Do you know who murdered Richard Tauriainen in 1984? On a Thursday afternoon, June 14, 1984, the waters of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, gave up a grim secret. Near the intersection of what was then NW Davis and Front Avenue, two people at the waterfront noticed a body floating in the river around 3:30 p.m. They quickly contacted a nearby Portland Fire Station, and soon both police and fire personnel were at the scene.
The body was that of Richard Tauriainen, a 53-year-old Caucasian / White male.
An autopsy would later reveal that Tauriainen's death was not an accident; he had died as a result of traumatic injuries. This discovery turned the case into a homicide investigation. Tauriainen was a veteran of the Korean War, an experience that had a profound and lasting impact on him. In the years that followed his service, he had fallen into a transient lifestyle and had lost contact with his family. At the time of his death, he was described as being balding with a full mustache and a graying beard.
Despite the clear evidence of foul play, the investigation into Richard Tauriainen's murder has never identified a suspect or a clear motive. The circumstances leading to him being in the river and the events that caused his fatal injuries remain unknown. His case is now considered a cold case, one of the many unsolved homicides in Portland. The Portland Police Cold Case Unit continues to seek information from the public that might shed new light on this decades-old mystery. Crime Stoppers of Oregon has offered a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest in connection with his death.
