In the early morning hours of August 30, 2021, the life of 43-year-old Rocky Marciano Harkins was cut short in his Beaverton, Oregon apartment. Beaverton police officers responded to the Beaverton Creek Apartments at 2:53 a.m. after receiving a report concerning a man with a firearm. Upon their arrival, they encountered James Andrew Dewhurst, Harkins' 38-year-old roommate.
The situation unfolded after Dewhurst himself contacted a suicide hotline, expressing that he was armed, suicidal, and intended to confront law enforcement.
During a lengthy phone conversation with a Beaverton police officer, Dewhurst admitted to killing his roommate. He was eventually persuaded to exit the apartment and was taken into custody without any further incident. Inside the apartment they shared, officers discovered Rocky Harkins deceased from a single, close-range gunshot wound. Investigators also found a significant cache of weapons belonging to Dewhurst, including two Glock handguns and an AR-15 rifle, laid out on his bed with a tactical vest and over 150 rounds of ammunition. It appeared he had assembled the weaponry in the hours between the shooting and his call to the suicide hotline.
James Dewhurst was arrested and booked into the Washington County Jail on charges of second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon. During his trial, Dewhurst claimed he had acted in self-defense, a claim the jury ultimately rejected after approximately three hours of deliberation. On November 3, 2023, a Washington County jury found James Andrew Dewhurst guilty on both counts. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 25 years.
