A body found in the trunk of a car during a traffic stop likely belongs to an 89-year-old woman who has been missing for a week and the driver of the car has been arrested on a murder charge, the Portland Police Bureau said Wednesday.
The Oregon Medical Examiner’s Office is conducting a confirmation of the body’s identity and has determined the person died of homicidal violence, Portland police Sgt. Christopher Burley said.
The car’s driver, 58-year-old Timothy J. Mackley, was arrested Tuesday and is being held without bail pending a first court appearance Wednesday. Court documents do not list an attorney for Mackley and it wasn’t clear if he had one.
Marcine Herinck was reported missing on Sept. 19 from her home in northeast Portland, where she lived independently despite some memory issues, police have said.
Search and rescue crews spent days looking for her — making repeated pleas to the public for tips — until police on Monday developed new information that suggested foul play and pointed them in Mackley’s direction, Burley said in a statement.
Based on that information, police stopped Mackley’s car on and found a body in the trunk, he said.
No additional details were released and Burley did not return a call seeking further comment.
Court records show Mackley has previous felony convictions for assault and sodomy in Washington state.
He told court officers in Oregon that he’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and lives on disability payments of less than $1,000 a month, online records show.
He volunteered driving people to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in his spare time, he told the court.
The most recent address listed for Mackley is a little more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where police say Herinck was last seen walking near a golf course around 7:30 a.m. the day she disappeared.
Herinck’s family has requested privacy and said simply, in a statement, that Herinck “is no longer with us.”
A breast cancer patient support organization called Breast Friends of Oregon said on its Facebook page that Herinck came each year to the survivors’ luncheon and stood proudly when recognized as the organization’s longest cancer survivor.
The group will have a moment of silence for Herinck at its next luncheon, the post said.
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