READ MORE:
https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/1987/304-or-455.html
https://crimelibrary.org/notorious_murders/family/kathryn_ann_martini_lissy/
