Portland Man Faces Charges For 2 Murders That Happened Decades Apart
By Zuri Anderson
March 15, 2021
A Portland, Oregon man is facing charges in two murders that happened decades apart, according to KOMO.
On Thursday (March 11), 53-year-old Christopher Lovrien pleaded not guilty to several charges, including two counts of second-degree murder, in a Multnomah County court. Police arrested him last May after a private genealogy firm matched his DNA to that found in the home and car of Mark Dribin, an airline cargo worker.
Dribin was last heard from on July 1, 1999 after he called his employer for the night off due to a "personal emergency," according to reporters. Authorities said they responded to his home after Dribin was reported missing, but they never found his body -- only evidence suggesting a struggle. They also found his car in Southeast Portland, which had Lovrien's unmatched DNA, officials added. As a result, police presumed Dribin dead at the time.
Man charged in 1999 murder now charged in second killingWATCH (in progress) | Authorities hold a press conference after a man arrested in connection with a decades-old Portland murder case has now been charged with a second murder. katu.com/news/local/man-charged-in-1999-murder-now-charged-in-second-killing
Posted by KATU News on Thursday, March 11, 2021
Back in 2019, cold case detectives, inspired by the Golden State Killer case, submitted DNA samples found in Dribin's home and car to Bode Technology for analysis, The Daily Beast wrote. They learned the DNA was tied to one of the Lovrien brothers, and one of them lived in the area in 1999.
“They sort of point us in the direction of, ‘Hey you may want to look at this person or this family,’” Det. Brendan McGuire of the Portland Police Bureau said Thursday. “We still then have to target those leads and build our own evidentiary case on it.”
Police believed that Dribin's remains may be on Lovrien's property. Officers executed a search warrant at Lovrien's property several weeks after the suspect was arrested, KOMO reported. Instead of finding Dribin's body, police said they found the dismembered corpse of a different man in Lovrien's shed. The remains were identified as Kenneth Griffin, a homeless man who went missing in February 2020.
"Authorities say they do not believe that Lovrien knew either of his victims or that they knew each other. They also said in a news conference after the arraignment hearing that they do not exclude the possibility that Lovrien had other victims," according to the Daily Beast.
Photo: Multnomah County Sheriff's Office