In the final days of 1992, the life of a 23-year-old Black / African American woman named Chantee Alyce Woodman was tragically cut short. On December 30th, she accepted a ride from two men in downtown Portland: Cesar Barone and his acquaintance, Leonard Benjamin Darcell II. This fateful decision led to a horrifying ordeal. Woodman was held hostage, beaten, and sexually assaulted by Barone.
The violence culminated along the Sunset Highway near Vernonia, Oregon, where her body was later discovered.
The initial attack was not the end of her suffering. After being left for dead, Woodman showed signs of life. Noticing that she was still moving, Barone returned to inflict further brutality, striking her with the butt of his pistol before shooting her in the head and tossing her body over a guardrail. Her body was found by a highway worker later that day. The investigation into her murder revealed she had been killed execution-style with a shot under her chin.
The investigation did not take long to identify the perpetrators. Cesar Barone, a serial killer responsible for the deaths of at least three other women, was arrested in February 1993. Evidence from the scene of another of his crimes, including a gun left at the apartment of victim Betty Williams, linked him to Woodman's murder. His accomplice, Leonard Darcell, fled to Seattle but was soon apprehended. Darcell was later convicted of felony kidnapping and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Cesar Barone faced justice for his string of brutal crimes. In separate trials, he was convicted for the murders of Chantee Woodman and two other women, receiving a death sentence for each. He was also handed a lengthy prison sentence for the death of a fourth woman who suffered a fatal heart attack during his assault. Barone died of natural causes on death row on December 24, 2009, before his execution could be carried out.
