Who killed 40 year old Frederico Cordova in Portland, OR? Hispanic/Latino male, age 40. In the quiet early minutes of April 3, 1995, a 40-year-old man named Frederico Cordova walked with his wife from a small market near Northeast 9th Avenue and Alberta Street in Portland, Oregon. A young man stepped from a nearby car and an argument flared. Startled, the wife hurried off to get help. Moments later, gunfire cracked the night; when she turned back, her husband—age 40, gender male—lay on the pavement, beyond saving.
An autopsy would confirm he died of a gunshot wound.
The 40-year-old male victim had served eleven years in the United States Marine Corps, a detail that deepened the sense of shock among those who learned what happened. Public records and memorial listings place him at Willamette National Cemetery, his grave a spare, official acknowledgment of a life cut short.
Witness accounts pointed to a single assailant: an unidentified African-American male, roughly 18 to 20 years old, with a short afro, who had stepped from a tan or yellow vehicle before the confrontation began. Despite the clarity of that description and subsequent pleas for information, investigators did not announce any arrests. The case remained open, the suspect or suspects unnamed, the trail dependent on the memory of a street, a color of a car, and a few tense words exchanged just before shots were fired.
