A Washington County man who law enforcement believes killed his wife and her sister last week was scheduled to appear in court in a domestic-violence case two days later, court documents show.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to a domestic-disturbance call just after 8 p.m. on Nov. 17 in unincorporated Washington County. Outside a home in the 23000 block of Southwest Scholls Ferry Road, they found two women — Gabriela Jimenez and Lenin Hernandez-Rosa — dead from gunshot wounds.
Inside the house, the suspect, Carlos Jimenez-Vargas, 46, had shot himself. He later died at a local hospital.
Jimenez-Vargas had been arrested six weeks earlier, on Oct. 7, and charged with fourth-degree assault, strangulation, second-degree invasion of personal privacy, luring a minor, unlawful use of a weapon and menacing.
Details of the accusations were sealed in a probable-cause affidavit, but other court documents showed that Jimenez-Vargas was released a week after the arrest on the condition that he reside “with a responsible person” and not possess alcohol, drugs or deadly weapons.
The court also ordered him not to have contact with Gabriela Jimenez, his wife, or his daughter Priscila, who he was accused of strangling in front of her child.
Jimenez-Vargas was on GPS monitoring and scheduled to appear in court for a trial.
State Sen. Janeen Sollman (D-Hillsboro), a board member of the Washington County Family Justice Center, said the double homicide is an example of the need for expansion of the court’s pretrial-release assessments to include those accused of domestic violence crimes, particularly strangulation. These tragedies can be prevented, Sollman said.
“Strangulation is an intimate, personal, violent crime,” Sollman said in a statement. “As someone who grew up in a home where domestic violence was present, I know that domestic violence is about negative, and often violent, control.”
GoFundMe pages have been set up for Gabriela Jimenez and Lenin Hernandez-Rosa’s memorials and to support their families.
— Savannah Eadens; seadens@oregonian.com; 503-221-6651; @savannaheadens
